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Indy-Guy
Indy-Guy UberDork
5/10/19 7:07 p.m.

The Einhorn has a new owner. Great guy who will certainly give it some love.

And I helped shuttle it to its new home:

 

Hopefully he'll chime in from time to time with an update.......

Stampie
Stampie PowerDork
5/10/19 8:09 p.m.

In reply to Indy-Guy :

Did Mrs Indy-Guy hold onto your plane tickets until you got rid of Einhorn?  

blue91lx
blue91lx New Reader
5/10/19 10:17 p.m.

Hai guys, I promise to take good care of her.  A few hours into ownership.....

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

AngryCorvair
AngryCorvair MegaDork
5/11/19 7:22 a.m.

In reply to blue91lx :

Which side did you do?  ;-)

MTechnically
MTechnically Reader
5/11/19 7:29 a.m.

In reply to blue91lx :

What are your plans for the car? I love my E34 touring, so let me know if there's anything I can help with.

Pretty impressive results with the polish. Keep up the good work.

blue91lx
blue91lx New Reader
5/11/19 12:06 p.m.
MTechnically said:

In reply to blue91lx :

What are your plans for the car? I love my E34 touring, so let me know if there's anything I can help with.

Pretty impressive results with the polish. Keep up the good work.

I'm going to clean up the car for starters.  I investigated the terrible shift linkage today and it's a hacked flat piece of aluminum with an exhaust u bolt drilled through the "shaft" holding the cup.  Needless to say, that needs to be replaced.  However, the shift arm (25111222011) is NLA and insanely expensive to find used as it's unique to the manual 530i E34 sedan which I think is 94-95 specific. 

The car is still leaking coolant unfortunately, and the vacuum system was compromised at some point.  The tie rod assembly (left right and center) need to be replaced, and the SLS needs to be addressed.  The interior is also pretty "gone" unfortunately.  I'm hoping I can find a 530i in a junkyard around me and source most of what it needs.

Brian took awesome care of the car, but whoever owned the car before him (or his mechanic) was unfortunately a caveman, and that's putting it nicely.

Honestly, a solid weekend of wrenching, a rear bumper and a PDR guy and this thing would be pretty nice.

 

Edit:  She's all shiny meow

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

AWSX1686
AWSX1686 SuperDork
5/13/19 10:34 a.m.

Shiny!

Azryael
Azryael New Reader
5/13/19 10:53 a.m.

The E34 will always have a special place in my heart as my favorite BMW chassis, tied with the E30.

Growing up overseas, these were the cheap, ideal cars for us in high school. You could pick up a nice 518i for 700 Euro, and drive it for the entirety of your high school career and never need to touch it.

The later turbo diesels with the M51D25 were also pretty fun if you knew how to fool BMW electronics and could get your hands on a larger turbo.

I still miss the '92 525i with the M50.

Glad to see this thing continuing on its path to revitalization!

blue91lx
blue91lx New Reader
5/13/19 8:00 p.m.
AWSX1686 said:

Shiny!

She shined up just fine!  Likely the first time she'd been washed in..... a minute. 

blue91lx
blue91lx New Reader
5/13/19 8:05 p.m.
Azryael said:

The E34 will always have a special place in my heart as my favorite BMW chassis, tied with the E30.

Growing up overseas, these were the cheap, ideal cars for us in high school. You could pick up a nice 518i for 700 Euro, and drive it for the entirety of your high school career and never need to touch it.

The later turbo diesels with the M51D25 were also pretty fun if you knew how to fool BMW electronics and could get your hands on a larger turbo.

I still miss the '92 525i with the M50.

Glad to see this thing continuing on its path to revitalization!

The E34 really is a great car. It's like a big E30!  Talk about a great car to use for a high school cruiser, albeit a bit gutless I'd imagine (518, that is). I've always wanted a diesel variant in an E34T- seems like a car that would run for 500K. 

Absolutely, I'm going to do my best with what I've got. I really don't have any budget (the bad kind of no budget, not the good) for this thing so progress will hopefully exist when I find parts for cheap.  I already scored the full, rare shift linkage setup with a short shifter for a hundred bucks.  I'm hoping that trend continues. If anyone knows of a tan E34 sedan interior that's decent near Indiana that's decent I could use quite a few pieces, namely shifter trim pieces for starters. 

Azryael
Azryael New Reader
5/13/19 8:21 p.m.

Gutless is an understatement! But once you got it moving and screaming down the autobahn you could respectably pass the occasional Opel, Peugeot, or Citroen.

If I had to build my own diesel E34 wagon, I'd likely use the Mercedes-Benz OM606. Fantastic motor, and ridiculously capable if you've got the stones to play around with it!

I'm interested to see where you take this, and am excited to follow along.

blue91lx
blue91lx New Reader
5/16/19 7:06 p.m.

She's looking good after her detail!  

 

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

 

 

 

Finished rebuilding the shifter and Einhorn feels like a new car because of it! The old piece was so hacked I don't even know where to begin.  The shift arm wasn't even bolted to the trans, the rear carrier assembly was installed 90* off to compensate for the hackery, the shifter and cup were destroyed, etc etc.  

Some fresh bushings, a nice carrier, and a short shifter now allow her to go through gears swiftly with ease.  Oh, and now that the linkage is correct the shifter trim works like it should! 

I also threw on a weighted knob I had on the shelf. 

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

cdowd
cdowd Dork
5/16/19 7:28 p.m.

Very nicely done!

MTechnically
MTechnically Reader
5/16/19 7:41 p.m.

I'm seriously impressed with how well the car cleaned up.

Have you done any more investigation on the mechanical issues? Both the coolant leak and SLS could be minor issues or big dollar repairs depending on what you find. Hopefully it's nothing major! I'd like to see you really get a chance to enjoy the car.

blue91lx
blue91lx New Reader
5/16/19 7:53 p.m.

In reply to cdowd :

Thanks!!

blue91lx
blue91lx New Reader
5/16/19 8:02 p.m.
MTechnically said:

I'm seriously impressed with how well the car cleaned up.

Have you done any more investigation on the mechanical issues? Both the coolant leak and SLS could be minor issues or big dollar repairs depending on what you find. Hopefully it's nothing major! I'd like to see you really get a chance to enjoy the car.

It really came up well.  The paint has a pretty nice metallic flake so pulling off the oxidation and sealing it up really brought it to life in the sun.  A PDR guy, fixing the chip in the hood, and a rear bumper and this thing will be a really nice car.  I still haven't found any rust, either. 

The SLS is low on fluid as far as what Indy-Guy said.  It's not losing fluid, but when that PS line popped on him, he didn't have enough to fill it back up all of the way.  If the system fails down the road I'm just going to delete like I did on my last 530iT.  

The coolant leak hasn't repeated itself!  I found out that when the cooling system was done, Indy-Guy didn't know about the woes of BMW cooling system bleeding and thus the system isn't bled.  I'm pretty sure it just puked a little out because it has an air pocket.  I thoroughly went through the entire system and there is no sign of a leak anywhere- the primary/secondary WP, hoses, etc were all done nicely! 

I really hope I can enjoy this thing, too.  I DD'd my last touring and it was a great car to drive but the body was junk.  This car is actually a foundation nice enough to invest into. 

Oh and I put on the very nice wheel that Indy-Guy was cool enough to include with the car! 

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

Indy-Guy
Indy-Guy UberDork
5/16/19 8:32 p.m.

In reply to blue91lx :

I've been holding my breath ever since your  post about the coolant leak a few days ago.... Now relieved it just needed a thorough bleeding. It may be hard to believe, but I promise you, I never saw that shifter butchery in there.

WOW! You really got it shining. Nicely done....

 

From here, it looks like you're a few steering components and tires on the M-parallels away from AWESOME.

 

Oh, Did your girlfriend find out about the car? Are you single now?

akylekoz
akylekoz Dork
5/17/19 5:09 a.m.

In reply to Indy-Guy :

Oh, Did your girlfriend find out about the car? Are you single now?

This is not a dating site, but I think I like this guy too.

AngryCorvair
AngryCorvair MegaDork
5/17/19 9:04 a.m.

In reply to akylekoz :

nostrils, meet morning coffee.

blue91lx
blue91lx New Reader
5/17/19 10:07 a.m.
Indy-Guy said:

In reply to blue91lx :

I've been holding my breath ever since your  post about the coolant leak a few days ago.... Now relieved it just needed a thorough bleeding. It may be hard to believe, but I promise you, I never saw that shifter butchery in there.

WOW! You really got it shining. Nicely done....

 

From here, it looks like you're a few steering components and tires on the M-parallels away from AWESOME.

 

Oh, Did your girlfriend find out about the car? Are you single now?

akylekoz said:

In reply to Indy-Guy :

Oh, Did your girlfriend find out about the car? Are you single now?

This is not a dating site, but I think I like this guy too.

 

That shifter was only a pothole away from not shifting at all!  Thankfully she's all squared away now. I still need to drive it more to see if there is a drip after a long drive, but I think we're good. Thanks re: paint correction!  There is still so much that could be done but with time being a limiting factor I opted to seal it off where it's at, for now.  The paint is a soft single stage (car was repainted) so it clogs up pads every few passes which makes it much more time consuming than if you were polishing a factory coat of paint with a hard clear coat. 

The tires I've been trying to find a new take off set to save some $$ but almost everything available is a 235/45, and I need a 235/40. Seems nit picky but without the exact size I think the wheels look out of place to me.  I REALLY would like to do a suspension overhaul (ball joints, center and outer tie rods, Bilsteins, endlinks and bushings, H&Rs, SLS delete, rear subframe and trailing arm bushings, etc), but that's when things get out of hand, and I don't want that to happen.  Scope creep is real. 

 

And........she still hasn't seen the car.  

OjaiM5
OjaiM5 New Reader
5/17/19 10:13 a.m.

Nice work!

Should have never looked at this thread. Now I want a e34 wagon.  I had a 525i that I loved, just a little too slow. Thinking e34 wagon with a s52 

AngryCorvair
AngryCorvair MegaDork
5/17/19 10:16 a.m.

also, if girlfriend has problem with cars, get rid of girlfriend.  it won't get better after she's promoted to fiance or, god forbid, wife.

blue91lx
blue91lx New Reader
5/17/19 10:23 a.m.

In reply to OjaiM5 :

Thanks!! Do yourself a solid and read this thread to intensify your desire: https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=428139

blue91lx
blue91lx New Reader
5/17/19 10:29 a.m.

In reply to AngryCorvair :

Fortunately, it's not like that.  I overindulge quite a bit and she calls me on my BS.  I have a more than full time job, a part time job (that's really more like full time), some really time consuming hobbies, and then I do cars after that.  I part out E30s, and just a few months ago had 9 (yes, nine) E30s, an E36, a Forester XT that's my daily, etc etc all that I was either building, needed building, or parting out.  So she's more than supportive, but calls me out when I go too far (and this E34 was just that).  I'm now down to "just" 3 E30s, this E34 and my Forester XT.  Once the white iX I have up for sale is gone this car will be much more justifiable! My E30M3 isn't even in Indiana yet and I'm supposed to be making space for that car to come out here, but am not doing a very good job at it. 

Dead_Sled
Dead_Sled Reader
5/17/19 12:04 p.m.

In reply to blue91lx :

Stick around, you'll fit in well here yes

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