1985 Euro Resto Blog

[1988shark]

Here are pics of the cleaned up parts: Damages $600 total.
In addition to the parts listed I also have the carpet, and 2 front seats. I'll see how the repairs go on the fronts before paying to get them covered. The manual recaro front seats feel very good and still considering them. The estimate is $350 each to upholster.

[1988shark]

UPDATE Sept 18th:
Finally the wait is over! My wheels are here from Germany
Now, all I need is my rear headrests. I wonder what's the holdup?





As you can see there is a bit of corossion on some of the wheels but this is minor, just on the surface. Most important they are straight and true. They should clean up pretty nicely. Trying to decide where I should go with it, factory refinish, polished lip and gold powdercoat, powderdcoat in black chrome along with bumpers and mirrors then blackout window and door trimmings? Decisions.....decisions....decisions. What do you guys think?

[billy635]

Powdercoat and polished rims. Love that look. IMO.

[1988shark]

UPDATE SEPT 20TH:
Since my time is very short right now, each moment counts as long as I get something done. I dropped by the garage today with a half hr. to spare. My new door handles came in and took the time to replace them. Since my interior panels are already stripped out the car this was a breeze. Only 2 screws per handle, I still had to salvage the rubber grommets from the old levers. The new ones had padding but no grommets. Hmm.

I had a look over the wiring harness and it won't be as simple as I thought. The 85 has a harness that plugs into the fuse box (not on the 88 ) I have to sort these wires out and splice the harness. Argghhh! Next I still have to sort out the wires and identify their pinout on the diagnostic harness. I really need to do some homework on this before cutting anything. I will just take too much time and work to pull the whole entire harness out of the 88 to transplant the 85.

[winfred]

the 8 13mms are what you need to take out to swap the balencer, the big nut stays on

[1988shark]

the 8 13mms are what you need to take out to swap the balencer, the big nut stays on

Thanks Winfred. I have the 5er service manual from Bently, but some details are missing. Same for the electrical wiring on the diagnostic port. There is no comparision between the old and revised system. Maybe, I can find something over at MYE28.com

[1988shark]

UPDATE: Sept 25th, 2012
Well, Ive only had about 2 hrs of sleep since getting in from work at 5am this morning. But this is the only week I have to get things done on the car before my next session in school. I am really pleased with what I accomplished today.
The dash has been removed
Front seats are out
Rear parcel shelf is out
Carpet has been removed: BTW anyone interested in replacing their faded blued carpet? Mine is up for grabs. Just needs a good cleaning, it has not burns or holes besides the factory ones.
Forgot my camera at home but will update tomorrow.
Taking the dash apart for the first time is a PITA but next round Ill be a pro. I have never seen so many spliced wires in my life...All original my ASS! Anyway, it was all done in an amateur manner. I guess there was an alarm system or remote start. I just started cutting everything that did not look factory out of there and worry about it later. I will go thru the electrical manual to verify each connector and double check the nodes. If I need to replace anything it will be done right and documented should I feel the urge to sell one day.
Tomorrow is cleaning day! you would be surprised to see how much dust debris can accumulate under the dash and vents over 27yrs. I wish this car was at my house, I will have to drive with a bucket of water and go to town with good ol' Simple Green and lots of towels.

[1988shark]

UPDATE Sept 26, 2012
Finally made a mess of things, luckily for me I have a photographic memory. I just could not help myself cleaning. After 27 yrs the cloth tape is dry rotted and began flaking everywhere. I decided to give the old bird a wipe down.

I removed all the zip ties from the wire harness to get the front support frame cleaned up. I also cleaned down inside of the vent shaft and remove as much of the flaky tape on the harness.

I cleaned up the rear half of the vehicle, remove the padding to check for possible rust spots....NADA! Now that the car is no longer on the West Coast this would be the perfect opportunity to do some rust preventive maintenance on the interior.




I need to place an order with ECS tuning for some cloth tape to tidy up this mess.
Hit the doors, floor pan and seams with some rust proof spray.
Get some, sound dampening material and maybe pre run some wires for the stereo system and pull the old wiring out.
I still need to get the front half of the vehicle cleaned up and remove the padding before I can start rust proofing. The thing with these cars once you start there is no end.
I'll have to run some wires for the 3rd brake light. My 85 never had them. I am upgrading the parcel shelf to the later model with sun shade premium speaker and rear blind. I redyed the shelf in black and its looking pretty nice. I think I will also dye the rear blind from grey to black.
Still waiting for my rear headrests from Germany, I'm starting to get impatient. My wheels were bought the same week, its been a month now. C'mon what's the delay?!

[1988shark]

Mercy me. Why is it I feel like some folks don't take pride in their work?
I haven't heard anything from the carpet cleaning guys in a week. After all it does not take a week to clean carpets unless you are doing an entire warehouse. Anyway, I decided to drop by and see what kind of progress was being made. Lo, and behold! it looks the same as I brought it in. The guy claimed he cleaned it the same day I brought it in, gave it a vacuum and shampoo. MY ARSE! I rubbed the carpet and debris was just jumping out of the fibers! "Hear what man, steam clean the carpet use some stain remover, whatever. I don't expect a 27 y.o carpet to look perfect but it will look much better. I have a week, my car is in pieces, call me when you are done." I guess that's why I never got a call, it was never touched! and why would it be sitting in the middle of the work area and not folded and put the side for pickup? ARRRGH!

On a brighter note I was waiting on a call from the guys refinishing my Remotec wheels, its been a week. They were supposed to work on the hub caps first for my approval then go ahead with whatever the decision would be to refinish them. My goal was to have it look factory with gold paint instead of black. However, they went ahead and machined the wheels first and were still working on the hub caps. Aye, ya, yai the headaches of project management! Overall the wheels did look great but I wanted the dish polished not machined. I just looked at one wheel I hope they did not do all 4 this way. I think they got it together now, but was taking the easy way out to get it done.

[1988shark]

I had a little time today do get a few things done. Sorting out the harness for the collision light on the rear shelf. I know two wires in the harness are going to the brake lights in the rear and there are two going to the front. Not sure if its the fuse box or brake light switch. I need to get ground and power to the harness or rig something to use my cable sniffer and sort it out. Too bad all my tools are work.

I started cleaning up the calipers and put the brass wheel to the carrier brackets. They did not turn out too bad. I degreased the calipers and masked the rubber pieces. I would have disassemble them but I did not have the right size torx for the caliper brackets. They came out pretty good. Tomorrow I will throw them in the over for about 20 mins at 400 degrees. Just letting them cure overnight to expel any potential fumes.

While I was at it I got the CP wheel and pulley. It was pretty easy. Thanks Winfred.

[1988shark]

I got quite a bit done today, I completed stripping and cleaning the interior. I think I may have to replace my heat shield. Radiant heat was cooking the insulating padding and burned the paint. This is a potential rust spot. I picked up two cans of Rustoleum rust proof and did the floor pans. Before and after pics



A little door protection is always good too


Time to get down inside the rear wheel well and hit the seams and rocker. Remember the old saying about an ounce of prevention....well I am going over the potential areas. Since the car has ZERO rust I'd like to keep it that way for as long as possible. I will get to the trunk area in the near future. For now I'm satisfied.

I also removed the Motronic 1.0 system it was a lot easier than the harness from the 88.

I removed he radiator, this thing is like new. Too bad I cant reuse it. I always wondered why I needed to replace the radiator for a manual tranny. Why in the world BMW did not use a separate cooler for the tranny? I was surprised to see what looked like tranny fluid coming from the connections on the radiator.

At sometime this upper radiator hose was replaced. I did not think BMW would make a hose like this with metal support in it. I looked at the label and it says made in USA. I thought they stop doing this shit in the '70s


Time to buy a complete set of hoses and get rid of this relic and all the other tired hoses in this car. Im thinking of a silicon set from IE
http://www.iemotorsport.com/mm5/graphic ... oseset.jpg
I think I have convinced myself rather than worry about the hassles of getting locks recoded I'll just do away with them and shave of the handles and get rid of the side moldings. That will leave me with a single key for the ignition and trunk instead of three.
Next on my agenda is to remove the pedals from the 88 and install 1.3 system then sort out the differences between the harnesses.[/b]

[kronus]

You can actually reuse the radiator, the trans and engine cooling circuits are not internally connected.

[1988shark]

You can actually reuse the radiator, the trans and engine cooling circuits are not internally connected.

Enlighten me....I am converting to manual. I have the radiator from the 88 which is a 5 spd.
I tried getting the intake manifold off today FAIL! Is there some special tool to remove these nuts? I am thinking pull off the cylinder head and take the whole sheit out, then I said to myself how the hell do I get that connector off for the rotor, then there's the issue with the timing chain. I did not have my book with me and could not see that well since I have no light in the garage and like an idiot I forgot my flashlight.
Im thinking to salvage some parts from this head upgraded the springs, rockers and retainers then get a 292 regrind from IE with some ARP studs. I got a fresh M30 head in the trunk with new valves and seals.
After the 5th I am back on my school schedule and my time will be limited to a couple hrs on the weekends, maybe.
I need to get this intake off so it can be powdercoated and the other misc parts sanblasted and refinished.
Next, is it possible to remove the Auto tranny without taking out the engine. Keep in mind my car is in the garage on jackstands.

[kronus]

it's going to be difficult to take out the trans without taking out the engine, because there are nuts at the top of the bellhousing that suck to get to.

there's no special nut tool, they're just hard to get to and you have to do a little at a time until you can spin them free.

You can use either the manual or auto radiator, both have isolated coolant circuits. The auto trans cooler on the auto trans circulates ATF through a separate circuit in the radiator fins.

[1988shark]

it's going to be difficult to take out the trans without taking out the engine, because there are nuts at the top of the bellhousing that suck to get to.

there's no special nut tool, they're just hard to get to and you have to do a little at a time until you can spin them free.

You can use either the manual or auto radiator, both have isolated coolant circuits. The auto trans cooler on the auto trans circulates ATF through a separate circuit in the radiator fins.

I never removed any additional lines of the 88 radiator, just upper, lower and line going to the overflow bottle. Here's a comparison between the two.
<img src="http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg11 ... 010001.jpg" border="0" alt="manual radiator">

[winfred]

if you were swapping a manual to a auto you'd need to swap the radiator, going the correct way means just removing the lines and thats that. you can see the little pads where they put the holes in the right tank of the manual radiator where the cooler would poke through

[1988shark]

if you were swapping a manual to a auto you'd need to swap the radiator, going the correct way means just removing the lines and thats that. you can see the little pads where they put the holes in the right tank of the manual radiator where the cooler would poke through

Ahhh, I see, I see.
Have you done the conversion before on one of the older models? The wiring harness on the 85 has a number of connections with the main pin connector, unlike the 1.3 from the 88. I'm trying to find out what these connections are for. I am running into a brick wall. I do have some information but it was concentrated on C101 near the fuse box with the pin out conversions. its kinda hard to see in this pic, there is a green and a white connector also a loose white wire.

[Tinkerer007]

This site may help with pin outs.
http://www.m535i.org/officers/ra/38.html#44

It explains how to connect a E34 M5 engine harness in an E28.

[ron]

I tried getting the intake manifold off today FAIL! Is there some special tool to remove these nuts?

1/4" drive 1/2" (fits 12mm.hex). Snap-on wobble socket. Has to be 1/4" drive.There is a wave washer fitted under each nut. Be prepared to drop a few when trying to re-fit.

[1988shark]

I tried getting the intake manifold off today FAIL! Is there some special tool to remove these nuts?

1/4" drive 1/2" (fits 12mm.hex). Snap-on wobble socket. Has to be 1/4" drive.There is a wave washer fitted under each nut. Be prepared to drop a few when trying to re-fit.

I have one of those but I need to pick up one in a 1/4". The 1/2" just rubbed the bottom of the manifold and flex out of the nut. I will pick up one tomorrow.

[Ralph in Socal]

Some of this work has been done before. Read this

http://www.mye28.com/viewtopic.php?t=60306

Ralph

[1988shark]

Some of this work has been done before. Read this

http://www.mye28.com/viewtopic.php?t=60306

Ralph

Thanks for the tip. I will digest this info!

[wattsmonkey]

I'm really glad I looked at your post: my donor car has the bubbling of the sound deadeing stuff in the same place as yours; I nearly posted a picture, but no need now you've identified the heatshield as the culprit. Mine's bad on both sides, but no roof underneath the melted toffee effect!

[1988shark]

Today is a GREAT DAY, things are finally looking my way. From Germany with LOVE! Finally after waiting almost 2 months. Now I can take my seat to get redone. YEAH BABY


SUCCESS!
I finally got this BE-AAATCH out, and I'm sore. Yes, I can poke a hole in your chest! And I do wish this job on my worst enemy! This manifold will be bolted to the head before install. NEVER AGAIN!


If it wasn't for the offset in this wrench I would be scratching my head right now. I got to them from under the car and a lot of stretching. Where is Mr Fantastic or Stretch Armstrong when I needed them?


Since I had the manifold out, I decided to do a little cleaning. You know how the slippery slope is. I don't have electricity or running water in the garage so I had a 64oz detergent bottle, 32oz of Simple green, a spray bottle and a brush. I totally destroyed that brush!!!!Here are the results...






Now that I have easy access to the master cylinder, now would be a good time to install it for the BBK. More than enough space to wrench it out. I gotta pick that up this week!
That sure is a clean valve cover! This is how it was when I removed it from the car.

I am still puzzled that the PO said there is a problem with the head. Maybe, there is a hairline crack somewhere. There was little to no oil on the block and no coolant or oil mix.



That's all for now, Im famished I think I'll have a Heinekin with my lunch! I'm gonna pay for staying up and not getting any sleep for work tonight!

[1988shark]

I am getting ahead of myself. I need to start selling some stuff to finance my addiction. Wheels are in the shop, should be ready by this weekend, I need to take the seats to the upholstery shop, I need a new headliner and the list is growing. I will take pics and post a few stuff from the Euro 85 and the 1988 CSI. If anyone's interested.