This is to compliment the e30 I guess, once I clean it up it will be a nice daily driver as e30 is turning more and more into a weekend/autocross only toy, i picked up a 540i parts car and the m60b40 is going into the e30 to replace the b35. I've been trying to find a clean 535i 5speed to drop the swap from the e30, but have not been able to find anything with a nice clean body w/o it being automatic. I did not want to deal with converting automatic to 5speed so, this is as close as it got. It was a customers car, timing belt went and I guess the body was clean enough for them to buy it to fix/flip it. Story is pretty funny too. Was visiting a friend of mine at a local euro/bmw shop and after chatting for a bit with him and then the owner of the shop (master tech with 25 year experience, who has quite a few cool cars incluing TWO e32 745i turbo cars (one is for sale)) who then offered to sell me this "roller" for what he paid for. Wasn't exactly the car I was looking for, but color was right, and it is 5speed and it has LSD... so for $500 I figured why not. I have already ordered euro clock for it and black headliner pieces. Staggered 18" m-parallels are coming as well. Plan is to throw another head on it first, and re-do the suspension and convert the interior to late model black leather.. it's currently tan but it does have a black dash. Got the car towed, snapped a few pictures. It's got a small dent on the door and hood, and one ding on the passenger rear wheel arch that should be easy to fix.
Pulled the m20 head, no surprises there really...coolant is clean, no oil/coolant mixture...just broken rockers and bent valves lol. Started by removing some of the items attached to the manifold to get me some room. So far so good, icv line was like a rock of course. Hello there broken rockers
Believe it or not, someone replaced a belt with a new one haha. and its off Ordered the following parts - head gasket kit - head bolt set - timing belt kit (belt/tentioner) - tstat / o-ring - water pump - various rubber hoses - injector/fpr o-rings - t-body/heater gaskets Have a line on a good used head, so hopefully this saturday car will be running and everything goes as planned. Next order will be brakes/suspension parts. I also want to try fixing the door panels myself, but I do want to replace the material with black to match the dash since I plan on switching the seats to black as well.
Great car, looking forward to the updates on this project!!! If you go the way of your e30 it will be awesome!!! M-Parallels are my favorite wheels! I have them on my e39 and they look great on the e34! Black interior is also my favorite interior color. All my cars have black interior, I only had to convert one of them. BTW they are all black exteriors too, except the 325ix, that one is white. I guess it is good to have some variety!
Made some progress today, not as much as I wanted but will try to get the head swap finished tomorrow. Also picked up e34 sport seats, need to swap belts on them as they were cut by po (car was totalled). Black door panels have been ordered and should arrive next week or so, still looking for black rear seat/speaker shelf and consoles... I will leave the carpet alone for now. Seats : Cleaning up the used head, replacing a few studs and new gaskets etc... fail part 1 - removing the 10mm bolts from the back of the head to install new water neck gasket resulted in a snapped bolt. some new parts to do the job, ps new head bolts do not come with the washers, re-used washers from the old bolts. block / manifold surfaces cleaned up water pump mess.... I REALLY like the m30 design over m20 in all of it's aspects to tell you the truth. Head has been installed, tomorrow I'll install the manifold, tsat,hoses and all the little things... hopefully it will fire up and run.
Did you order new door panels from BMW or something else? What is the condition of your old door panels?
Looks like it is going to be a great car. It is so much fun watching someone else's mechanical projects. Thanks for sharing.
Day 2. Car fired up. Local dealer sold me the wrong exhaust manifold nuts, they are too small so i'll need to finish it later. Need to replace a couple more things - the plastic holder that keeps the oil pressure sensor and cps wires away from the belt/pulley, correct exhaust manifold nuts, clutch fan blade (noticed one blade is cracked), exhaust hanger. Pics, oil sprayer bar was installed from the old head as the replacement head didn't come with one.,
Looking great so far. Wow that is one dirty engine bay for such a clean car!!! Looks like that valve cover was used as a mat on your shop floor for the past six years!!! LOL
You are right, it is a mess! It will get cleaned up when time comes to pull the m20 out for something bigger
I found a clean set of black door panels in better condition, the door panels on my car are OK at best but honestly pretty bad.
While your project looks great, I do hope you have some knowledge of an e34 with the m20. It's a nice car, but not a ball of fire. I've had mine since 1992 and I hope you enjoy yours.
Not sure what you mean? It's my first e34 so I am learning about it as I go.. the m20 I don't really care for, it will be removed as soon as possible (I have to finish rebuilding m60b40 first for my e30, and that will free up it's fresh m30b35 with g260/6 for the e34). I like how this car did not come with factory amp, less wiring to deal with since i'll be adding my own amp and headunit. Suspension and brakes seem to be fairly simple, a little more parts vs e30 but still easy stuff.
Sorry, my bad. I thought you were rebuilding the M20 as part of the project. Are you going to swap the transmission also? I think the e34 5-speed changed when they went to the 4-valve engine. However, I could be wrong.
This is an early production E34 525i. It has the M20 motor, which is a 2 valve per zylinder motor. This car will be a 535i before you know it!!!
Grant, It does sound that way. The e34 with the m20 engine didn't have a lot of fans. The modest horsepower was one issue and the wide spacing between the gears was another. In many ways, these early e34's were a fiiting follow-on to the e28 and e30's with the low rpm eta engine. Sadly, I don't think that was anyone's desired outcome.
Oh! Now I know what you meant Yes, the m20 with it's 5speed will be removed and a complete 91 m30b35 with g260/6 will take it's place. I may replace the tranny with another, as this 260/6 has a first gear that loves to stick and is hard to move OUT of gear while it's cold. It's got good fresh fluid and all the shifter components were replaced, so it's something with a tranny
