Carpokes Porsche Forum

...I bought a BMW instead.

Specifically, my second BMW.

THIS...is a 2000 BMW E39 540i wagon, and I'm going to save it.
I bought this for $600 last Friday on a whim. I've had an E91 since early this year, but it's an AWD auto wagon, and I'm just not in total love with it after having driven it a bunch now. V8 RWD wagon is more up my alley, and has many benefits. One of them is going to be towing 944s around (eventually).

This one I'm just planning to save. It was parked 2 years ago because the harmonic balancer left the chat, and took the serpentine belts with it. When the harmonic balancer gave out it also took out a coolant hose so it was towed back. It had not started in over a year and it amazingly did when I came to look at it -- and moved under it's own power to a better spot for me to check it out. Cleaner chassis than you'd think by looking at pictures, and the engine is better than you'd think. The driver's fender was (said to be) replaced from a tire exploding on the 2nd owner, and that's why the sill is messed up. Some fender alignment work is needed, and new wheel liners. Would love to mess with and fix that sill.

I wanted to leak down check it but couldn't get to turn the crankshaft to get to TDC. Compression test it was, and it was pretty good. Each bank was 30-40 psi of each other, and this is on a dead cold motor. Timing chain guides are going to need to be done, and it came with a new harmonic balancer and crankshaft pulleys.

Not sure what my plans are, I have a 924S to finish, and my E91 to sell before I can really sink into this. One friend of mine has already asked about wanting to buy it when I fix it up. No idea how far I'll take it, mechanical work at the minimum and maybe some interior and exterior work.

Well $600 is a no loss buy. Congratulations. You made money in any deal.

I've been working on my 924S project some, so I haven't been able to touch this until today. Some progress updates:

I was able to recondition the battery and save it, desulfating it, finishing that last night. I left it on a 2a charge overnight and put it back in the wagon today. Fired up, and it actually idled without a jump pack. Still have a vacuum leak, so went to fix that. I knew already I had a secondary air pump hose issue, which is an $80 part which I do not want to pay. So instead I used my enguity and did this to fix it.



Yes, I just used electrical tape. But I think it worked pretty well. I might eventually replace it, but it's an easy part to change I'm not worried about it. I also used CA glue on a vacuum fitting on the intake boot, because that boot is over $200 new and I am not replacing it for something as trivial as that.

I also discovered some serpentine belt tensioner issues, my massive oil leak issues, AOS issues, and some other stuff I'm going to have to address. I'm trying to be frugal with the car right now so I can try and figure out what I need to do to it. Trying to fix as much stuff without spending money as possible. I also did two test spots, and the paint cleans up pretty well for what it is. When I start filming it you'll see what's going on with the paint issues.

Plan is to do the timing chain guides after I can fix the harmonic balancer and get the car running as-is and figure out what I need to buy for it.

911R wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 1:14 pm Well $600 is a no loss buy. Congratulations. You made money in any deal.

Yeah, I definitely ain't losing money. The style 42s and the M sport steering wheel the car has are worth that alone.

Wrote the below two days ago, but didn't submit
So I finally got some time to mess with this recently. I found some collateral damage from the harmonic balancer/crankshaft pulley's spontaneous disassembly. The main bolts for both belts (serpentine) that hold them to the engine are bent, seen pic below (yikes!). The hydraulic dampened spring tensioner also blew up on the AC side, and the drive belt tensioner also did this.




I have new tensioners coming soon, and a crankshaft counter-hold tool so I can change the hubs. Right now I have 5 (of 8) bolts holding the harmonic balancer/crankshaft pulley to the hub. I'm going to clean up the old pulleys as best I can, and try to straight the bolts myself (one of them is fancy torx, one is pretty normal so I could just replace that one).

Wrote this today
I found that I have a water leak from one of the coolant pipes coming off the water pump. Costs not even $5 to reseal the pump, so I'm going to do that. Goal is currently to fix issues and get it driving a-ok before I spend a ton of money on the timing chain guides, especially cause I'm going to opt to do the valley pan seals and clean out the intake (AOS dumped a lot of oil in it).
I'm also pretty sure my fuel pump is the issue, aaand only BMW brand ones are available for $350. I'm ordering a fuel filter (which contains the FPR too, oddly enough) tonight, so I'm going to replace that and I've got 5 gallons of 92 for it. Fuel pump is on top of the tank (under the seat) so easy to change even with a tank with gas in it.