MyE28.com

I had about 90 minutes or so Saturday where I could break away and I figured I should start getting that brake stuff out of there. I didn't own any flare wrenches and I figure they're something I need to own and Sears won't stop sending me emails telling me about all this money they're giving me to spend in their stores. I decide that I also need a turkey baster so I can suck the fluid out of the reservoirs. Been meaning to get one for a while. There's a Target next to the Sears on my way home. I go back to the tool section, which requires you walking through the women's and infant clothing sections (and people wonder why they're going bankrupt). I find the flare wrenches. $40. Fine. I look at the package and see it says Made in China. Well, forget that. I'm not buying them. I will find some NOS or used ones on eBay. I looked at some other stuff and it's all off shore. Not a single thing there except for the $90 ratchets were USA. The lifetime warranty is useless now. So, I left. I was so disgusted, I didn't even bother to get the turkey baster.

Back home, I got started by pulling out the reservoir from the master cylinder and just draining it into a cottage cheese container (I use lots and lots of these things). I had left the clutch slave attached when I pulled the tranny, so it was just hanging there. Removed the brake master cylinder. I used my 11mm open end wrench for the lines. Everything came undone easily. Nothing slipped. I was very careful. Removed the master from the booster. Master was replaced when I got the car up and running, so it will be reused. The booster looks like it's trash, unfortunately. A $4 repair could have prevented lots of damage. For less than the cost of a quart of brake fluid the PO was dumping in the reservoir, he could have fixed it. All that was wrong was the grommets on the master cylinder were bad. Instead, he practically ruined the car with all the fucking brake fluid. Ugh.

Unbolting the booster was easy. Probably not as easy with the engine in the car, but guess what? It's not there. It's like "She's Not There," but not quite as good of a song (I love that song). I found that the inside of the booster was full of brake fluid, so that was less positive. I wasn't a fan of having to drop the steering column to remove the pin though. I only say that from the perspective that if it was totally put together, it would suck, but it wasn't terrible since I only had the bolts in finger tight. Booster out, next was the clutch master. Unbolted it from the pedal, undid the bolts and then bam. Out it came.

Figured it would be nice to get the fuse box out of the way, but I was disappointed to see that while there were some power distribution plugs, several pieces of the harness extended throughout the dashboard, and individual wires were spliced off and run into connectors. I was really hoping to clean this stuff up and re-wrap the harness. That said, I also want the car to work when it goes back together, so for now, I put it inside the car through the big hole where the heater went. Power steering canister is laying down on the subframe with the pump.

I then decided to get these brake lines out. So, I undid all of them, and even removed the front calipers. No brakes. Yay. There's one line sitting there next to the fuel lines attached to the frame rail. With all of that done, I took a photo.



I had to help my dad with a bunch of stuff after I was done with that, so I didn't get a chance to put my tools away. I came home later to do that and then decided that more stuff needed removing from the car. It was raining outside, though, so I couldn't move the B7 outside. I removed the left doors and the trunklid, then the door catches. With the rear, you have to be careful to remove the three screws, loosen the big cad plated screw, rotate the catch and put a screw back in with a washer to hold the threaded plate, as there's no way to get it in and out without cutting spot welds and removing pieces. That left us with this:



You may remember that I left the differential (or final drive if you want to get all official) in the car. I was hoping to get a hold of a cart of sorts to just bolt the shell to, left over from a local member's E24 restoration. This would allow me to drop both subframes and have just the shell rolling around on casters. At that point, I could refresh everything out of the car and maybe get something accomplished while the car is away. Well, I inquired about it and found that it had been cut up. Bummer.

So, I decided that I have to get the diff out of the car. It is icky. It's been leaking for who knows how long. I decided that tonight was the night for that after I got home from work. 635s and the M535s have this fluid expansion/vapor reservoir attached to the upper right of the differential. I looked in the factory manual and the procedure seemed straight forward, but the problem is that I could not find any information about how to remove this piece. It obscures the top bolts on the right side of the subframe.



If the subframe was out of the car, not a problem, but I had a hard time getting a wrench on the bolts and even then I couldn't get any leverage on it. I decided to remove the side bolts and undo the fitting on the side of the diff (there's a line that is essentially a return of any fluid that makes it into the reservoir). The top tube appeared to be a friction fit, so maybe it would pop out. With some persuasion, it did! The top bolts were still tough to remove, but they came out and I ended up with this:



I replaced the reservoir on the diff.



And here's what things look like now.



I did cheat and undid one of the brake lines at that rear subframe to gain some headspace over one of the bolts, so I will probably remove all of that stuff anyway. I want to be sure I have no idea how to put all of this back together.

Yee-haw.

Mr. Kohler, you are a gentleman and a scholar.

Wow, you are more effective in the garage for a few hours than I can be in 3 months!

Nice progress.

Adam W in MN wrote:Wow, you are more effective in the garage for a few hours than I can be in 3 months!

No doubt.

I like pulling the engine/trans together. Those torx bolts right up against the firewall are infuriating and I have broken them before.
Nice work man! Super jelly of all the cool Bimmers you have.

This car had hex bolts for the bellhousing bolts. I would have preferred the Torx. I asked about pulling both together (about three years ago - haha) and was shown this photo:


Reading the FAQ that photo was linked to, it was noted that it was far from a preferred method. Frankly, when I put the car back together for real (if I can remember how to put the car together), the motor is going in from the bottom on the subframe. Should have the lift ready by then. I hope.

Anyway, the fun continues and I even used a real camera. I started to sweep up all of the grease nuggets that fell on and around me from pulling the diff. I then decided to roll back under there and grab the fuel pump/filter/accumulator dealie. With that done, I looked around a bit. Decided to leave the brake lines in there for now, as access is really tough with the subframe in place. I put the car back onto the ground, rolled it out a bit then pulled both right side doors and the front and rear glass. Interestingly, the rear glass is half as thick and half as heavy as E28 rear glass. Wasn't expecting that. Also, the defroster tabs are halfway up the glass instead of down low.

With the glass out, and a car with no sunroof, the headliner was out in about five minutes. Car is pretty much ready to go, but I'm going to see about getting a tarp and pressure washing that crap out of the engine room. The previous tenant is not getting it's security deposit back. It better get it's shit together or it's not moving back in. Running a credit check next time.

I tried to call Mike today, but no answer and no returned call, so...hmmm. This is not convenient.

I spent the rest of the evening on my hands and knees scrubbing my shitty garage floor. The PO of the house decided they could have a better chance of selling the place if the floor looked nice, so he bought a can of Behr Epoxy floor paint and did zero prep. He dumped the can out and spread it around with a roller - right over the oil stains and everything. It's a mess. It's seriously one of the most soul-crushing things I do. It takes a long time and it never looks clean.

What if you pull the tranny and leave the bellhousing attached to the engine?

Jelmer538i wrote:What if you pull the tranny and leave the bellhousing attached to the engine?

That's my preferred method.

Jelmer538i wrote:What if you pull the tranny and leave the bellhousing attached to the engine?

Once you pull the tranny, it takes like 15 min to pull the bellhousing. I don't think this thread needs to become mostly a discussion I how to pull an engine from an E12. I'm happy with how I did it and if I were to pull it out the top again, I'd do the same thing.

Nice work Chris! It's awesome to see you at it again after the B7 was finished up. I'm excited for updates.

And I agree with everyone else. You get shit done in that garage! And in a timely manner too. Moar!

This is what I use in conjunction with a long hook for the lifting points on the front and back of the block. You can really get the engine at a steep angle to weasel it out and back in.
Also helps to have someone under the car with a floor jack controlling the ass end of the transmission.

If you look at the photo of the motor coming out of the car, you will see one of those on my hoist. Also, I did all of this ALONE. There is no second person in my garage. I can count the number of times I've had help with a project in my garage on one hand with several missing fingers.

I asked those who know E12s. They told me what worked. I did it and am satisfied with the result.

I'm afraid if I don't check this thread daily, I might come back and find out that the car was already restored and won multiple concours trophies!

Nice job Chris. I like where this is going.

I think I'm losing interest. Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Very nice, Chris. I'd be afraid to get anywhere close to where you have it as it would become the project that was never finished in my hands. It's going to be gorgeous when you're done!

Keep truck'n, sir.

I didn't know the motor could come out from the top, lol. Top work!

Chris, I was not aware that your E12 was an ongoing project. I had 2 of them back in the mid 80's and really liked them. But the salt poured on the roads in winter rusted them out pretty quick. Any way keep on keeping on.

Cheers

Gary
86 M535I

No spectacular progress, but progress nonetheless.

The M535i sat in the garage for a while. Mike got back with me shortly before Thanksgiving and said he was at a point with two of the current projects where he figured it would be about two weeks before he could take the car. That's fine. This isn't a rush deal. Keep it as long as you need it. He suggested I take photos of the various areas of concern.



Now that the photo was taken, I decided I guess there were a few things I could do while waiting.



Using my Jiffy J-4000, I started removing the mess of stickers applied to the B-pillar. The top one is the Importation tag. Next was an Agip oil change sticker, and then finally the tire pressure sticker.



This is the main thing I cared about, as with being such an early M535i (though plenty were made before it), it has a different sticker than the one I know I could get which looks like this:



I was happy I was able to salvage as much as mine as possible. This will help with the reproduction.

Since I was fortunate enough to get a new firewall insulation piece, I could remove the old one. There's a bit of surface rust there, but the metal is solid and should clean up well.



A couple weeks went by. I called Mike. No answer. Left a voicemail. Told him that I don't really see a reason to bring photos since some of the areas are really minor while others might be a bit more invasive. We're going ahead with it. Only question is time and money. No problem. Couple days later, I embarked on the great concrete pour of 2013, and was at Home Depot buying some wire mesh when he called me back. He was ready to take the car if I was ready to send it. I said it's been ready for two weeks, so anytime that works for him works for me. He said he'd call is tow guy and go from there. He could send the guy and I could come by sometime and we could go over the car. An hour later, things progressed further:







Buh-bye! Neighbor asked if I sent it to the yard. Fuck you.

I stopped by Mike's shop the next day. Checked out the progress on the two projects ('64 Nova and a '67 Chevelle wagon). We went over the car and I explained what I was concerned about, told him what I could get sheetmetal-wise and consulted him with what areas he'd be comfortable making a patch panel for or if it would be better to just buy a new panel. The tail panel was a key discussion there. Anyway, he will likely have the car for a year or so, which is fine with me. No money up front this time, so I told him to let me know when he wanted some. I was comfortable with the ballpark he gave me, so looks like we are a go.

It's nice to see another one being saved!

It will definitely look a far cry different than those original photos of the car!

wkohler wrote:Buh-bye! Neighbor asked if I sent it to the yard. Fuck you.

It's sad that he thought that but your response is funny as shit.

Well, you have had some turnover at your house...
Including a car that did go to the yard, recently.

Admit it. When a car is 'stripped' like that, it does look like a death warrant.

Also, The Concrete Pour of 2013 was AWESOME. Have you parked on it yet?

Must be nice to free up a space in the driveway/garage? So do we wait a year until moar updatez?

Is there a thread for the concrete pour? I want to see how it turned out

Devinder wrote:Is there a thread for the concrete pour? I want to see how it turned out

x100

C'mon Chris -- I have an interest in the outcome since I said you could sue me if the lift fell down.

Devinder wrote:C'mon Chris -- I have an interest in the outcome since I said you could sue me if the lift fell down.

Sorry. Thought there was a thread to add the stuff to. There wasn't, so I had to make one.

http://www.mye28.com/viewtopic.php?t=122588

Hope it meets your approval. I guess if not, it's kinda late now...

Of course, that's why I didn't go with the lift made from pine 2x4s.

I wasn't expecting an update so soon.

Mike has had the car a while now. It's spent a lot of time holding a slab down at his shop - this is one feature that BMW failed to mention in their marketing of the M535i, but then again, I'm sure a 528i is just as good.

Anyway, Mike and I went over the car back in December and decided it was a good idea to just order a new one, so I finally got around to doing that - many people don't want to bother shipping and some don't even want to talk to me. I sure miss Brayne being in the BMW pahrtz business. Thankfully, in the time since I've ordered sheetmetal for this stupid thing, they started making the right side counterpart to the battery tray, so huzzah on that one.

Mike called me and said they've been making some progress on the car - the outside is pretty much stripped down - there were several paint jobs on it over the years, so they kept cutting through them and ended up at bare metal.

No real surprises, so there you go.

I gave him some cash today and then took some photos.