BMWs
AmateurRadio 
Cycling
Linux
Please forgive the state of the website, it's being worked on slowly, but surely.
I purchased this car used in March of 2002. I was looking for a cheap replacement for a car that was totalled hitting a deer at 60mph. Looking thogugh the classifieds, I found this car and decided to call on it. I didn't know anything about Bimmers really at the time, and $1500 for a BMW seemed too good to be true (that part I was wrongabout). So, $1500 later I had my first BMW. It was a very short time after that when I realized there was more to this car that I had thought. It was big. It was fairly quick. It was comfortable. And it handled like a dream! The addiction had started.
Unfortunately, I was misled about the condition of the car. Still, not to worry, I can fix that! The more I dug into the car, the more I found that the PO (previous owner) had done wrong. The HVAC controls didn't work, there was rust holes in the car from lack of preventative maintainance, the passenger side mirror didn't work, and it ran rough sometimes.
Well, first things first, I dug into the car to find out what was keeping the HVAC from working. This is a part of the car that is completely pneumatic, and can be a nightmare to work on. The PO in trying to find a simple leak, had disconnected just about every vacuum hose in the dash, and every hose in the cowling. With some troubleshooting, and using the vacuum schematic located on this site, I managed to get everything hooked back up. Most of the leaks were just from the last bit of the hose being cracked. A bit of trimming, and everything started working properly. I was lucky that I didn't have to replace any hoses or servos in the dash, but that wouldn't have been much more effort. I still have to replace the fresh air servos in the cowling (one was in pieces and the other frozen solid), but other than that it's working like a champ.
The only real big-ticket item that died was the airflow meter. When I bought the car it was getting maybe 15mpg at best (didn't know it yet, the odometer was broken). Just after I replaced the guage cluster with a new one (old style 745i cluster, speedo goes to 150 now instead of 85. Of course it makes the car faster! hehe), I was driving home and had the car start spewing massive amounts of black smoke out the back. It was a real effort just to get it home. After some troubleshooting, I found that the spring in the AFM had broken loose and spun. This was repairable, but in it's demise it dug a groove in the carbon wiper that the airflow meter sends its signals with, and the readings were anything but smooth. Giving up on repairing it, I managed to find a used replacement fairly cheap, and that fixed the problem. Up to 16-17mpg as well!
I then worked on fixing vacuum leaks in the engine bay. Easy enogu to replace vacuum hoses, tighten the bolts on the oil pan, and added an o-ring to the seal on the dipstick to seal it off. Changed the sparkplugs, and currently I'm up to 18+ mpg, which is about what this car is suppoed to get (3speed auto, not exactly efficient).
I've also had to replace various small, inexpensive parts in the engine bay where the PO had just cobbled something together to try to make it work. Usually it didn't work, and caused more problems than it fixed.
My latest fix was repairing the rust hole in the wheel well for the speare tire in the trunk. Once I had that fixed (removed and /or converted the rust, fiberglassed in the hole and gave it a coat of paint) I found that I had a swimming pool! Water was leaking in the trunk from somewhere and filling the wheelwell! A quick search and I found that the trunk seal had split in several places and was just taped back togehter. I'm guessing this is what rusted out the well in the first place (it was bad). So, one trunk seal later and the problem seems to have dissapeared.
My latest aquisition has been a new set of wheels for the car (not here yet, but soon). The wheels on it now are 15" bottlecaps from a e34 (later model 5 series). They're chromed, or should I say were chromed. Most of the chrome is peeling and the wheels are in sad shape. They hold air, but that's about it. The new ones are basketweaves from a 95 540i (also an e34) that are in really nice shape. Most likely when I get a chance to post a pic, it will be with the new wheels.
Near future fixes include rebuilding the front calipers and putting new Brembo rotors on the front (the left caliper has a stuck poiston and the rotor is warped), doing a valve adjustment, and repairing the rust holes on the outside of the car. Than, maybe new paint!
Update, 11.04.2002:
Well, teh calipers have been rebuilt! Braking is as it should
be, and the minor shake I had at around 60mph is now gone. Also found
I had a stuck piston on both sides. MUCH better now!
More to come soon!