1992 BMW 520i E34

[RV97]

Something random in 2017

Sorry, this update is kinda messy.


I always wanted a shortshifter, but not the hardcore one for race cars. Simple and easy using uniball and oem shifter parts.

[IMG]blob:https://www.flickr.com/db9b2db2-7bbe-4d75-9c79-fe6babb648e2[/IMG]



Maintenance. Fixed leaking from engine and other small things.




Lowered springs, new shock absorbers.




I h4te rust






Trying to save it, because its OEM




Later it was fully welded & grinded. No after pictures, but the result is in previous photoshoot pictures. Actually I like all that metalworking stuff.





Then, I really wanted to retrofit electric windows, but apparently they cannot be retrofited in my 520i. Such a sad story. But I had something in my mind. Found wiring harness swap from 525i. 518i, 520i and base models had 'low' wiring harnesses and 525i models and up, have 'high' wiring harness with comfort blocks and many more extras. How hard can it be?









Harder than expected to be honest. And this is just beginning.








New one.






Here you can see how long it took to do this job.



Also newer cluster with OBC display.




Also replaced white dash with black one. To be honest, this white interior is in kinda bad condition. White interior looks nice if it's in good condition. For now, it's just will be easier to find a good black interor & seats.
After many though days doing this swap, couldn't start the car. 525i actually was an automatic, so had to change relay, easy fix, but spent many hours to figure that out.




Happy days! First drive after 2 weeks of headache.



Bought interior parts from black interior - dark grey carpet, mouldings etc. Also found OEM Hella spoiler in junkyard, bought for 20 EUR. Rear electric windows and other small things.

[adacam]

Spoiler
...but otherwise good job.

[RV97]

Spoiler
...but otherwise good job.

It's OEM M spoiler. It looks silly without M bumpers and I'm not going to put this thing on. Maybe some day, when I'll have bumpers.
Thanks!

[adacam]

It's OEM M spoiler. It looks silly without M bumpers and I'm not going to put this thing on. Maybe some day, when I'll have bumpers.
Thanks!

It's just that I think the "lines" of e34 are drown so well, and with this car less is more...but it's probably me I never liked them (spoilers).

[RV97]

It's just that I think the "lines" of e34 are drown so well, and with this car less is more...but it's probably me I never liked them (spoilers).

I agree with You, less is more with E34's. But that's the reason why it's not on the car already.

[Fetka]

I can't honestly believe that no one said nothing harsh about freaking huge adapters, not even talking about MORE adapters to space out the wheel
Now this is next level shit ..

Honestly, it would be way more cheaper and correct to weld the lips bigger. I don't even want to know how much this cost, but there are plenty ways of widening Style 5's the proper way. Could have even made them into 3piece with custom lips and barrells ..

P.S. - Greetings from Latvia. Next time think twice, you can hit me up here or on my page @ my signature. We have built coilovers for E34 as well.

GL

[RV97]

I can't honestly believe that no one said nothing harsh about freaking huge adapters, not even talking about MORE adapters to space out the wheel
Now this is next level shit ..

Honestly, it would be way more cheaper and correct to weld the lips bigger. I don't even want to know how much this cost, but there are plenty ways of widening Style 5's the proper way. Could have even made them into 3piece with custom lips and barrells ..

P.S. - Greetings from Latvia. Next time think twice, you can hit me up here or on my page @ my signature. We have built coilovers for E34 as well.

GL

I think welding lips either wouldn't be a proper way to do it.

I was considering to cut flat lip and then fit correct barrels for BBS's making a 3piece splits. But I was too convinced that I need to save original BBS. Now I kinda regret it.

I have seen Your work on facebook and been following You on insta for a while.

Thanks!

[Fetka]

I think welding lips either wouldn't be a proper way to do it.

I was considering to cut flat lip and then fit correct barrels for BBS's making a 3piece splits. But I was too convinced that I need to save original BBS. Now I kinda regret it.

I have seen Your work on facebook and been following You on insta for a while.

Thanks!

There is nothing wrong with aluminium welding. As long as you find the correct type of ALU for exact wheels it is not a problem. People are banding steelies all over the place, the same is done to aluminium wheels, but since alu welding is more complex and more expensive, you don't see them everywhere you look.

http://weldcraftwheels.com/what-we-do/widen/

[Porterhousestk]

wow this is really awesome! good work!

[Mehowski]

I don't see the problem with flipping the face and spacing it back with a spacer as has been done here. Seems safe and clearly hasn't thrown up any issues so far.

[Fruttolo]

Well actually from a performance point of view it's an horrible thing as it puts a lot of weight on the external diameter of the wheel where it's more noticeable and unsuspended masses are a lot more, but since this is far from a performance car and the work seems to have been done correctly I don't see much problems.
Still, the effort and money would probably have been better spent with splitting them and buying new lips but to each their own

[RV97]

There is nothing wrong with aluminium welding. As long as you find the correct type of ALU for exact wheels it is not a problem. People are banding steelies all over the place, the same is done to aluminium wheels, but since alu welding is more complex and more expensive, you don't see them everywhere you look.
http://weldcraftwheels.com/what-we-do/widen/

Oh, I see. Mareks had a TIG at workshop, so aluminium welding was not a problem. I have seen that other collague welded very wide 15'' or 16'' style 5 wheel, for table.
Also my huge-ass spacers are welded together, but I can agree it's more complicated process than usual steel welding.

Anyway I think best way to widen these BBS is to build 3 piece.

wow this is really awesome! good work!

I appreciate it, thanks!

Well actually from a performance point of view it's an horrible thing as it puts a lot of weight on the external diameter of the wheel where it's more noticeable and unsuspended masses are a lot more, but since this is far from a performance car and the work seems to have been done correctly I don't see much problems.
Still, the effort and money would probably have been better spent with splitting them and buying new lips but to each their own

Yes it's not a performance thing. I think even fuel consumption may be bigger than before. But it does the thing - they are making the wheels look good.

Spacers costed me 260 EUR + my millions and billions worth effort. I think that's acceptable price for such an experiment. Cheapest new barrels for all wheels that I found was 600 EUR + shipping. But thats in my future plans!

Update, update, update....

Wheels was done in 24th August, 2017, so summer was already gone, while I was building wheels, however I was enjoying car until first snow in November.





Even though it's Iphone photo, I like it





Huge gap, I know... it'll be fixed.









This was my first expierence ever, daily driving with polished wheels. They get dirty very soon, so a lot of care is required. Someone said that I can try to remove brake dust and other dirtyness with engine bay cleaner. DO NOT DO THIS! Don't be stupid and don't try it. I sprayed that liquid from hell on all wheels, instead of one. Thanks stupid me! Some kind of a chemical reaction happened...





Many hours spent to disassemble, repolish and reassemble the wheels.





While I was there, I unscrewed shock absorber and pushed the wheel up to the arch. Yes, this is goals.





As winters in Latvia is cold and roads are very salty, I decided put car in the garage for winter. Aswell I had to prepare it for the summer. Wheels are taken off for repolishing and later spacers for machining. -15mm off the rear, and -5mm front.





Save the classics.

[RV97]

Hello stanceworks! It's been a long time since last update, so finally it's time to tell how everything went so far.

Main goal was to clean and paint all rusty spots, maybe do some welding if needed, change brake rotors & pads, also brake lining and so on.












Behind front passenger seat on floor was some kind of factory cap, which was in really bad condition and needed to be fixed.








Started to clean little rust spot, ended up like this. In 2016 my car didn't pass technical inspection, because of bad rocker panels, so it went to local workshop to weld new ones. Also they welded floor, but as I remember it wasn't that bad. Anyway now that I saw how they did floor, made me cut everything out and make myself.


























Friend of mine asked if I can polish Rondel 0058 for his E36 convertible. For sure I can.




These wheels were harder to polish than BBS





For now it's original 520i brakes. In future something bigger is coming for sure.





Egons machined spacers. -10mm on front and -15mm on rear.









Mareks welded deep scratches. Sanding and polishing BBS again.





Very easy to sand with this oribtal sanding machine.
















Back In The Game





This was just beginning of summer. More photos coming soon!

[Quillhill36]

The things dreams are made of.

[Bargiela]

Don't get me wrong, nice build.
But it is a BBS RC build; and you just installed a BMW E34 to them.

Now, seriously:
I've never seen anybody taking so much effort into adjusting specs, customfabricating and all, even polishing so many times the same set of wheels.
You can be proud of.

I wanna see what's next.