Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

[BDKawey]

the trunk refresh came out awesome. my tail light carpet piece is in rough shape, could definitely go for the same treatment.

Not on Tetanus?!? Would a nice clean trunk go with that perfect name+aesthetic combo?

haha tetanus gets little to no esthetic love except the occasional vacuum and window cleaning. talking about my wrapped 'is

[jhh925]

Other things that are still on the list:

• Get idle cleaned up. Likely need to readjust the butterflies.
• I'm not happy with the quality of the leather coverings on a bunch of the interior parts, especially the bunching on the dash. I'm collecting more parts to try to get a re-do on that stuff.
• I have the original basket weaves on the car. I have refinished BBS wheels that are ready to go on there as soon as the front end in properly aloigned ... but man, those original basket weaves look great. Need to reconsider the BBS wheels.
• I can't clear the "Rear Brake light" warning on the check panel. This one's a puzzle. Everything in the rear brake light check circuit is fine, and even shorting the pin on the check panel doesn't clear the light. I've tried to re-flow the solder on the board, but I haven't had a change to test my work yet.

I set the day aside today to make progress. I can check the last bullet off the list! "Rear brake light" check light is cleared. Prior to the move to NV, I spent a few hours pouring over the wiring diagrams & learning how the "logic" of the check circuits worked for the brake light check. All the relays checked out (the box in the trunk + the separate relay embedded in the third brake light), all the wiring from front to back worked, and of course I also checked to make sure that the brake lights themselves were in fact working & had the correct bulbs. Check Check Check. The next obvious thing (based on all the related threads here) was to reflow the solder connections on the check panel itself. During the course of the move, the original circuit board got mixed up with my spares, so I picked out the cleanest one, re-flowed the solder & reinstalled everything. Success! Maybe it was the solder re-flow, maybe I picked a working circuit board. Who knows. But at least I get to check something off the damn list.

Here's a super-dramatic picture of my check panel with no lights lit up. The panel did initially light up with the expected brake light "error," but it cleared as soon as I pressed the brake pedal, as it's supposed to.



Turning to the idle.

[Syndrome]

Hi there! I read every bit of this amazing thread. Thank you! The one thing I wish you talked about because I’m trying to figure it out as we speak, is how you located the stud holes in the front European valance for the front air dam. I’d hate to drill holes in the wrong places. Any suggestions for me on this, please? Thank you!