Julien's 535is

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eurojulien
Posts: 13
Joined: Nov 22, 2022 12:24 PM
Location: Sf Bay

Julien's 535is

Post by eurojulien »

I'm fairly new here, so please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Julien and I like to build cars in my spare time. I've done up many e30s, including my current one:
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I've also ventured into the world of Miatas and Volvos, and even a van.

This is what I look like to most people who know me. Sitting in an office chair under a car (usually with my headlamp on, and no scarf. was going for the extra euro look that day).
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Now, my dark deep secret is that I've never owned an e28. I've owned (17?) e30s, (2) e34 M5s, (1) M30 Powered E30, (1) very briefly owned 635ci (I crashed during the test drive when I was 19 :? ) but never an e28. I've always like them but thought hey were like an e34, heavy with vague steering box, not the slightly grown up e30 that I figured out they actually are!

So this brings us back a few months ago to a group chat where my friend Eddy asked for a ride to go buy a 535is. I had heard he owned one he had just purchased, and that it was a lovely car but not a whole lot more. Being free that day, I offered to give him a ride. The story goes that the first car he bought had amazing paint and body but needed some mechanical attention as well as a manual swap. The car we went to go look at was just the opposite. Mechanically sorted but needed paint. I test drove it with him and "got it". These are good cars. He ended up buying it and here it is!
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Driving back from El Sobrante to my house in San Mateo my interest was piqued. He had parked his 535is in front of my house and I figured I'd take a look at it.
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Well, sitting inside felt lovely. It's the usual feeling of a e30 but with head room! I took it for a spin and ehhh she needs help.. but has a lovely character (read: m30)
I sit on it for a few days and figured, what the heck, let's buy it.
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eurojulien
Posts: 13
Joined: Nov 22, 2022 12:24 PM
Location: Sf Bay

Re: Julien's 535is

Post by eurojulien »

First order of business was to fix the trunk. The springs had popped out of their retainer, which was an easy yet finicky fix.
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Next was removing the Style 5s with aged, questionable rubber and installing a set of style 42s. Eddy (previous owner) hinting that I should lower the car.
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Speedometer and Odometer didn't work. Nor did most bulbs in the instrument cluster. Cruise control stalk was loose and headlight switch was dangling. All came back together with some work. Thanks to someone on the e28 fb group It was brought to my attention that e28 headlight switch bezels were still available new. Cruise control stalk turned out to just be loose and OBC needed the usual lightbar. The speedo though, it threw me for a loop. I replaced the gears and reflowed the circuit board but still no speedo. After some more fiddling I threw in the towel and replaced the speedo with another one with the rebuilt odo gears transferred over.
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(forgot to mention, I feel like I removed three separate aftermarket alarms form the car. felt amazing to bin those)
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After driving the car a bit, it became quite obvious it wasn't really safe to do any sort of hard braking at highway speeds. Inspecting the suspension components I found both upper and lower control arms had signs of wear but nothing terrible. Still I opted to replace all 4 and install moosehead bushings (I had them on my M5 and loved them).
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Unfortunately for me, that didn't solve the issue. Car still pulled hard and to the left when braking.
eurojulien
Posts: 13
Joined: Nov 22, 2022 12:24 PM
Location: Sf Bay

Re: Julien's 535is

Post by eurojulien »

A brake bleed quickly indicated that the front right wheel was getting significantly less flow than the left (driver) wheel. I tried pushing quite a bit of fluid through to see if it would clean up to no avail. Reading the forums it became obvious the ABS pump had to come apart. When I got it out on the bench I became a little worried that the bolts all had been off at some point. One was even stripped :oops:
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I carried on with the disassembly and found it to be surprisingly clean. I guess someone has tried this before and it didn't solve the issue. GRR. What I did do was swap the solenoid from front right to rear left. I wanted to see if the problem followed the solenoid. Which it did.
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(picture isn't chronologically correct as you can spot the replacement pump bits in the background)

The next day I reach out to a local E28 Specialist (The Studio) and ask if they had a spare speedo and ABS pump. Luckily the answer was yes to both. I grabbed the spare ABS pump which also had a clogged solenoid, took it apart and swapped a good one over to my pump.

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(some might spy the contraband brake parts cleaner I bought in NV :rofl:)

Finally! the car stopped as it should!! To celebrate, I bought some H&R's and Bilsteins. No Pictures of installation but here is a Dmitiry (Kronus on here I believe) using my diving board as an ottoman.
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At this point he purpose of this car was to be my daily driver. One of the things that still bugged me was that the factory radio would lose a channel sometimes and the factory amp was dead. I replaced the amp with a good used one but still it all left some to be desired. I fixed this by spending the most i've ever spent on a blaupunkt.
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To bypass the amp, I repurposed the 4 positives going to the trunk as rear speaker +/- and I intercepted the wiring coming from the trunk back to the front speakers. All tidy'd up with Tessa tape. Unfortunately shortly after the install I decided I wasn't keeping the e28 as my daily, so the radio got moved over to the e30 and the e28 got the Nak CD45z instead.

Also, Dmitriy has been trying his hand at leather work. He reupholstered this Mtech1 and :shock: it's beautiful!
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eurojulien
Posts: 13
Joined: Nov 22, 2022 12:24 PM
Location: Sf Bay

Re: Julien's 535is

Post by eurojulien »

Early into the ownership of the e28 I got lucky and acquired a rare M30B35 e24 wiring harness. I wasn't sure what to do with it exactly but I knew that being a 2-year old harness made it pretty desirable. I then remembered my friend Pete, who races an e28, had a euro motor in his spot. The motor was acquired along with a dogleg in a euro shell many years prior. The shell got sold to the east coast with no drive train and has since been restored, from what I hear. The dogleg still sits there never to be sold but the euro motor was available for a song. Having read that euro motor would work great on Motronic 1.3 I decided that would be the recipe! I gave Pete a few of my hundred dollar bills and he pushed this to my section:
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First step was to pull spark plugs out and put some marvel mystery oil in the cylinders. Next was to plug up the holes and wash it!
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Individual pieces got removed and put in the parts washer. Just about everything came off except for the head and the lower timing cover. In regards to the rotating assembly, I let it soak for 24 hours and spun it the next day. Engine rotated super smooth with no issues. At this point I had a choice to make. Yank the head off, get it gone through and also go through the bottom end OR install as is and see what the engine actually needs. In order for costs to not balloon out of control on a motor that can easily be replaced, I took option c (yes I never mentioned that one). I pulled the rod and main bearings out, inspected them and thought they looked reasonably good. I decided, let's install this engine as is and I can always pull the head if need be. If the engine turns out to be toast, it'll likely get replaced with a B35. so shrug - I rolled the dice and started dressing the Motronic 1.3 harness onto the motor.

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And that's how it sat for a few weeks as I tried to sell the car :oops: I had run out of juice (in the past weeks I had done a manual/diesel swap on a eurovan, a manual swap on another eurovan and a head gasket on a z3 supercharged car, I needed a break)

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eurojulien
Posts: 13
Joined: Nov 22, 2022 12:24 PM
Location: Sf Bay

Re: Julien's 535is

Post by eurojulien »

With some spare time on my hands, I decided it was time to do the swap

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Wiring the C101
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2 pedal manual
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Found the missing pedal!
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Car was giving me a hard time. Crank no fire. Ecu wasn't coming to life. Decided to fix this by eating.
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Turns out that helped, found an issue with the c103 and she fired right up! And she came to life!
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I had to adjust the TPS to get it to idle and swapped out the ICV but she ran :cool:

Hey it car.

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Only thing it needed since was a different ECU (the MarkD chipped ecu I had installed required a shot of 100 octane to not detonate with the higher compression, the bavauto chipped ECU seemed happy with 91). Also the FPR was later swapped out but other than that she pulls, HARD.

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Not sure what to do with it. It's listed for sale but I do really enjoy driving it.
Last edited by eurojulien on Jan 24, 2023 12:01 AM, edited 1 time in total.
Ju@n
Posts: 702
Joined: Apr 27, 2013 1:11 PM
Location: Uruguay

Re: Julien's 535is

Post by Ju@n »

Keep it and maintain it! You'll love it :D
Very nice car!
Etip
Posts: 155
Joined: Sep 05, 2021 2:06 AM
Location: Seattle

Re: Julien's 535is

Post by Etip »

What are you asking for it?
kronus
Posts: 202
Joined: Jan 04, 2009 7:49 PM
Location: San Francisco

Re: Julien's 535is

Post by kronus »

eurojulien wrote: Jan 16, 2023 12:37 PM I then remembered my friend Pete, who races an e28, had a euro motor in his spot. The motor was acquired along with a dogleg in a euro shell many years prior. The shell got sold to the east coast with no drive train and has since been restored, from what I hear.
The aforementioned shell was rebuilt as an incredible Hartge tribute - viewtopic.php?f=7&t=139703
saruma
Posts: 66
Joined: Oct 10, 2020 4:33 PM
Location: Denver

Re: Julien's 535is

Post by saruma »

guessing the eddy friend is e30_trujillo on insta? both e28s looked very familiar. sick car, i'd love to throw a euro motor in my 535i.
muleskinner
Posts: 1339
Joined: Sep 08, 2007 11:17 AM
Location: John Graham ATL

Re: Julien's 535is

Post by muleskinner »

Great photos and comments about the photos. How did you dispose of the remains of the dead body you found in the trunk? Don't google that.
Chimi-Changa
Posts: 1601
Joined: Nov 08, 2011 11:02 PM
Location: West Bro, MA

Re: Julien's 535is

Post by Chimi-Changa »

eurojulien wrote: Jan 16, 2023 12:37 PM I then remembered my friend Pete, who races an e28, had a euro motor in his spot. The motor was acquired along with a dogleg in a euro shell many years prior. The shell got sold to the east coast with no drive train and has since been restored, from what I hear. The dogleg still sits there never to be sold but the euro motor was available for a song.
I own that Euro shell now, and super cool to hear any history on it! I contacted A. Turner who's name was on the CA title it came with, and he told me it was an great car that had an Mtech kit on it.

It would be amazing to re-unite that dogleg with the car! :D
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