Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

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jhh925
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by jhh925 »

Gratuitous Glasurit shot.

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Roger's comment when he showed me this was, "If I could do a whole car that well, I'd charge double!"

He also re-did the right rear quarter. This was the one area where we found prior damage, and the repair work hadn't been that good.

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The depth and "blackness" of this black paint is pretty cool.
cek
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by cek »

I feel like I got such a steal from Ken.

Looks amazing Jens.
jhh925
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by jhh925 »

OK, I know I'm being a bit gratuitous with all these bodyshop pics, but Roger told me I ought to come by today and have a look, and that I ought to bring a roll of TP, "Cause when you see this you're gonna shit!" Uh oh.

So, here's the rear right quarter. The area under the pinstripe is the new paint. Above the pinstripe is the original paint, carefully worked with a buffer. In-person, I can see signs of where the old ends & the new begins, but I have to be a couple of inches from the car:

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Newly painted "slick top" trunk:

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And here's the newly painted rear valance. Note that I decided to do the stone guard all the way around.

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I'm not sure if I'm remembering it correctly, but I think some or all years of the true Euro M%s had the stone guard only coming around the back corner by 4 or 5 inches. As an example, here's a pic I took of the M5 that BMW has at it's museum in Munich. I think that this is an '85, but I'm not sure:

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The original tail panel on all the US cars has stone guard all the way around. I think that looks a lot better and offers better protection. If anyone here vehemently disagrees (or perhaps can confirm that even the Euro M5 had stone guard all the way around?), I'm all ears.

Oh, also, Roger is def going to help clean up the engine bay by painting selected areas to fix scratches & damaged paint, so that's a bit of a relief. In closely related news, I'm resigned to the fact that this car is highly, highly unlikely to be done by St. Paddy's Day 2021 (which had been my original goals). I'll likely get the car back from body & paint before the end of September, but that will be pretty tight timing to get everything back together. And I'm sure tuning the engine management will take longer than expected.
Zengineer
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by Zengineer »

Not much in the car world that looks better than a quality, deep, black paint job. Very nice, you must be stoked! As the owner of what looks to be an outdoor respray, I'm a bit jealous. ;)
reesesboot
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by reesesboot »

Incredible work, subscribed. Where did you source the new power steering reservoir stickers? I ordered a set from Pukar Designs a couple months back and haven't heard back - I'm starting to suspect they'll never arrive.
jhh925
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by jhh925 »

reesesboot wrote: Sep 10, 2020 6:24 PM Incredible work, subscribed. Where did you source the new power steering reservoir stickers? I ordered a set from Pukar Designs a couple months back and haven't heard back - I'm starting to suspect they'll never arrive.
I got them from Pukar. I have two more orders that I'm waiting for, and I'm at about 3 months now. I assume you've seen his most recent autoresponder?
Thank you for your email and please take the time to read this automated reply
Please bear with me and I will reply to all messages ASAP.
There are on going genuine and serious family priorities at this time
and i am unable to reply as quickly as I would like to. All orders are
being processed and will be processed and shipped, BUT everyone get
their order.
Also affecting orders and deliveries times is the ongoing Covid19
pandemic which is impacting 3rd party deliveries to us and there are
internal issues with postal services (mainly USPS)
We have been in business for over 10 years and will continue to
operate and fulfil your order, there is no need to worry
Thank you for your patience & understanding
I'd received an earlier email from him on Aug 20 saying "Bear with me. My mother felll and broke her hip. Will advise."
reesesboot
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by reesesboot »

Yes, I did receive the automated email. Good to know that it will eventually come, not like it's critical.
milarsky
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by milarsky »

He is always frustratingly slow and has excuses all the time. He should not take money until he ships. In fact, even when he ships (if he ships) two of my orders never showed up. Just sayin'.
reesesboot
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by reesesboot »

I’ll give it another few weeks.
mtrspt5
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by mtrspt5 »

The original tail panel on all the US cars has stone guard all the way around. I think that looks a lot better and offers better protection. If anyone here vehemently disagrees (or perhaps can confirm that even the Euro M5 had stone guard all the way around?), I'm all ears.

My 1985 Euro M5 does not have the stone guard all the way around, consistent with the BMW museum car.
marek
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by marek »

mtrspt5 wrote: Sep 13, 2020 11:19 PM The original tail panel on all the US cars has stone guard all the way around. I think that looks a lot better and offers better protection. If anyone here vehemently disagrees (or perhaps can confirm that even the Euro M5 had stone guard all the way around?), I'm all ears.

My 1985 Euro M5 does not have the stone guard all the way around, consistent with the BMW museum car.
My 1985 Euro M5 also does not have the stone guard all the way around.
Boneyard Dynamics
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by Boneyard Dynamics »

Undercoating on the rear panel depends on the date of production.

early '86 and before => only the corners and sides with undercoating

later 86' and newer => everything below the rear bumper is covered with undercoating

It doesn't depend on the engine or anything else, it's just a matter of production date

According to my pile of e28s the change was between early February '86 and mid March '86

greetings from bavaria,
Wolfgang
jhh925
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by jhh925 »

Boneyard Dynamics wrote: Sep 24, 2020 3:20 PM Undercoating on the rear panel depends on the date of production.

early '86 and before => only the corners and sides with undercoating

later 86' and newer => everything below the rear bumper is covered with undercoating

It doesn't depend on the engine or anything else, it's just a matter of production date

According to my pile of e28s the change was between early February '86 and mid March '86

greetings from bavaria,
Wolfgang
Good to know. And I think the M5 in the Museum was an '85? So that would be consistent.
Preacher's 5
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by Preacher's 5 »

Incredible work!! Great attention to detail in every aspect of the build. Very impressive!!
jhh925
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by jhh925 »

Past due for an update. I got the car back from the body shop about 10 days ago. I feel like I haven't made a ton of progress in the time the the car was at the body shop, but now that it's back, I really want to get the momentum going again.

First, one nice surprise is that Roger was able to blend in the bright yellow SEM sprayable seam sealer that I'd used on the underside. Here's what it looked like after I sprayed it:

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And here's what it looks like after Roger fixed it:

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Turns out, SEM makes a product specifically intended to blend new undercoats with the color of our old stuff:

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I also cleaned up the transmission. Before:

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And here's after. New seals (input, output & selector shaft), new reverse light switch, all new rubber & bushings for the linkage. Note that the rubber boot at the base of the stick shift was butchered on some prior occasion when whoever was working on the car was unable to figure out how to get the reverse-light switch wiring up from the tranny into the cabin (they just cut a gash in the side of the boot & stuffed the wire through, I guess). So I bought a new boot (not installed yet).

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Also, in case it's of interest, here's a pic down the elector shaft hole. There's zero room to push the old seal down in order to press a new one in on top of it. I don't get how some people think it's OK to try to just jam a new seal in on top.

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We also painted the engine compartment. Here's the sanding & scuffing in progress and then the painted result:

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I also solved a small minor mystery. It's tough to see in this pic, but I'd always puzzled why a block of wood had been inserted into one of the trunk hinges. Turns out that the right trunk hinge had been bent back - as if someone had bent the hood back when it was open. (You can see that the tab at the right side of the pic is slightly bent away from the hinge; the brown thing in between the tab & the hinge is a small block of wood.) The block had been inserted in there to make up for the "hyper extension" of the hinge and keep the hood from opening more than it was supposed to. Needless to say, I have two new hinges in hand. They'll get painted (along with the rest of the trunk) in the coming days (weeks is more likely).

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Aaaand here's the car all dolly'ed up getting ready to get towed home.

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This was shortly before a minor disaster struck. About a mile into the trip the rear wheels locked up. I was immediately reminded that I'd never filled the diff with new fluid - DAMN! That seemed like a good idea at the time - I figured I'd be more likely to get all the fluids into the car if I did them all in one step instead of trying to remember what I'd put in and what I hadn't. As a result of having no fluid in the diff, the rear pinion gear overheated, expanded and seized up, causing the rear wheels to lock up. Here's a pic of the burnt pinion bearing.

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As it turned out, this ended up being a HUGE blessing in disguise. I don't have pics (or videos), but after I got the new bearings pressed in and started to torque down the new crush collar, it became clear that my original pinion bearings had likely been bad all along (or were about to go bad). I can't remember if I posted this earlier, but I replaced the original crush collar at the same time that I replaced the pinion input shaft seal. This was my first time torquing down a crush collar. I followed all the directions I could find. When I was testing the pre-load last time, the static drag torque (torque required to get the pinion spinning) was ~40+ in-lbs, and then even though the running torque was in the correct range (I was shooting for 15 to 20 in-lbs), it was a tiny bit notchy - that is, it spun fine to my fingers, but the needle on the beam-style torque wrench was vibrating.

This go-round, the static drag was maybe 19-20 in-lbs and the running drag was 16-17 in-lbs. (I was shooting for 15 but it snuck up on me quicker this time, too.). Also, the needle on the torque wrench was smooth & steady.

In case it's helpful, based on what I found online, running drag of 14-16 in-lbs is ideal (getting that from a Metric Mechanic PDF), so I think I pretty much hit it.

I also cleaned up the drive shafts. The rear U-joint was stiff, so I ended up replacing the center cross-member & the associated bearings. This drive shaft had already been serviced once before, so the U-joints had already been "de-staked" and replacing the cross-member was pretty straightforward.

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I also got my leather dash finished! Damn ... I wish this project was already to the point where all I had to do is just put parts back on the car.

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cek
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by cek »

jhh925 wrote: Nov 19, 2020 6:27 PM And here's after. New seals (input, output & selector shaft), new reverse light switch,...
No washer on that reverse light switch!
jhh925 wrote: Nov 19, 2020 6:27 PM As it turned out, this ended up being a HUGE blessing in disguise.
I'd like some of that lemonade you made here.

I'd also like to congratulate you on some really amazing work. This car is going to be baller!
jhh925
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by jhh925 »

cek wrote: Nov 19, 2020 7:01 PM
jhh925 wrote: Nov 19, 2020 6:27 PM And here's after. New seals (input, output & selector shaft), new reverse light switch,...
No washer on that reverse light switch!
Great point. My recollection is that I was surprised that there was no washer with the switch so I then checked RealOEM ... but my memory sucks, so I'm going to double-check my work today.
cek
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by cek »

jhh925 wrote: Nov 20, 2020 12:09 PM
cek wrote: Nov 19, 2020 7:01 PM
jhh925 wrote: Nov 19, 2020 6:27 PM And here's after. New seals (input, output & selector shaft), new reverse light switch,...
No washer on that reverse light switch!
Great point. My recollection is that I was surprised that there was no washer with the switch so I then checked RealOEM ... but my memory sucks, so I'm going to double-check my work today.
And to be clear: DO NOT PUT ONE ON. THE SWITCH WILL NOT WORK CORRECTLY IF THERE'S A WASHER.
jhh925
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by jhh925 »

So with work being slow over the holidays (and hopefully a semi-retirement right around the corner - fingers crossed), I actually am working a bunch on the car. St. Paddy's day 2021 and 5er West (if & when they take place) are definitely out of the question for this car, so I'm feeling very behind. My mantra is to work on the car at least a little every day - just try to get at least one little thing done every day. We'll see.

Anyhow, my current thinking is to (i) get the trunk refinishing done, (ii) clean up & test the main wiring harness from fuse box to all the various dash connections (prior owners turned that into a rat's nest); and (iii) clean up & repair a few spots on the sound deadening on the floor boards. In theory, that all should be just a few hours of work over a few days, then I'm hoping to go full-speed-ahead on reassembly.

On the trunk, I decided to do that work because there were lots of scratches in various places from just normal use, plus scratches on the inside of the right rear quarter where a dent had gotten PDR'ed out, plus the unpainted sections where I'd repaid prior stereo installation madness. I'd also decided to use the trunk as my opportunity to learn a bit more about automotive painting, so in anticipation of this part of the project I've upgraded my air compressor set up (40 gal 15 cfm compressor plus two filter-dryers plus new couplings) and also gotten a couple of guns from Eastwood. Roger gave me some quick lessons, and I was off to the races.

Here's the trunk right before the first coat of primer. Everything scuffed & sanded, plus I used the rubber wheel to get all the glue off from the felt pad.

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And here's the first coat of primer. The pic looks good, but I didn't do a good job. First, the primer was supposed to be a 4:1:2 mix ("2" being the reducer) and I mixed it 4:1:1. Then, to compound the error, I wasn't anticipating how much ^**#@^@% blow-back I was going to get by shooting 10 cfm into the closed trunk. Yuck. The result was that my gun was spraying too much primer, that was too thick anyhow, from too far away. That gave me a very rough, almost "gravelly" finish. Ugh. So that resulted in another 3 or 4 hours of sanding as I sanded off the bad parts.

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Second try ... this time I practiced with the gun (air but no paint) to figure out what my pattern should be, then mixed the primer right, then set the air flow a bit lower. Eureka! What a huge difference. So, primer is done with a nice smooth complete covering. I'll give this a couple of days, scuff with a bit of 600 grit wet paper, then do a first coat of some nice Schwarz paint!

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Also, FWIW, the difference between rattle-can primer and this three-part automotive primer (it's "Shopline" from PPG) is night & day. So much harder and "stickier" than even good rattle can primer. It sands nicely but you don't burn right through it. Holy cow.

I'm also repainting the hinges, trunk springs & trunk bolts:

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I'm repainting two sets of hinges. One set is brand new BMW, but the two parts are riveted together, so the painting will have "shadows" where the spray can't reach. The other is used out of an '83 car, so the two hinge parts come apart with a clip. That makes the painting easier, but technically it won't be the hinge design that came with the car. I figure I'll paint both sets and see what I like when I reassemble.
Tiit
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by Tiit »

Great read. Thanks for sharing
jhh925
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by jhh925 »

Finally got the first coat of actual black paint on in the trunk. There were at least three prior times when I thought "today's the day," but one little bug or another would pop up its ugly head. The last two were a pair of those little tabs that hold the wiring harness down along the left wheel well. For some reason, they picked separate days to reveal that the metal had fatigued at their roots and were about to break off. I broke them all the way off, sanded off the primer, welded them back and sprayed a bit of new primer. And by then the light was fading and the beer was calling, and spraying real black paint would have to wait another day or three.

This coat wasn't very thick - I definitely didn't "hose" it on. Good news is that I didn't get any runs. Bad news is that at this rate I'll be doing four coats (with sanding in between each one) to get good coverage.

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jhh925
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by jhh925 »

Holy shit ... I've painted my trunk. It's not perfect, but it's a ton better than when I started. And I just looked at the date on the first pics I took when I started working on the trunk: First pics were on November 14th, and I only finished today, December 28th. A month & a half. Yikes.

After the last coat, on closer inspection, there were areas that needed another coat, but also lots of areas that came out just right, and I didn't want to risk ruining them on a respray. So I covered off the good areas, used "back taping" (at least, I think that's what it's called?) at the interfaces and resprayed the areas that needed it.

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I'm very pleased with the results. I had a couple foggy areas I fixed, the interfaces needed blending of course, plus one set of drips, then I buffed everything with some Griot's compound.

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I also separately painted the hinges, torsion springs and bolts. I'm not actually sure you're supposed to paint the bolts while they're off the car? Regardless, I'll give this a try; I assume I'll need to touch them up after they're tightened down.

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The gutter where the trunk seal gets glued in is in good shape (straight, no rust), but the paint is ruined where the glue bit in hard. I can't see any purpose in completely refinishing the gutter, but I do want the paint to be thick & strong enough that the chance of future rust is minimized, so I'll need to work on that.

One of the main reasons I wanted to paint the trunk was to learn a bit about painting. This was my first real go at this, but I feel like this is a decent start. If I were to do this again, here are a few things I'd do differently:
  • I used an Eastwood HVLP touchup gun with a normal gravity feed paint cup. In the confined space of these trunks, I had to nearly turn the gun upside down a few times, This caused all kinds of problems with the pain oozing out of the bleed hole at the top of the cup. Next time (and maybe just in general), I'd use one of those disposable, collapsing cup deals (like the "DeKups" system).
  • I used a gray primer thinking that it would look more like the "original" gray primer this car had under the black paint. Bad decision. That forced me to focus a lot more on getting base coat into lots of little nooks & crannies, which was a waste of time & paint.
  • And if I'd used black primer, it would have made it a lot more obvious early on that it would have been easy to improve the finish in the trunk seal gutter.
  • I should have ground down all the little original factory welding glitches. Lots of spot welds had "splinters" sticking up and there was lots of welding splatter on & near the fender wells. Those welding glitches could have easily been ground off to start, and that wold have made sanding & finishing a lot easier later on.
Next on the list, I think, will be to start in on the braking system.
jhh925
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by jhh925 »

Time for an update. My memory (no doubt through rose-colored lenses) is that it took me a lot longer to dismantle my '87 than it did to put it back together. Logically, that makes no sense.

And sure enough, progress feels much slower this time around. My guess is that's for two reasons: First, I tore this car down further, so cleaning all the little bits & parts up this time is taking longer just cause there are more of them. Second, my impression is that with the S38 motor, there's zero room to maneuver in the engine compartment, so I'm being paranoid about getting as much done in there as possible before I drop the motor back in. One result is that essentially I need to get far enough on the interior work that I'm comfortable putting the carpet in before I can drop the motor back in. The logic there is, coolant hoses & heater control valve before engine, which implies heater core box back in, which means carpet has to go in before heater core, which means all the wiring under the carpet has to be done before the carpet can go back in.

The bummer about having to wait so long to put the motor back in is that I have this big lump on a stand in the corner of the garage taking up a bunch of room. Oh well.

So, progress since last post:

I've cleaned & refurbished the hearer core box. I pressure tested the BEHR core, which seems to be original and in good shape. It's a risk, but I've decided not to replace the core itself. All the foam sealing in the box, though, is a different story. The local hardware store had nice soft 1 x 3/16th inch foam strips, which worked really well around the core, and I found great 1/16th inch adhesive open cell foam on Amazon, which was perfect for the flapper doors. That thin foam will also work well in a number of other applications (dash vents & flappers, fuel pump access cover to name a couple). Some before & after:

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I also decided to tackle the foggy headlight lenses. A couple years ago I found brand new Euro headlight assemblies (lenses, frames, springs, adjusting parts, etc.) but the lenses were thick with that gray off-gassing fog. My approach was to put soapy water in there with clean rice, then gently swirl the slurry with the glass facing down for several minutes to try to gently scrub the fog off. That got it to maybe 90% better in the small lenses & 80% in the large? I then used a sponge with isopropyl alcohol in the large lenses, which improved things more. Before & after:

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Rice cleaning:

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I also riveted in the body-side hood latches in. These were yellow zinc plated a while back, and the rivets are the correct BMW OEM steel rivets. Seeing the latches in place now, I think the "yellow-aluminum finish rivets-black paint" combo isn't great. Oh, well - I'm not going to redo them. I'm hoping that as more stuff gets put back on the car, the bright yellow latches will blend in better.

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On the doors, before I start putting seals, wiring, etc back in, I've spent a bunch of time cleaning them out, making sure all the drain holes are open, adding some sound deadener and trying to refurb some of the bits inside. The effort here is focused on ensuring future weather protection and eliminating rattles. For the sound deadening, I didn't go nuts ... I just put a second larger pad on top of the original. I also added heat shrink tubing over as many of the door latch / lock linkage parts as I could reach. I also pressed new rubber grommets in place of the disintegrating grommets that were there from the factory. I have no expectation that these rubber grommets will stand up to the bearing pressure between the linkage parts, but my hope is that even after the linkage cuts a hole in the rubber, the rest of the grommet will stay in the hole to dampen any rattling.

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I also did my best to clean & buff the door jambs.

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And installed the door bumpers. Can't remember if I said this earlier, but I'm going with chrome euro bumpers and the non-M5 style door trim (with chrome strip, not the M5-style blacked out version) all the way around. For now the plan is to stick with shadow line above the midline - so black trim on all the windows plus black drip rail. We'll see ... I think all these decisions are reversible in the long term.

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Here's a pic of current progress in the engine bay. All new rubber (excluding high pressure hoses that have the banjo bolt ends pressed on - they're all in good shape). New expansion tank. New windshield wiper tank. FCP owes me a Christmas card.

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One current dilemma: The felt pad in the trunk is shot. That's mostly my fault - it caught fire when I welded up the big hole in the bulkhead - live 'n learn. Regardless, I found near perfect replacement material. This is industrial felt with a very similar pattern, identical thickness and wide enough that I can cut the entire piece without any seams. The issue is that the color is wrong. The original is a darker gray and the new stuff is much bluer. And I assume that the original wasn't anywhere near this blue when it was new. Does anyone know of a good source for a better color match? Were there OEM versions of these mats (maybe from different suppliers) where the color actually was this blue?

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EuroShark
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by EuroShark »

What a great thread. You're doing excellent work. There's nothing more beautiful than perfect brand new paint.
cek
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Re: Rebuilding My 1988 US-spec M5

Post by cek »

Awsome work. Go Navy!
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