New 20-year old daily driver

[ElFenix]

E39, great car, or greatest car?

 

[repoman0]

Replaced the dashboard today ... that was a massive pain in the ass. I should have taken a before, during and after pic but I don't have that kind of patience. Old leather dash was stretching and pulling and generally looked terrible around the vents, and is now out soaking on my driveway in the rain. The used one I replaced it with looks brand new. Pretty much an all day job though probably half the time was spent searching for lost tools and taking things apart that I just put back together due to forgotten screws ... no extra screws laying on the ground in the end though, which is always the main concern ...

 

[mopardude87]

I would be content driving this or a black on black 1968 charger rt with a 440 or 426 hemi. Wouldn't matter if i had billions of dollars, i would only drive these two. The Fury for cruises and the charger when i wanna get nasty. The Fury would have to have a 392 hemi under the hood with dual carbs just like in the movie. Maybe upgrade them to Holly double pumper 750 cfm over what i think is a carter bbd version i think. Maybe a dana60 rear end upgrade to really wake it up over stock, i believe it bolts right to it. 🙂 With mods to drive shaft of course .

 

[repoman0]

Replaced all my power steering hydraulic hoses + fluid flush along with front brakes and brake/clutch fluid flush last weekend .. there was a minor ATF leak from the PS hydraulic system, front brakes were at 2mm, and brake fluid tested at 2% H2O. This weekend replaced valve cover gaskets on both sides to stop a slow oil leak from the front grommets. That was a much larger job than I expected, coming from BMW inline 6 engines where that's a trivial job. 15 bolts to remove the intake manifold cover, 16 to remove the 8 velocity stacks, 30+ish to remove the lower intake manifold, 14 more on each side to remove coil packs, grounds and wiring rail, and finally 11 on each side to remove the valve covers. 100+ bolts and nuts in all and I somehow didn't drop any into the engine bay on removal or replacement. And since they crammed a 5L V8 into an engine bay designed for a 3L I6, the valve covers are a massive PITA to get back on with the new gaskets in place.

I also replaced MAF sensors on both sides because I lost power and misfired in third gear at 5640 RPM (according to the ECU) last week accelerating after an on-ramp. Plugs are new, coils don't really go bad in multiple cylinders at once, so old air flow sensors were my first guess. I think I guessed right because it now feels like what I expect 400 HP/370 ft*lbs to feel like in a relatively light car, compared to modern cars at least. Much faster and smoother than it was, honestly kind of a surprise out of a 20-year old sedan. No oil leaks out of the valve cover either when I got home 🙄

Next quarantine project is front and rear control arms and bushings all around, with monoballs in the thrust arms. I got a nice new 1/2 inch CDI torque wrench out of it since my 3/8 doesn't go up to 190 ft*lbs, and also picked up a 1/2 inch impact to take off some of those giant bolts.

 

[rstrohkirch]

New control arms and bushings but not struts? We're they already replaced recently? Bilstein B8 struts/shocks are pretty reasonable for that vehicle.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Very nice! Congrats on a very sweet ride and the pooch.

Funny you mention the front license plate, I recently bought a new-to-me Mercedes-Benz AMG C63 Cabriolet and the dealer not only drilled the front license plate mount into the front bumper but they then attached the temporary tag, a paper plate and their stupid free advertisement license plate frame, by screwing it through the license plate mount with screws that were too long so now I have four holes in my front bumper... idiots.

I have a half inch CDI torque wrench, it is a nice tool! I bought it to torque the rear wheel nut on my Ducati, it requires 240nm to properly secure it.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I've never been a big BMW fan, but that's probably my favorite car they've ever made. Weirdly, I feel like the styling hasn't aged quite as well as I thought (I remember liking BMW styling of that time more than Audi, but I think I feel the opposite today, mostly because I feel like the clean styling with the overall shape was a bit better on the Audis, while the BMWs still had a bit more of the 80s/90s shape as seen around the C pillar for instance). I wish modern BMW could style something that cleanly combined with the more swoopy modern shape of cars. Seems like no one does though. Mazda kinda was getting there but they're quickly getting a bit ridiculous again (but we'll see how the new 6 turns out, it could be an all time great and a modern spirit of that old German RWD+I6 spirit).

Hopefully BMW might be like Porsche and offer an updated stereo to offer some of their good older cars with modern features (Android/iOS car stuff namely). It'd probably be the one thing I'd do to a car like that (which I've had to fight the urge to impulse buy some of the fairly nice shape early 2000s Boxsters that are now quite reasonably priced - I'm guessing because they might start be needing some significant ~100k mile maintenance which probably won't be cheap? now that Porsche did that and so I wouldn't have to mess with third party head units and janky installs that a lot of places seem to do).

 

[darkswordsman17]

Double post.

 

[repoman0]

New control arms and bushings but not struts? We're they already replaced recently? Bilstein B8 struts/shocks are pretty reasonable for that vehicle.

I thought about it, but they seem pretty serviceable still. No leaks and no bounciness, and still nice and tight in corners despite the worn bushings. Normally I’d go with the full overhaul but the car has gotten a lot of (expensive) love lately and I’d like to make the shocks/struts work a little longer.

Bilsteins are great but probably not what I’m looking for in this car, when I replace I’ll probably go with OE. I looked into B8s after reading this and seems like they need different springs to not raise the car up.

Very nice! Congrats on a very sweet ride and the pooch.

Funny you mention the front license plate, I recently bought a new-to-me Mercedes-Benz AMG C63 Cabriolet and the dealer not only drilled the front license plate mount into the front bumper but they then attached the temporary tag, a paper plate and their stupid free advertisement license plate frame, by screwing it through the license plate mount with screws that were too long so now I have four holes in my front bumper... idiots.

I have a half inch CDI torque wrench, it is a nice tool! I bought it to torque the rear wheel nut on my Ducati, it requires 240nm to properly secure it.

Thanks! Yeah, this is my third CDI, love the 1/4 and 3/8 inch ones. Apparently they’re an OEM for Snap-on.

I read your thread as well, congrats on that new ride. Similar cars in spirit at least. I was surprised how little power and torque is increased on that bad boy compared to an old N/A S62, but it somehow seems to translate into much faster acceleration!

I've never been a big BMW fan, but that's probably my favorite car they've ever made. Weirdly, I feel like the styling hasn't aged quite as well as I thought (I remember liking BMW styling of that time more than Audi, but I think I feel the opposite today, mostly because I feel like the clean styling with the overall shape was a bit better on the Audis, while the BMWs still had a bit more of the 80s/90s shape as seen around the C pillar for instance). I wish modern BMW could style something that cleanly combined with the more swoopy modern shape of cars. Seems like no one does though. Mazda kinda was getting there but they're quickly getting a bit ridiculous again (but we'll see how the new 6 turns out, it could be an all time great and a modern spirit of that old German RWD+I6 spirit).

Hopefully BMW might be like Porsche and offer an updated stereo to offer some of their good older cars with modern features (Android/iOS car stuff namely). It'd probably be the one thing I'd do to a car like that (which I've had to fight the urge to impulse buy some of the fairly nice shape early 2000s Boxsters that are now quite reasonably priced - I'm guessing because they might start be needing some significant ~100k mile maintenance which probably won't be cheap? now that Porsche did that and so I wouldn't have to mess with third party head units and janky installs that a lot of places seem to do).

E39s definitely look like old cars to me, and even looked old when I was shopping for my first car in 2012 (went with an E46 330i). I like the styling of it a lot more now than I did then, and don’t mind that it’s a bit boxy and doesn’t stand out more than any other old car to most people. My other car has aged a lot better IMO for a 20-year old design:



Agree about the head unit, if BMW designed and sold one with CarPlay that looks stock (for the time period) and functions well, they would sell a ton of them regardless of price.