Logical Insanity, BMW E28

[Breakfast]

Looks like a great pickup, lovely cloth sport interior.

Just get a rubber plug to put over the antenna hole.

A piece of aluminum tape (put on from the inside of the quarter panel) with some touch up paint dabbed over the top of the hole makes a water tight temporary seal.

I did exactly this. But then I decided I needed an antenna after-all.



Went to tune up my great sounding Pioneer radio with JBL speakers at the back and promptly came to 2 quite sad realizations.
First - the radio is not actually connected to antenna wires in the trunk. So there's a either a faulty wire somewhere or it's simply not been plugged in.
Second - two out of four speakers at the back do not have the actual... speakers in them. Weird. Thankfully I have real good speakers in my old Peugeot 206 that I can put in.

dont redo the interior i love that!

omg... such interior.

Man that interior is crisp.

Well. I do like the interior myself, but I think I can redo them in classic colors that are very close to what I have now. The problem with the current ones is something I couldn't photograph in bright sun we had. There are spots here and there that's impossible to clean most likely there from years of something laying on there making the spots brighter than everything around them.
[edit]
Found a picture I took before they were washed. You can see the thing I was talking about.I was then hoping I could get rid of it, but it won't come out.



Some more interior bits.






That all said, I found a bunch (except the last one that I simply forgot to mention) problems and added them to fix list.

- Fix the tachometer
- Fix the main generator
- Fix the starter
- Fix the fog lights
- Get a decent clutch stick

Tachometer died on me. Along with that the speedometer died for about 2 hours as well but came back to life this morning again. I have no god damn idea where to even start with that. Will need to spend some time googling this later. Temperature/fuel meter dead too.

I was going through the city to garage yesterday's morning and the power just decided to disappear every other minute. In hindsight, I had everything on - heater, radio, headlights - apparently too much. One of the times I was losing power I randomly decided to turn off headlights and the torque was back. Switched everything off, turned on day lights and cruised further without a problem. Somewhat of a big deal. Ugh.

Starter seems to be on the way to being dead too. It can somewhat wait for now since it's getting increasingly warmer, but I would rather not get stranded somewhere randomly.

Having the problem with the generator, I decided it would be ok to use fog lights only. Turned them on - nothing.
Thought the wiring is fucked for them as well with the anti-rust bullshit liquid being sprayed EVERYWHERE. Took them out, realized they aren't even connected. Connected the cables, turned them on - one of them was working fine. The other - there were no light at all inside. Gonna buy a bulb.

Lastly, I need a clutch stick. An easy fix really, but I'm undecided on the design I want to look for. It's a short-shift gearbox so getting something huge is probably not only no classy, but also impractical.


There's good news too. I rented a Karcher over the weekend and cleaned the floor and seats as well as the floor of the trunk.




(potato pics)



This was coming out of the Karcher when woorking on the seats. My bet is that it has never been washed ever.



Also did something as anal as this. (even though I can't use the heater atm hehe)




And this



To end this overlong post, I went out of the city to friend's lake house. And took a picture (potatoish) of grandson with his grandpa. Love it.

[Breakfast]

It has been getting quite warm and nice lately. Somehow the vehicle seemed to be running better. Even the generator didn't die on me last couple of days.
Then yesterday a massive snow storm hit the country by surprise. I will most likely be forced to drive my Mitsu until the salt is off the roads, which by my estimation could be up to 2 weeks.

Sucks.

Mostly because I filled my garage with junk for the summer not expecting for the car to go in there for next 9 months, Also the generator problem might come back and some of the work that could be done on the beamer during this off-time will not be all that fun outside in the snow.

Anyway. There was water getting into the trunk whenever I washed the thing. I assumed it's from the antenna whole I didn't do properly. Turns out, that wasn't it.

The rubber around the left rear lamp was completely deteriorated.



Cleaned it all off and put a new one on. (and forgot to take the pic)
Will check on it tomorrow. Since it's all covered in snow I might have a trunkload of snow in it.

Other than that I tuned my speakers so the center of the sound isn't at the back. They sound awesome! I have never been a huge subwoofer kind of guy and I think I will not be getting one for now even though there's a lot of space for it.

I'm yet to put in the speakers in the missing slots (in plans tomorrow) so it can only get better.



Aside for that I have been searching local "craigslist" for a new wheel and more importantly - the gear knob.
Having real trouble choosing between M-Tech 1 and M-Tech 2 steering wheels.
I honestly don't dig the looks of M-Tech 1 that much, but the M-Tech 2 seems to be too modern for e28. Looks somewhat odd to have the next generation steering wheel in it.
I do realize that one of the classic Nardi's would fit very well, but that's out of my current price range.
Any other good steering wheel options for keeping-it-classy vehicle?

Then comes the gear-knob. Again the options are seemingly limitless, yet I'm stuck thinking about what style would fit the best. Any suggestions would be appreciated.




Took a bunch of pictures of it during the week.
The first of the bunch. Will upload the rest tomorrow.



And went to my buddy's caffe near the Old-Town.



Gonna try to make an update tomorrow. New fog lights and addtional speakers INC!

[96E36]

Oh my word, this is amazing. I can't wait to see what you have in store for it! Keep it up man!

[Breakfast]

Not a whole lot to update for now. Been working on rear speaker setup. Whoever worked on the entire rear shelf messed it up good. Should be done by the weekend. Will see how it turns out.

Took out the speakers from my old Sony's Xplods. Thankfully they fit perfectly.




Gave them a quick clean



And started working on actually fitting them into place. Made a little pedestal for them to help in making room for them at the back.




Painted it black, twice. Let it sit for the night. Gonna varnish them tomorrow.


Besides that, put in the front fog lights and realized that E28 doesn't look all that great with just the foggies on. Well, at least I have them.

Also for the longest time I could not figure out what was wrong with the rear of the car. Something was just... off. Just didn't look right.



Finally, I came to a conclusion that (apart from the off-center exhaust, which I'm yet to figure out how to deal with) it's the chrome on the tail light borders.
Having the shadowline on the sides of the car makes it (in my opinion) look weird to have chromed tail lights. I'm worried that painting chrome straight up might lead to crap results.
Gonna sleep on this.


OH GAWD ALL THIS BLAH-BLAH ABOUT HALF DONE SHIT SPEAKERS???!?

Alright, alright.
Since I can't drive it for now anyway, I worked on some pictures.
















That said, still looking for suitable wheels for this thing. Almost pulled a trigger on ACS Type 2 replicas () last night, but stopped myself. Getting pressured hard into safe choice of BBS Style 5's by a friend or two.


/brekky

[Breakfast]

Not a stance-work just yet.

It's been a while since the last post. Bunch of things have been done, but not a whole lot.

Front grill had some visible wear on it. Took it off and refurbished it in great amateur fashion.









///M symbol has been dazed too, but it will have to wait for a while.










Soon after the last post installed another set of wear speakers.







Been looking through options for a sub in the trunk. Have not decided on one particular one just yet though.

Made a gear knob out of red oak. Still need to put additional layers of lacquer on it and install it.




Couple weeks later went ahead and brought my cute little wheels to polish.
Took off the factory powder-paint and went to town.







Took some effort to polish all three instead of regular two planes.





Looks ridiculously pathetic near my bud's wheels.

Nevertheless quite pleased with the results.

Mounted them back on the same tires. With no funds for Air Lift for now low profile tires would make the whole package look silly.



Gonna continue searching for the right wheels, but for now this will do.


Also bought a M-tech Style 1 steering wheel. Been sitting in my trunk for a while now waiting to be refurbished.




And a bunch of pictures I took yesterday.










That is all for now.
Next on the list is taking off the front lip and making it shine.

[Maerius]

I love E28!
Maybe my next car will be an E28!
Love to read more about your build.

[Tarmac180sx]

looking great so far keep it up!

[Breakfast]

Find of a day.
These were sitting in someone's grandfather's garage for 6 years. Other than spiderwebs and a ton of dust, they are in near perfect factory condition. Apparently used to sit on an E12.

Ad pictures.












Friend of mine found them on local craigslist and woke me up immediately. (nothing like a good wheel offer to clear a hangover)

Made the trip and brought them home.








If everything goes as planned, they should be mounted by the end of summer. Still need to find a decent coilover or bag ride option before mounting these. Gonna restore them way sooner though.

Also

Long-term plans:
- ....
- ....
- Get wheels that aren’t boring BBS RS’s
- ....
- ....

God damnit.

[Jamo_]

You know those are TRX wheels right?

[99sil-teg]

Love the attention to detail and the cleaning up, can't wait to see the progress!

[Rob_]

Wow, this looks good man, keep up the good work!

[Breakfast]

Alright, so this has been on hold for way too long.

No photos to make this more interesting, but a couple things have happened.

Got locked out of the car. Had to completely destroy the locks to get back in.
A bird played with a rock on the roof. Scratched the entire thing.
And... ye, that's about that.

Got a line on an air suspension kit that's legal to run down here and doesn't cost a fortune. It's manual management though which is somewhat disappointing but will have to do.

Been looking for lips and barrels for my RS's. And while doing that been slowly more and more moving away from the idea of owning an E28 with RS wheels.
I have been in love with OZ Breytons since I first discovered the wheel set on some random E36 I saw on the internet. It is a way more aggressive set of wheels when compared to RSes. And since my E28 has shadowline I'm somewhat inclined to go "bad" over "classic" look.

So here is the problem.
There is already a popular E28 that has the colors I once envisioned to work together very well.
Kevin's E28 - http://puu.sh/gaxgu/7a49af761e.jpg
I am now looking for alternate color combos that would look good on a shadowline (because there honestly aren't many) that wouldn't make the car look like a "cheap missile".
Anyone has any idea what color wheels would go good with "Tieffgrun" ( http://puu.sh/gay2k/3b1592b477.jpg ) ?

Other than that, I bought a Pfeba front valance today and been trying to decide whether to get a Deep Corn Nardi steering wheel or regular classic one.
Decisions are killing me.

Any opinions on all of this much appreciated.

[P78]

dude really?

if you can get your fingers between the door sills you can just pry them open (thats how i saved my friends ass a couple of times)

[FowlerE30]

This car was a beautiful fucking find...

[Breakfast]

dude really?

if you can get your fingers between the door sills you can just pry them open (thats how i saved my friends ass a couple of times)

Not sure what to answer to this. Wish I had time to post here for tips at the time. Was somewhat in a hurry in the middle of the street.