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(This might be a little long winded for some of you, if your not into stories, which may or may not be poorly told, feel free to skip it lol.
Hey guys! Ive had my e28 since July, so i guess i'll start a build thread for it. A real slow one. Becuz i R broke. Anyway, i've been stationed in hawaii in the usmc for 1 month shy of 2 years now, and it's damn hard to find reasonably priced older BMW's here that are still in good condition. Years of exposure to the sea spray without regular washes and the fact that the sun is 10x as intense here rusts a lot of them out and eats through clear coat (on newer cars, the single stage paint of the older cars is kind of nice to have here actually). I had plans to go home on leave in July (unbeknownst to my friends and family lolololol) and i was about a week out from leaving to go home, and was starting to wonder if i'd ever find a clean example of a Schwarz 535/533 while i live here when it hit me, why not look around in Pa (Lancaster area is where im from) to see if i could pick one up while im home? If i buy it cheap enough i could still pay the 2k to have it shipped and spend half of what it would cost me to buy a nice one in hawaii! So i hopped on craigslist and BAM within 10 minutes i saw an 83 Schwarz 533i in New Jersey that had just been listed a few days prior. I immediately gave the owner a call. He had two e28's for sale, the 533i was listed for 1500, i went out on a limb and told him that i had 1000 cash in hand to spend and that i was going to be home on leave in a few days, and that if the car matched the description and the pictures in the post that id drive it home the morning after i arrived in PA. He said that he had been in the airforce "back in the day" and that as long as i was serious about the car he had no problem holding the car for me until i got home, i thought that was pretty cool. I also asked if he would play along with my father calling to inquire about picking the car up for me since my dad didnt know i was coming home and he thought HE was the one that had to come pick it up on the 1st of July
. He agreed and i waited. I went home, surprised the shit out of my parents by romping my best friends Wrangler into our back yard while they were cooking burgers after a near 2 year absence, woke up the following morning handed the man the cash with a big grin on my face (and my dads) and drove it home. Kind of wish i would have bought the 528 as well because it was even cleaner and he sold it for less than i payed for the 533 
this is what it looked like when i picked it up
Drove it over to a friends house to surprise him as well, and gave it its first wash alongside his Outback
Upon closer inspection i realized the black coating on the 14" BBS was just plasti-dip so i sprayed it off and found the wheels to be in mint condition, god i love what a little contrast can do on a black car!
Went to Dust Off with some friends, there were some SERIOUSLY cool cars there. Also smashed my pan on the way back
Tried to install a valve cover i bought at dustoff, disappointingly enough it didnt fit the m30b32 which apparently is like the only later m30 model that has a different valve cover
it ended in my friend Dawson balancing on the M30
Took it to the Susquehanna river to jump off of cliffs, stumbled across a sweet VR swapped Cabby in the process
Visited my good friend Neil (BabyKito on here) the owner of Urban Werks in lancaster and snapped a picture of Matt Strausbaugh's (@fattvwmatt) gorgeous MK2
AND i found one of my old #teambuttsluts stickers, i miss those days
Before i had to leave to go back to hawaii (and reality) i had Red Run exhaust make me a full 2.5" stainless exhaust with a new cat and a big ol' resonator and 3" tips, dont have pictures of when that was done but whatever. Also raised the front end about 3/4" and installed a Sump Armor skidplate which is a seriously heavy duty item. Now we skip a few months, before i shipped it out here i wanted to have the few small rust spots repaired and a full paint correction done, so a long time friend of mine and my fathers Joe who owns Joes Auto Body on route 10 (whom i highly recommend) took care of the little hole in the rocker and Neil Maser over at Urban Werks did a full detail and paint correction on the paint, in the process Neil noticed that the paint on the front end was likely a respray from an accident but that the rest of the paint was original, or at least was mostly likely original so that was nice. Also had that ghastly pitch black tint removed. (photo credit to Denis Podmarkov @_dpod_
Fast forward a few more months, i realized that the shipping orders i obtained for my 98 subaru rs when i originally came out here were still valid, so i set up a power of attorney and all the necessary paperwork and my ever helpful parents dropped it off for shipment for me in early November, at this point i was going through some serious withdraws without having a car to drive or tinker with since july 21st
after a lot of waiting it arrived here in hawaii December 14th (just in time for christmas, so merry christmas to me i guess)
This was my first time seeing the car since the paint correction done by Urban Werks and i must say it looks like a whole new car, my friend that picked it up for me had told me that it looked like they repainted the car and he was NOT kidding. Gave it a wash, and installed the roof rack i had on my e30 previously and stared at it for like an hour at least. Unfortunately, the shipping company doesnt know how to secure a car on a trailer or a boat and also doesnt know how to drive lowered cars ( cant really blame them for that one) so it showed up with the bumper pushed in on one side and my rear exhaust manifold snapped clean in half. So, i filed an insurance claim. They tried to give me 148$. so since they wanted to act stupid i rolled on down to BMW of Honolulu (such a baller dealership) and got a quote for a new bumper, rubber molding and bumper shock as well as a new exhaust manifold with all necessary gaskets and fasters. The quote ended up being around 2000$ which is what i expected all those parts to cost brand new from germany i sent in my written rebuttal with the scanned quote from bmw and they changed their tune rather fast, offering 500, not wanting to be too greedy i took it. Bought a used manifold from Ken at Hawaii Vintage Workshop for 20$ pulled on the bumper until the bumper shock sprung back out like its supposed to and installed the new (to me) manifold. This is what the old one looked like when i removed it (yes i work on my car barefoot sometimes dont judge me it wasnt even in the air... for long.. Shortly afterwards i tucked the front bumper to match the rear as well.
Drove it to Ward Stadium 16 near Waikiki to see Star Wars (which was fantastic)
and took it out cruising with some friends to Giovanni's Shrimp Truck on North Shore, @tcrazyhi took some sweet pictures of it even though my kidney grills went mysteriously missing, pretty sure they were stolen which sounds weird but that kind of shit happens here
[URL=http://s1082.photobucket.com/user/Fastadams/media/IMG_8084_zps3ogsgzef.jpg.html]
[/URL
And that brings us to this past weekend, bought and installed a momo coarse spline hub adapter so i could finally run the 4 spoke Italvolanti ive had sitting in my room for like 7 months.
The new kidney grills arrive tomorrow, and hopefully ill be trading the shadowline bumpers (i use that term very loosely since they are just spray painted) for some decent chrome ones next weekend. After that the replacement high beam for my euro lights should be arriving from europe so i can finish restoring those and install them. Its gonna be a good month/year i think! For those of you that actually read this, your all troopers.
Hey guys! Ive had my e28 since July, so i guess i'll start a build thread for it. A real slow one. Becuz i R broke. Anyway, i've been stationed in hawaii in the usmc for 1 month shy of 2 years now, and it's damn hard to find reasonably priced older BMW's here that are still in good condition. Years of exposure to the sea spray without regular washes and the fact that the sun is 10x as intense here rusts a lot of them out and eats through clear coat (on newer cars, the single stage paint of the older cars is kind of nice to have here actually). I had plans to go home on leave in July (unbeknownst to my friends and family lolololol) and i was about a week out from leaving to go home, and was starting to wonder if i'd ever find a clean example of a Schwarz 535/533 while i live here when it hit me, why not look around in Pa (Lancaster area is where im from) to see if i could pick one up while im home? If i buy it cheap enough i could still pay the 2k to have it shipped and spend half of what it would cost me to buy a nice one in hawaii! So i hopped on craigslist and BAM within 10 minutes i saw an 83 Schwarz 533i in New Jersey that had just been listed a few days prior. I immediately gave the owner a call. He had two e28's for sale, the 533i was listed for 1500, i went out on a limb and told him that i had 1000 cash in hand to spend and that i was going to be home on leave in a few days, and that if the car matched the description and the pictures in the post that id drive it home the morning after i arrived in PA. He said that he had been in the airforce "back in the day" and that as long as i was serious about the car he had no problem holding the car for me until i got home, i thought that was pretty cool. I also asked if he would play along with my father calling to inquire about picking the car up for me since my dad didnt know i was coming home and he thought HE was the one that had to come pick it up on the 1st of July
. He agreed and i waited. I went home, surprised the shit out of my parents by romping my best friends Wrangler into our back yard while they were cooking burgers after a near 2 year absence, woke up the following morning handed the man the cash with a big grin on my face (and my dads) and drove it home. Kind of wish i would have bought the 528 as well because it was even cleaner and he sold it for less than i payed for the 533 this is what it looked like when i picked it up 
Drove it over to a friends house to surprise him as well, and gave it its first wash alongside his Outback
Upon closer inspection i realized the black coating on the 14" BBS was just plasti-dip so i sprayed it off and found the wheels to be in mint condition, god i love what a little contrast can do on a black car!
Went to Dust Off with some friends, there were some SERIOUSLY cool cars there. Also smashed my pan on the way back
Tried to install a valve cover i bought at dustoff, disappointingly enough it didnt fit the m30b32 which apparently is like the only later m30 model that has a different valve cover
it ended in my friend Dawson balancing on the M30 
Took it to the Susquehanna river to jump off of cliffs, stumbled across a sweet VR swapped Cabby in the process
Visited my good friend Neil (BabyKito on here) the owner of Urban Werks in lancaster and snapped a picture of Matt Strausbaugh's (@fattvwmatt) gorgeous MK2
AND i found one of my old #teambuttsluts stickers, i miss those days
Before i had to leave to go back to hawaii (and reality) i had Red Run exhaust make me a full 2.5" stainless exhaust with a new cat and a big ol' resonator and 3" tips, dont have pictures of when that was done but whatever. Also raised the front end about 3/4" and installed a Sump Armor skidplate which is a seriously heavy duty item. Now we skip a few months, before i shipped it out here i wanted to have the few small rust spots repaired and a full paint correction done, so a long time friend of mine and my fathers Joe who owns Joes Auto Body on route 10 (whom i highly recommend) took care of the little hole in the rocker and Neil Maser over at Urban Werks did a full detail and paint correction on the paint, in the process Neil noticed that the paint on the front end was likely a respray from an accident but that the rest of the paint was original, or at least was mostly likely original so that was nice. Also had that ghastly pitch black tint removed. (photo credit to Denis Podmarkov @_dpod_
Fast forward a few more months, i realized that the shipping orders i obtained for my 98 subaru rs when i originally came out here were still valid, so i set up a power of attorney and all the necessary paperwork and my ever helpful parents dropped it off for shipment for me in early November, at this point i was going through some serious withdraws without having a car to drive or tinker with since july 21st
after a lot of waiting it arrived here in hawaii December 14th (just in time for christmas, so merry christmas to me i guess)
This was my first time seeing the car since the paint correction done by Urban Werks and i must say it looks like a whole new car, my friend that picked it up for me had told me that it looked like they repainted the car and he was NOT kidding. Gave it a wash, and installed the roof rack i had on my e30 previously and stared at it for like an hour at least. Unfortunately, the shipping company doesnt know how to secure a car on a trailer or a boat and also doesnt know how to drive lowered cars ( cant really blame them for that one) so it showed up with the bumper pushed in on one side and my rear exhaust manifold snapped clean in half. So, i filed an insurance claim. They tried to give me 148$.
so since they wanted to act stupid i rolled on down to BMW of Honolulu (such a baller dealership) and got a quote for a new bumper, rubber molding and bumper shock as well as a new exhaust manifold with all necessary gaskets and fasters. The quote ended up being around 2000$ which is what i expected all those parts to cost brand new from germany i sent in my written rebuttal with the scanned quote from bmw and they changed their tune rather fast, offering 500, not wanting to be too greedy i took it. Bought a used manifold from Ken at Hawaii Vintage Workshop for 20$ pulled on the bumper until the bumper shock sprung back out like its supposed to and installed the new (to me) manifold. This is what the old one looked like when i removed it (yes i work on my car barefoot sometimes dont judge me it wasnt even in the air... for long.. Shortly afterwards i tucked the front bumper to match the rear as well.
Drove it to Ward Stadium 16 near Waikiki to see Star Wars (which was fantastic)
and took it out cruising with some friends to Giovanni's Shrimp Truck on North Shore, @tcrazyhi took some sweet pictures of it even though my kidney grills went mysteriously missing, pretty sure they were stolen which sounds weird but that kind of shit happens here
[URL=http://s1082.photobucket.com/user/Fastadams/media/IMG_8084_zps3ogsgzef.jpg.html]
[/URL
And that brings us to this past weekend, bought and installed a momo coarse spline hub adapter so i could finally run the 4 spoke Italvolanti ive had sitting in my room for like 7 months.
The new kidney grills arrive tomorrow, and hopefully ill be trading the shadowline bumpers (i use that term very loosely since they are just spray painted) for some decent chrome ones next weekend. After that the replacement high beam for my euro lights should be arriving from europe so i can finish restoring those and install them. Its gonna be a good month/year i think! For those of you that actually read this, your all troopers.
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