E12 M535i Project - 08-21-19 Update

[Tammer in Philly]

Wow, just catching up from the last big 8/13 update. Agree with the rest that that sort of setback just really takes the wind out of your sails, but I couldn't help but think, "A B7 turbo at Monterey is not the worst Plan B I can imagine." So there's that.

Kudos for sticking to the "do it right, the way you want, all at once" mentality. When it's done you'll be glad no corners were cut. And you'll have great stories.

[vinceg101]

Wow, just catching up from the last big 8/13 update. Agree with the rest that that sort of setback just really takes the wind out of your sails, but I couldn't help but think, "A B7 turbo at Monterey is not the worst Plan B I can imagine." So there's that.

I'd say so:


Legends Of The Autobahn 2016
First Place, Clean Category

[OcCoupe]

Pickles

[Pavel]

Bummer, Chris. That feeling must suck (been there not to that extent, but i would probably be pretty crossed myself). But it's not worth the stress, down the road once its all fixed up you won't even remember that setback.

[tig]

...you won't even remember that setback.

That got a chuckle out of me; we're talking about Wm. Christopher Kohler here after all. He remembers what underwear OCoupe was wearing on Saturday at the St. Paddy's Day event 3 years ago. He'll remember this.

[oldskool]

I remember he only likes tea from Chik-fil-a.
I'm his biggest fan you schnooderdoodles.

[Sapotorito]

Just reading this update Chris, sorry to hear

[OcCoupe]

As we all know Chris had a significant setback with the engine. An incident like this is enough to make a person throw in the towel. For obvious reasons Chris was very upset and down in the dumps, who wouldn't be? What Chris did next was impressive. Instead of staying home sulking he pulled the B7 Turbo out of mothballs, prepped the car for the haul to Monterey then showed up to take home 1st place in the Clean category at Legends of the Autobahn then he took 1st place in the Concourse Original category at the BMW Octoberfest Concours against a very nice M1!!! I am very proud of Chris for his accolades and for not giving up when things took a turn for the worse. Well done Mr. Kohler!!!

[dsmith]

Trying to restore 3 rare cars to the level of the B7 turbo in a relatively short period of time and limited resources is nothing to sneeze at. Don't burn yourself out. We all want these projects to end well.

I have to believe Chris, Mike B, Mike G., Charlie, Roy, Jim B and many others have helped the rest of us poseurs feel the need to clean, maintain and preserve many more of these cars as a result of posting y'all's efforts. I, for one, had never any intentions of cleaning subframes, engines, diffs etc, until seeing what was possible through this board. Now I often find myself in the garage at night trying to keep up with the Jones!

[white chocolate]

Congrats on the awards Chris! It's no joke to compete at that level and your efforts have paid off, your E12 will be phenomenal when finished.

Also, that B7 never gets old.

[jhh925]

Instead of staying home sulking he pulled the B7 Turbo out of mothballs, prepped the car for the haul to Monterey then showed up to take home 1st place in the Clean category at Legends of the Autobahn then he took 1st place in the Concourse Original category at the BMW Octoberfest Concours against a very nice M1!!! I am very proud of Chris for his accolades and for not giving up when things took a turn for the worse. Well done Mr. Kohler!!!

Impressive! Congrats!

[jhh925]

I have to believe Chris, Mike B, Mike G., Charlie, Roy, Jim B and many others have helped the rest of us poseurs feel the need to clean, maintain and preserve many more of these cars as a result of posting y'all's efforts. I, for one, had never any intentions of cleaning subframes, engines, diffs etc, until seeing what was possible through this board. Now I often find myself in the garage at night trying to keep up with the Jones!

Very, very true. And if it's any consolation, this story has caused me to triple check all my work and redo a couple items I was less than 100% sure of. If it can happen in a project like this ...

[leadphut]

Well done Chris!

[wkohler]

Thanks everyone. This is pretty off-topic for the E12, but whatever. I was pretty disappointed after the failure, but after a lot of thought and back and forth, I decided to suck it up and take the car. I was kinda stressed about the B7 simply because aside from driving it a bit every so often, I hadn't driven it since May 2015. I was concerned since I have put about 10,000 miles on the car with no issues. I went over everything to check it out, brought as many spares as I could reasonably fit and decided to do it. I made the drive to the rental house in Pacific Grove, CA from Phoenix straight through. Left Phoenix at 4:15am and arrived around 7:30 pm to a great hamburger Mr. and Mrs. OcCoupe brought back from dinner for me. I am not sure I've ever slept so well that night.

I had changed my registration for Legends of the Autobahn from M-cars to Clean, since all of the other classes were full. It was a pretty stressful morning since the grass was mostly dead and dew and ash kept falling from the sky, but things worked out. I couldn't park with the Alpinas since no one seemed to know where that was (not the volunteers' fault at all), but I'm glad that didn't happen since I'd have never known they didn't have a score sheet for my car, so I spent some time sorting that out and I'm glad I did. I just wish I had more time to talk to people and see some stuff. It's tough at these events. There were 56 E9s in one place. I didn't get a chance to check them all out. Two 507s and two M1s. Crazy.

I had pretty much written off the O'Fest Concours. I entered Concours Original for the E12, which qualified because I am building a stock car, despite it being a restored one. I guess this counts as a nut and bolt restoration. I had never entered an event where the engine or undercarriage were judged and I started getting worried about offending the judges, so I decided to do the best I could do. I have to say, I couldn't have done it without the help of Vince (vinceg101), Ivo (mostly for pointing out issues - "hmmm") and Doug (photopark). We all worked at getting this thing as clean as we could in the days leading up to the O'Fest Concours. It paid off. I couldn't believe it. I was just trying not to embarrass myself. First place.

Our house did really well this year with Mike taking home top honors from the Coupe class at Legends, and First in Concours Modified in a very tight competition against the cleanest M-coupe I've ever seen. Of course we can't forget Fred Larimer with a second place with his E30 M3 in the clean class he entered.

The next morning, Mike and I headed south via CA-1 around 10am. It was pretty slow-going, which I expected. Time wasn't much of a luxury for me since I had to be home to then go to Tucson for work the next morning. Unfortunately, we hit LA at 5 o'clock. We split up, with Mike heading south and I headed east. Slow going until I got onto I-10. I got home around 2am. The B7 ran great, and even without the AC, its a great car to drive and it isn't hard to do long jaunts behind the wheel. I did similar time behind the wheel in the '75 530i for 5erWest this year but it was harder work for sure.

Of course, I should probably talk about the E12.

At this point, the head is off the motor.


The cam seizure was at the second journal.




Oh, and here's where it broke:


Four pistons have dings in them.








The head from the donor motor is at the machine shop. We're waiting for the timing cover to come back from California where it's being refinished, then the head will be surfaced with the cover on it. Have to get the coating on the head once that's done. Hopefully sometime this week, they're going to put the car up in the air, drop the subframe again and inspect the rod and main bearings. Of course, as I said before, we aren't on my schedule right now.

[Adam W in MN]

I hate to see those gouges to new pistons, and the head carnage. Is the original head damaged beyond repair?

[dukmon]

Great job and wonderful car. - Chip

[wkohler]

I hate to see those gouges to new pistons, and the head carnage. Is the original head damaged beyond repair?

From what I'm being told, it could theoretically be repaired but would likely seize again someday, though I'm not sure how real of a possibility that is if there's lubrication.

[austin8753]

Glad you are moving forward with the project, Chris.

[wkohler]

It's been a while. The car has been away for a little over three months. I've tried to put the car out of my mind for much of that time. I didn't think it would be easy, but I had been so busy following my return from Monterey. Work from both jobs really picked up and things became much more complicated with one of them. Turned out it was easier than I thought.

Anyway, it took over a month to find that the replacement head was junk. It had multiple cracks and the coolant chambers were corroded. So, I looked around a bit for a 1980 M90 head and nothing suitable showed up. I thought about a 533 head but it needed to be the right 1980 head. Looking at my original head and the cam journal, we started looking at what we could do to repair it. Because of the second head, we never talked to the machinist about repairing the original head. I drove it over to him with the broken cam and a replacement cam and explained what happened. Looked at the possibilities of repairing the journal and since the damage had extended past the oil hole, he wasn't keen on it. He said that there might be a bearing he could make fit if they didn't make them already. He had his parts guy look through the catalogs from their suppliers to see if there was anything. If not, then he could find something close and modify it to fit. That would take some time on the research though. Great. I was thinking So Cal Vintage might be a possibility here but unlikely since I had no time to do anything on my own and didn't have the car. Either way, I'd give it a shot if I could get a head.

So, I am one of the lucky people that has Google access, so I used my special login credentials and used the terms "BMW M30 cam repair" and the first image result that showed up was for a set of bearings used to repair the cam journals in an M30 head. Super. I called the machine shop and gave them in the info. He said that they couldn't find anything so this was good. I gave them the part numbers for all of the manufacturers cross-referenced in the ad and he checked one of his suppliers and they had them in stock. Great.

I was happy that we could save the original head this way along with all of the previous machine work and the very expensive coating I had applied to it.

Another month went by for some reason. No update. No SoCal Vintage for E12 M535i.

Finally, last week after periodically checking in, we finally got good news that a completed head should be done by the end of the week. Alex picked it up on Friday.



Repair was made to the second journal (obviously). Alex assembled the head and he said he'd work on it Monday. He was going to put it together and then hand it off to me to get it started, which I figured would work this time. He got started pretty late on Monday, so not much in the way of progress. He got the head installed and torqued, but he had to put the rest of it together, which he did today. He had to leave early, but I had planned ahead and was already out in the area for work, so I dropped by and it was pretty much back together. Alex had already confirmed oil pressure by cranking with the valve cover off.



I had been concerned that since I wasn't focused on the car and hadn't been under the hood in some time that I wouldn't really be on top of what went where, but it came back pretty quickly.



I was pretty smart when I left the car initially and put everything back the way it was supposed to be rather than leaving wires running everywhere for troubleshooting. Obviously, not everything is 100% since the valve cover has to come off again for the final torque.

I went over everything to make sure it's as it should be, but for a few minutes, I was the only one in the shop, so I waited for someone to come back just in case. The exhaust isn't back on the car yet so I didn't want to risk blowing something up for some reason.



^That is a video. Click the thing.

So, it's a running car now. Wednesday, exhaust should go on, then it needs to run for a while, retorque the head and then it's mine again.

[bkbimmer]

Congrats, it looks gorgeous. I'm proud of you sir!

[tig]

Glad it's come back together, Chris! Congrats.

[hugh1850]

[CSBM5]

Sweet!! Wow, absolutely amazing.

[duggi]

This is one of the few build-threads I've really kept-up on -- didn't expect to feel so happy for you when I saw the video of it running. Congrats Chris!

[Adam W in MN]

Thanks for the text last night, I'm excited that you're moving right along here!

[tschultz]

Great, you will really enjoy all of the hard work that has gone into this one!

Plus as you know, there is so much more satisfaction in the end result when you have been able to overcome the trials and tribulations of the build!

Once you get it back together and worn in, I am interested to hear your thoughts on the M90/dogleg combination as compared to the euro b34/dogleg. I am pretty sure there is a difference in the low end torque but I am certainly curious.

[Adam W in MN]

So what's next on your to-do list?

[strupgolf]

After reading all you went through, its nice to see it's getting better. Good luck from here on.

[wkohler]

Thanks.

Wednesday, the exhaust went on and the final torque sequence for the head was performed. Came back to me on a tow truck on Thursday. I haven't done much to it other than wipe it down since it did sit in the shop for three months. Amazingly it seems to be in pretty good shape after that.

Anyway, since I had to unfortunately remove the airdam to have the car towed (I didn't have another eyebolt yet for the factory tow hook - my original was severely bent and while it's been straightened, I would never trust it for actual use), I had to reinstall it. I was particularly upset by this because I installed it before putting the radiator in to make it easy. It is a pain to install otherwise. In fact, it took me a little over 2 hours to get all of the fasteners in place. Access is abysmal with the oil cooler installed. I decided to install it since I was sick of looking at it in the living room and it belongs on the car anyway.

I also put the new wheels on. I'd rather have them on the car than in a stack in the garage. Since all of this was done at night, I didn't take any photos. It rained much of today, so I didn't do any other work on the car, but during a break from the rain, I did roll it out and took a couple of photos showing how it sits now. We haven't seen much of the exterior of the car lately, so now is as good a time as any.







It's sitting pretty high right now. I hope the interior and front and rear glass weighs more than I'm envisioning. Everything else is in the car.

I've also been working with my upholsterer doing some tweaking here and there. It's been a difficult process, but we are making progress.

[austin8753]

Looks fantastic, Chris. Thanks for sharing.