Oskar makes a comeback

[indycar89]

I've owned Oskar since 1988 and I'm the second owner of the 533i.

Oskar in happier times:



Oskar was my daily driver for a decade or more. Despite the addition of a new Metric Mechanic 3.7 up front, the tolls of Indiana living caught up with Oskar. So off the the welding shop to have the jack points and driver's floorboard repaired.



And that's when the trouble began.

Oskar will be brought back to life along with two other builds, a 528i with Euro bumpers, and the crown Jewel - a M535i. Oskar's the runt of the litter.

[indycar89]

Here's a quick look around the Playhouse and pantry:

















Original from Germany . .

[indycar89]

Oskar and I will provide the comic relief among its siblings. I had the welding done... I guess it's 5 years now in the Dead of Winter. So it wasn't until that Spring that I noticed the windows and a host of other electrical bits no longer worked. I called the welder - "did you disconnect the battery like I asked when you did the work"? "No, I forgot"! Having had beaten into my head from early ownership about the sensitive grounds of the E28, I looked in that direction. So the search began to find out where the electrical gremlins were living. After several sessions, I was unable to isolate the issue. I was focused on grounding and everything else between the firewall and fusebox - everywhere, that is except where I *should* have been looking. And so after many hours of hunting - Oskar fell into a deep, deep sleep.

I was lamenting my tale of woe to a fellow E28 enthusiast (and all around good guy), and he offered to look at it with me. Once up to speed with what I'd checked, he asked "did you check the harness above where the welding was done"?! Umm Duh! No!

And there friends, on the drivers side, I found 3 cut wires and a run of wires lightly melted together.


While on the other side, the entire harness was melted together! Aye Aye Aye, Lucy!

Now with that all settled and audio cables run, we're ready to put in the carpet.

[indycar89]

Anyone remember these guys?



I'd pulled and placed the blower cages onto a new heater blower motor just as Oskar was going into a deep sleep. Now working on bringing the wiper motor back to life.





On the other end, Yup! Oskar has a original BMW rear Sway Bar holding things in place.

[muleskinner]

Damn.....when I grow up, I want to have a garage full of e28s.

Looking forward to seeing the resuscitation of Oskar.

[tig]

Sub'd!

[leadphut]

[indycar89]

Damn.....when I grow up, I want to have a garage full of e28s.

Looking forward to seeing the resuscitation of Oskar.

Yea - me too!! I just have Oskar and the ohio parts car. I'll elaborate about this space and the other cars in a minute.

We had a visitor Friday, and took a group photo.



I've been in a bit of a holding pattern with Oskar - waiting on a Dynamat order and the new heater core, which some be in Monday or Tuesday. In the meantime, I've dug up the MoBetta rear lights I've had sitting around for a few years and installed those. I've spent some time helping Mike progress on the 3 week 528e project, and we picked up the Blue E28 - which will be a M535 replica. So that was picked up - weeks ahead of when it was expected. It's time away was what led to the 528e 3 week build project.

So more about this shop area and the guy who owns it. My buddy Mike is a car dude through and through. He has some extra space in a building, and that's the space we're working in. He works full time and this is his hobby. He's pretty talented and has completed a variety of other ground up projects. When I say I'm the comedy relief of these projects, it's because despite my decades of E28 ownership - where I see a big issue that brings me to a hard stop wondering the way forward, Mike's the kind of guy who sees right through the issue - much like many of you seasoned E28ers.

Mike also has a 2002 M3 and a 2002 540i MSport (52,000 miles). And a 944S2 waiting in the wings for his time.

the 540 MSport with 52,000k




and the 2002 M3




And here's what will become the M535i:

https://i.imgur.com/ZbPSx6k.mp4

Mike has the Euro Kit I had planned to use on Oskar. I decided Oskar wasn't worthy.

Just welded the front Euro bumper mounts in:



The underside:





This will get it's own thread.

[Foonfer]

Damn.....when I grow up, I want to have a garage full of e28s.

Looking forward to seeing the resuscitation of Oskar.

Yea - me too!! I just have Oskar and the ohio parts car. I'll elaborate about this space and the other cars in a minute.

We had a visitor Friday, and took a group photo.



I've been in a bit of a holding pattern with Oskar - waiting on a Dynamat order and the new heater core, which some be in Monday or Tuesday. In the meantime, I've dug up the MoBetta rear lights I've had sitting around for a few years and installed those. I've spent some time helping Mike progress on the 3 week 528e project, and we picked up the Blue E28 - which will be a M535 replica. So that was picked up - weeks ahead of when it was expected. It's time away was what led to the 528e 3 week build project.

So more about this shop area and the guy who owns it. My buddy Mike is a car dude through and through. He has some extra space in a building, and that's the space we're working in. He works full time and this is his hobby. He's pretty talented and has completed a variety of other ground up projects. When I say I'm the comedy relief of these projects, it's because despite my decades of E28 ownership - where I see a big issue that brings me to a hard stop wondering the way forward, Mike's the kind of guy who sees right through the issue - much like many of you seasoned E28ers.

Mike also has a 2002 M3 and a 2002 540i MSport (52,000 miles). And a 944S2 waiting in the wings for his time.

the 540 MSport with 52,000k




and the 2002 M3




And here's what will become the M535i:

https://i.imgur.com/ZbPSx6k.mp4

Mike has the Euro Kit I had planned to use on Oskar. I decided Oskar wasn't worthy.

Just welded the front Euro bumper mounts in:



The underside:





This will get it's own thread.

Outside of the Vintage 2017 (which I attended) and a couple gatherings in NJ, I don't think I have seen so many E28s so close together...

[SteveKerwin]

"Outside of the Vintage 2017 (which I attended) and a couple gatherings in NJ, I don't think I have seen so many E28s so close together..."

That's bound to change once the pandemic ends.

[indycar89]

"Outside of the Vintage 2017 (which I attended) and a couple gatherings in NJ, I don't think I have seen so many E28s so close together..."

That's bound to change once the pandemic ends.

It did seem like a good photo op, but this gathering isn't anything like the various annual E28 get togethers, and the quality of those far exceeds this collection - 2 of which are parts cars.

Still waiting on the Dynamat, so just a few updates.

I mentioned the melted harness from having the jack points repaired, and I only had a photo of the lesser damaged side. While I don't have a before photo, I did dig out the bad side and you can see all the white shrink wrapped wires on both harnesses - I only pulled back the tape on one. These were all soldered and wrapped.





Oskar has some cancer on both rear upper door sills.





The plan is to try to neutralize this for now. There are a few other spots that will be cut and replaced once the interior is back together.

[indycar89]

You can see the mucked passenger side floorboard (in the prior post) - for now it is what it is. I'm learning to weld, and it's possible in the future I'll come back and replace the floorboard. Unsure on that - at some point you have to draw a line and consider going with what you have. And maybe finding a better another project car that doesn't have 300k miles of Midwest driving on it. At the same time, I've had Oskar 23 years and it'd be hard to not keep improving him.

I did a test of the cleaned up wiper motor, and it works like a charm. That being the case, I have a little more cleaning to do and then it'll be good to go. It's been a long time since I've had intermittent wipers!

[SteveKerwin]

"It did seem like a good photo op, but this gathering isn't anything like the various annual E28 get togethers, and the quality of those far exceeds this collection - 2 of which are parts cars."

I see. Well, good luck with the build. You're doing good.

[indycar89]

Well - she's a tired girl and truth be told, I probably wasn't honest with myself when I was considering Oskar's condition. I was kind of patching here and there as demanded. Oskar has that low miles Metric Mechanic, and he screams like a donkey eating a waffle. He's never going to be as clean as the white sleeper or the M535i builds going on at the same time - so he's the red headed step child in the stable. I'm content with Oskar being a scrappy street fighter with all his scars and glory. His paint is shinny and with lower gearing and the LSD, he's a blast to drive.

My original plan was to put the Euro M Kit on Oskar (from from Ivo) - but Mike was looking for a kit for his M535 build, and he has the skill and know how to prep it and install it. And he has a worthy chassis. Those parts are better off in his skilled hands.

I still have new factory carpet and new glass from Germany, so Oskar will still get some lipstick. Thanks for the encouragement

[indycar89]

While I was out riding my Camhead RT today, I could not get the vision of all the goop holding the passenger floor together. If you're following along (I know I am) you've no doubt already made the observation that it's really stupid and pointless to start putting the interior back in without replacing the floorboard now.

So I hope to get Oskar up on the lift and see what I've got, and then figure it out. Mike is a good welder, so I have a good teacher.

Of course, as of now, he knows nothing of this!

[indycar89]

I'm needing a lil help . . .

When Oskar was milling around with the Artsy Crowd, wanting to be hip with his Patina windshield - while I was on full on black out M5 mode. As such - I went down the road of this M5 Power Antenna. But I don't seem to have the correct grommet and bits for above the fender. Realoem is not much help as far as figuring what I'm missing. And of course, none of the machines here have great antennas either.

Does anyone have a handle on what I need - or have the bits I need? I'm not against going back to a Chrome setup - as MIke will probably want the black for his M535 build. But we still the the upper bits.







Any Insight?

[indycar89]

There's not been a lot of measurable progress on Oskar - lots of behind the scenes work, freshening the engine harness and I've pulled the M30B35 manifold to set it aside for now. Other engine parts are being cleaned and a few will be painted.

One area of real progress was scoring this E90 M3 interior.



This will be the last update for this thread - I'm going to use a single thread for all 3 projects - Oskar, The White Car (Alice) and The Blue Car. This seems to make more sense and may prove to be more helpful to highlight differences each of the cars present for the same or similar issues.

[nik77356]

Who are you, and why don't we know each other? We need to fix that.

You need to come have a beer with me while I work on the race car this weekend.