"An Emerald in the Rough" - 12/1986 Dinan M5 - 2022 update

[douglasM5]

Hey Philo:

You have a great memory:

"By the way, in 1998 aprox (I think) I found a wrecked Dinan M6 turbo in a salvage yard and posted pics of everything except for its location. A member, I can't recall who it was, kept emailing me for the location but I refused because I was trying to buy the turbo Dinan parts from the yard. The Roadfly member knew the yard was in Cali so he called every yard he could get a phone number on (pre businesses having web sites). After finding the yard, I think he worked on this for months, he then flew from the east coast to Harout's Salvage in the San Fernando Valley (I hate this yard, will sell his mother for $50.00) and bought the parts. Then he emailed me..., with pictures. I laughed and said enjoy. I think he was doing a Dinan conversion on his M6."

I am that guy and yes, it took me many, many months to track down that car. Living on the East Coast, I had never been to California so upon arrival, to enjoy your awesome weather I paid extra to rent a convertible at the airport, put the top down and drove to Harout's. It started raining before I got there. It rained that night. It rained the following day. It rained so much that the fire department came around and told everyone to evacuate the area. The nice Harout's employee that was helping me remove the Dinan turbo parts told me we could continue working on the M6 if I wanted to so we did. He put hoods from other cars around us so we wouldn't be easily seen (we weren't supposed to be there) and it helped to keep the rain off of us. It rained the entire time I was in California until I was on my way back to the airport when the sun came out. I probably had the top down on that convertible for all of 20 miles. I haven't been back to California since but would like to.

I had never seen a salvage yard like Harout's before. All of the cars were neatly stacked in racks unlike in Maryland at that time where the cars were in weeds waist high and finding rats and snakes living in the cars was common.

Roadfly. I'd forgotten all about that forum. Your memory is amazing.

[austin8753]

not a whole lot new to report with the old girl. i still don't have functioning HVAC (lol), and we had an abnormally hot summer, so it limited my driving, somewhat. replaced the upper and lower control arms, back in August, which made the car drive a whole hell of a lot better.

ended up daily driving it for a couple weeks in June and broke 110k miles, which was kind of a milestone. it did great for those two weeks; it's the most i've ever driven it, consistently. my back was not such a fan.


did some detailing before the last local show of the year, at the end of August. my dog couldn't resist getting in the photos (she tends to do that, an abnormally needy deutscher schaferhund, but i wouldn't want it any other way).




here's one @danielpouch took of the two beaters.


oh, and i begun collecting parts for the Euro bumper conversion. scored a set of decent bumpers, a NOS M5 chin spoiler, a Euro spec tail panel, really nice lights and grills, and a pair of NOS fog lights and housings. casually keeping my eyes peeled for a late model, Euro front panel. who knows when those parts will go on the car, but at least i'll have them, for when the time comes. the M3 needs an engine regasket, before i even consider going through with that project. time will tell, i suppose!

[muleskinner]

oh, and i begun collecting parts for the Euro bumper conversion. scored a set of decent bumpers, a NOS M5 chin spoiler, a Euro spec tail panel, really nice lights and grills, and a pair of NOS fog lights and housings.

[Adam W in MN]

Even though it's a repaint that is a good looking car.

[S14]

oh, and i begun collecting parts for the Euro bumper conversion. scored a set of decent bumpers, a NOS M5 chin spoiler, a Euro spec tail panel, really nice lights and grills, and a pair of NOS fog lights and housings. casually keeping my eyes peeled for a late model, Euro front panel. who knows when those parts will go on the car, but at least i'll have them, for when the time comes. the M3 needs an engine regasket, before i even consider going through with that project. time will tell, i suppose!

I have a euro front panel (metal part) that has some damage when I hit a deer on my way to O-fest in 2013. I think it's repairable, but at the time a new one from BMW was not expensive so I just replaced it. It's yours to have if you pay shipping.

[austin8753]

^sent you a PM, thanks!

the most festive vehicle i own. drove it all day yesterday. when i don't drive it for extended periods of time, and get in to go have some fun, it's like starting the love affair all over again. really do enjoy this car.

[Spen]

I love that green color. I'd keep it like that. A very good color for sure.

[austin8753]

yesterday marked year five with my beloved. i wish i had something cool to update, but aside from the occasional drive here and there, i haven't done much to it. i did get in touch with the previous owner and he expressed interest in seeing the car (now that it lives again), so i'm going to do that tomorrow morning.

here's the M5 with @danielpouch's 535is and Dinan e28's former '88 euro converted 535i, now owned by a good friend of mine:


replaced all the 8mm fuel hoses with genuine BMW hose, about a month ago. it's pretty well known that the CRP/Contitech fuel hose is absolute trash, but just in case it wasn't clear enough... for reference, these were all replaced in June of 2019, they had less than 4500 miles on them and saw approximately 3 tanks (or less) of ethanol fuel; i try to make it a point to run ethanol-free in all my old cars. hard to tell from this picture, but the hose is completely dried out and was severely cracked. the '86 stamped fuel hoses, i removed from the car originally, were in better shape, than the CRP hose........



i also removed the oil cooler thermostat, cleaned and reinstalled it, and was hopeful that would fix my issue of the oil temp being slow to rise, but it made no difference. starting to think my temp sender is a piece of crap. i will find out next oil change... still need to replace the blower motor. don't know if i'll ever get around to that. not looking good, at this point.

[Seeker]

That is one sweet ride, how can you not love that color… euro bumpers would be the cherry on the top!

[austin8753]

That is one sweet ride, how can you not love that color… euro bumpers would be the cherry on the top!

thanks! the bumpers are hanging on my garage wall. someday, the car will get a proper conversion... hopefully sometime this decade.

[austin8753]

got bored, over the weekend, and decided to install a set of wheels i've had for a while. i sold a good friend's '95 540i/6, Dinan stage 3 equipped vehicle, for him, back in July, and as payment, he dropped a set of Dinan/Fikse FM5s off at my house. they were equipped on the aforementioned 540i, when new, but he removed them, in favor of a different setup.

the wheels are 17x9, et30, with 235/45/17 Bridgestone Potenza tires. i was concerned about fitment issues, up front, but oddly enough, the back seems to be the problem. under any type of acceleration, it lightly scrubs the sidewall on the rear fender lips. i'm now on the quest for a different set of rear springs, since the Spax springs, really aren't meant for a 210mm differential equipped e28. the ride height, is more the issue to me, not the size of the wheels or tires.

either way, i liked the BBS RS on here, the best, but these are an interesting wheel, too. they are a little more square looking, which brings out the boxiness of the car, but it's different.

[wkohler]

Those look nice on the car. Tires are too tall so maybe if you fix that issue the rubbing won’t be that big of a deal.

[slownrusty]

Incredible story and thread.

Pity about the turbo motor.

So can the 059 ECU run the S38 without issue , or can it only be used to start the engine and maybe only idle it?

[austin8753]

Incredible story and thread.

Pity about the turbo motor.

So can the 059 ECU run the S38 without issue , or can it only be used to start the engine and maybe only idle it?

the injector impedance is completely different, from the m30b34 (059) and s38b35 (079). it wouldn't be advised for anything more than to make sure the engine runs.

[austin8753]

Those look nice on the car. Tires are too tall so maybe if you fix that issue the rubbing won’t be that big of a deal.

yeah, these were what came with the wheels, so i figured i'd burn them up first. either way, not super impressed with the ride height of the rear Spax springs, so hopefully, i'll be able to change out both.

[wkohler]

Incredible story and thread.

Pity about the turbo motor.

So can the 059 ECU run the S38 without issue , or can it only be used to start the engine and maybe only idle it?

the injector impedance is completely different, from the m30b34 (059) and s38b35 (079). it wouldn't be advised for anything more than to make sure the engine runs.

You’d burn up the injector driver in the 059.

[austin8753]

i replaced the blower motor, yesterday morning. now, it needs a heater valve - as i suspected it might. time to get that sorted and work on getting the air conditioner sorted.

[Lee74]

love this car. this is the car i dream of having. i want a nice euro or euro looking M5 in green with the tan interior. i'd love to have and buy your car if you ever change your mind on it.

[austin8753]

fixed the heater valve a few months back, so the heat works as it should.

as an added bonus, last week, i decided to tackle getting the air conditioner working again. i replaced all the o-rings, the receiver drier, cleaned the entire system out, and vacuum tested it. found that the condenser had a puncture, i'm guessing from when the engine came out in the mid 90s. luckily, Derrith had a good, used one to send me. replaced that yesterday morning, and performed the vacuum test again. holds vacuum at -29psi, which is more than good enough for me. charged everything and fired it up. 45 degrees at the vents - again, good enough for me. really wishing i would have done this 6.5 years ago... but it works now.

now to replace all the speakers and try to get the stereo working again. more on that later.

[austin8753]

when i bought the car, i observed that someone stole the head unit and the amplifier out of it, at some point. just so happened to have a newer Alpine head unit laying around, as well as a new Alpine 5 channel amplifier.

the vehicle had a giant stereo installed in the 90s, at Tom Peterson's Stereo Stores (if any of you are familiar with the name). part of this job, was fabricating a custom box to be mounted directly to the firewall (the top of the firewall, where the speaker shelf would reside), and installing three, 8" JL subwoofers. the front speakers had some custom enclosures made up, that holds a 4" speaker and a tweeter, in addition to the premium sound housings.

every single speaker in this car was completely deteriorated and blown, after 15+ years of sitting. once i installed the head unit and amplifier, i was met with all that, which completely killed what interest i had in making it all work, so i basically haven't listened to the stereo ever since.

i was on a roll with the A/C stuff; figured i'd keep going. here's what i took out:



sounds much better now!