E12 M535i Project - 08-21-19 Update

[Adam W in MN]

Wow, you're getting soooo close!

[Pavel]

Great work, Chris. I hope to be able to pull off something remotely close to this kind of work!

[leadphut]

she's a beauty! love that interior, the color scheme, the wheels, etc. really impressive, Chris. nice job on the glovebox, too.

[bkbimmer]

Everything looks fantastic, Chris.

[tig]

Neat.

+1

[1st 5er]

Here's another well deserved

[hugh1850]

I love it. I miss my RAs too; those are sweet wheels. In some of those pics the interior looks blue...must be the exposure right?

[Kyle in NO]

I love it. I miss my RAs too; those are sweet wheels. In some of those pics the interior looks blue...must be the exposure right?

Nope. Blue interior is blue.

This car is fucking beautiful.

[hugh1850]

I love it. I miss my RAs too; those are sweet wheels. In some of those pics the interior looks blue...must be the exposure right?

Nope. Blue interior is blue.

This car is fucking beautiful.

How many posts has he made about hating blue! I, obviously, fucking love it!

[Karl Grau]

The inside of the glovebox is flocking amazing! Great job on that.

[austin8753]

Fucking fantastic. Love it.

[wkohler]

Thanks for the comments guys. It means a lot. I'm trying to build the best car I can with my abilities and resources. I do appreciate the feedback.

I love it. I miss my RAs too; those are sweet wheels. In some of those pics the interior looks blue...must be the exposure right?

Nope. Blue interior is blue.

This car is fucking beautiful.

How many posts has he made about hating blue! I, obviously, fucking love it!

Well, there is one interesting post in particular:



Tonight, Leroy came back over to the house to do the lockstrips and trim. A job neither of us were looking forward to, but something that had to be done. He got to the house about 7:45 and the plan was to work until they were done. I was really concerned about the rear window because it just wasn't fitting right and the gap at the top of the window was so small, there was no way the lockstrip was going to go in. I mentioned using string to put the lower strip in, as jhh925 did in his thread and Leroy said that was a great idea. I didn't have the right kind of string at the house and Ace closed in 10 min so we high-tailed it over there and bought a couple different types. There was a definite struggle and the realization that it wasn't going to get the bottom lip seated in the rubber, so we ended up using the 3/16" nylon rope that Leroy used to put the rear window in the car. It worked like a charm. Turns out that all of the refinished corner pieces were essentially half of their original thickness now after the polishing process and that made them unusable. Fortunately, I had brand new ones as well, so we used those. The final bit of lockstrip was installed around 11:00pm.



After that, our fingers were killing us and he had to make an airport run for a family member coming into town. He's looking at coming back over this Sunday to do the front. I'm very impressed with him and he really appreciates the car and all of the time, money and effort that has gone into it and he really has been working at doing the best possible job. It's very frustrating work and I am glad that he's been willing to stick with it. I've run into so many attitudes on this project that I'm not sure I could handle another one and it gives me some faith in humanity that there are still people out there that try to do the best job they can and take pride in their work. One thing is for certain though. Next car I do, I'm saving the original seals.

[Kyle in NO]

Do you think that maybe the Russians hacked the lockstrips, making it near impossible for them to fit properly?

[wkohler]

We definitely had a tough time Putin them in.

[hugh1850]

[Nanajoth]

I am more impressed with all that VR1 you have on the shelf.

[Adam W in MN]

I am more impressed with all that VR1 you have on the shelf.

It's the car enthusiast version of preppers.

[GBel]

Very Very Nice Chris.

Gary

[travisj]

That headliner just looks weird without any brown discoloration. Great job other than trying to recreate that.

[dukmon]

On and off it has taken me more than a month to read this entire thread. It's been a great read. Nice work!

My first 5 Series was an 81' 528i E12 that I had to trade for a 72' 2002 so I'd have money extra money to pay for a semester of school. That was about 88'. I thoroughly enjoyed that car.

[leadphut]

We definitely had a tough time Putin them in.

[wkohler]

[Kyle in NO]

[Karl Grau]

Sorry to hear about this latest setback.

[wkohler]

I have been working through a list of things to get various parts of the car together. I had my instrument cluster all ready to go. Jeff Caplan at Odometer Gears replaced the gears in the speedometer. I got that back a few weeks ago, and have had the cluster on the shelf ready to go in when the time came. I had to isolate a couple of wires for the rear fog lamps since none of my wiring diagrams had them listed and I figured it out by luck. The thing that was holding up cluster installation was the short "top speedo cable." The way the cluster is installed in these cars prevents access to the back of the speedo to undo the cable, so there's a short cable (about a foot or so, which goes down to the firewall to another connection where you can release the cluster. The cluster itself is secured with a braided aluminum cable with a knurled nut on the end which holds it to the dashboard support. It's very tricky and doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me.

The problem is that I had two of these short speedo cables. I spent over five hours last night looking for them. They were on a shelf above my workbench since February. Unfortunately, before the car returned home, more drywall fell off of my ceiling over the workbench and I had to pack everything up and move it so I could clean it up. I have spent more time looking for things in assembling this car than I have actually working on it. Around 2am, I gave up and decided to go get one out of the '80 528i in the yard. I showed up bright and early only to find that the E12 was no longer there. I talked with a few people and eventually the prep-yard manager who said, "It's flat, man." and made the gesture of putting his hands together horizontally mimicking the crusher. Great. So, back at home, I decided to tear everything apart again and then realized that while I looked in the trunk of the E24, I didn't take anything out of it, and that's when I found them.



So with that done, I turned my attention to installing the cluster. You have to drop the steering column, which I expected. I made all of the connections, tested the function and started to install it. It's tricky. Lower edge has to go in first, but it has to be tight to the dash because there are two bulbs attached to the top of the dash for illumination. I had test-fit the cluster when the dash first showed up, but I didn't get it in all of the way because it was clear that it was scraping the paint (yes, they paint the dash, which is something I was livid about, but they said they paint them all and it's to be expected - they told me their vinyl was black - and it is), so I figured I'd have one shot at it. I decided to use painters tape around the surrounding area, but it ended up preventing the cluster from going in at all, so I removed it. I tried again. It wasn't going in. I was checking all of the areas of concern and then moved the cluster to pull it out and a chunk broke off of the bezel.



There are some marks in the dash too - unavoidable, I realize, but this isn't what I paid for. I was very upset and just cannot believe that I cannot accomplish one simple task without something going wrong. I've got about eight clusters but an E12 cluster without cracks in the face is rare. I've never seen a good one in the yard and I had worked very hard on the one I was installing.

After work tonight, I made a trip to storage and looked through a couple bins of instrument clusters and found one someone gave me a few years ago that was in a filthy shed and it actually had dirt in it. The top of the cluster was open to the elements and everything was brown. You couldn't see the gauges. I blew it off outside and noticed it wasn't cracked, but it definitely had some marring. I figured I'd give it a shot. I brought it home, cleaned it thoroughly and surveyed what I had. I figure it could clean up okay. Not great, but about as good as what I already had. I started by polishing it and while it made it shinier, some of the surface issues were deeper, so I did several steps of wet-sanding followed by a few different steps of polishing and got something pretty nice, so I decided to give it another shot and move the dash around if necessary as there is a bit of elasticity. It actually went in, and it's okay I guess. Totally ridiculous.



Next, I had put the glovebox together. As shown earlier, I redid the flocking inside the glovebox. I put the lock, handle and flashlight mount back in and got it ready to install along with the rest of the hardware. Also, thanks to Jim (Motronic), I replaced the battery and thoroughly cleaned the flashlight. I installed the assembled glovebox and made a few adjustments so it would close easily (E12 latches are weak, so you don't want to slam the glovebox shut. The idea is to hold the handle out, bring it up and then release the handle).





I still have the driver lower panel to install. It's an original one, but I haven't figured out how I want to install the switch for my power antenna. I guess I could put it near the fader, but that involves a hole in the panel. It is probably the best place for it though. But, at this point, the interior is about done, I guess. I'm not sure I'll ever be happy with it but it's not for lack of trying.



It looks about the same as it did before.

[offroadkarter]

This car is coming along great, I like the more frequent updates. Although cracking the cluster bezel sucks.


I have to ask, when this car is finally "done", do you ever see yourself taking on a project of this magnitude again? On one hand, you clearly are talented at this. On the other hand, I'd understand 100% if you would never go through a restoration this deep again.

[oldskool]

Did Bundy or Gacy just give up? Dahmer or Ramirez ever decide to just pack it in? Naw man, this is serial. There is no stopping this madman.

[wkohler]

I have to ask, when this car is finally "done", do you ever see yourself taking on a project of this magnitude again? On one hand, you clearly are talented at this. On the other hand, I'd understand 100% if you would never go through a restoration this deep again.

I'm flattered you think I'm talented at this. I don't have as positive an outlook on how things have been going, but I guess that is normal for me. I have learned a lot during the process of this car so far. I'm not quite done yet and it's mostly down to the details and ironing out kinks at this point. I am going to give some thought as to the next step. I have some big plans for the M5 and I'm not quite ready to tackle it yet, though I will definitely have a better plan for managing that project and I won't be stupid and put some arbitrary deadline in place for it. I do want to spend some more time familiarizing myself with the car and dialing it in the way I want it mechanically a bit more before I dig into it, so that should give me a break. This particular E12 has fought me every step of the way with every aspect of the project. Also, I spend a ton of time looking for things. It's a car I took mostly apart six years ago, so nothing is really fresh in my mind. Amazingly though, it does seem to come back a bit. As a result, I have a hard time being positive and I think that's affecting my outlook as a whole. Or everything I just wrote is bullshit, but we all know that's not my style.

Oh, so, there is actually an update in this.

After I got the cluster installed, that meant that the engine would run and the charging system should work and whatnot. Obviously, I've had the engine running before, but not since the dash was installed. I didn't really have everything buttoned up, but I figured I'd better at least drive the car around the block, bed-in the pads and see how things are working. It was kinda interesting to drive the car, but I wasn't really impressed. It's a bit stressful considering I put all of this together and there's some uncertainty. The brakes worked well. The car moved okay. I put about three miles on it. I didn't realize I had actually done that, but when I re-traced the exact route in the touring because I didn't believe it, it did actually come out to that.

So, let's start out with a photo of it on a road!



First time it has been out of my driveway under it's own power since August, 2010.

Leroy had said he wanted to come finish the front lockstrip/trim on Sunday. I was kinda surprised about that. I called when he said, but he wasn't able to make it. We tried for Monday and while I had everything ready to go, he was stuck at the shop until 9 pm, so we aimed for Tuesday. Success! He showed up around 7:15 or so and we got to work. I had a new front lower trim piece I got from Brian back when I bought the car and also had an original refinished. I had new corner pieces, just as I did for the rear, as it was obvious the refinished ones were junk. We tried the rope method but we had a hard time getting the rope in the groove and then it still didn't want to pull the trim in around the corner. So, we worked it with the hook tool and a bone tool. It worked out okay. We learned something on the rear that using glycerin as the blue binder suggests is the key to any success. Stuff is amazing. He keeps some in his tool box for his suction cups to condition them and it just made an impossible job possible, though still difficult. He lubed the seal up really well and we were able to get that lower trim piece installed in about 25 min. It was at that point where the one I had that I thought was actually good was poking out at the corners, so we had to go with the refinished one. It wasn't really a big deal. Once it was installed, you see how it actually conformed to the windshield, seal and car much better. While the center of the trim can be slightly tweaked, mostly due to the polishing process, having he correct profile on the corners is what actually makes the difference.



Then, after the lower strip was in, it was time to do the lockstrip. Do that first, then the lower corners. The rear window taught us that this was necessary due to the new seal. I had put the strip in very hot water, but with the ambient temps in the 50s, it cooled down quickly. Well, due to my incredible fashion sense and flawless exercise thereof, I own a top-of-the-line professional garment steamer. With this, we were able to massage the corners making both the gasket and the strip more pliable. It worked wonders with the rear window getting the top corners seated. The only negative is that it lessens the effect of the glycerin. Either way, it was more important to have the steam. You will notice that the lockstrip was not trimmed. It shouldn't be. The only time you should have lockstrip left over is after trimming for the rear. We had about three inches remaining.



All that was left was to do the corners, which was pretty frustrating, but between the two of us, working together, we were able to get it done - and done pretty well.





The most difficult part of doing the corners was working around the seams in the gasket. There was some extra material in there we weren't anticipating. I think all things considered, it came out pretty well. We finished around 10:30pm.





Total time invested in doing the installations for front and rear is about 9.5 hours. Leroy had quoted me $250 to do the job, but he made three trips out and after the second trip, I knew it wasn't going to be $250 - it really shouldn't be. I asked him what he wanted and told him that I didn't think $250 was fair for the amount of work and time he put into it. I gave him $300 and felt fine with that. He did a great job and exercised great care. Nothing was damaged or scratched and after the B7 experience, this made a difference to me. While it was a pain and an intense project, I have to say it actually went pretty smoothly given what we were up against.

So, what's next? Well I need to sort out some issues, do some tuning, put the rocker trim on, do the inner fender liners, figure out where the horns go (I can't remember - they were pulled in 2010 and the panels to which they attached have been replaced), get a couple of things done so I can mount the rear spoiler (two holes so I can get to the outer studs), install the striping set and figure out what I want to do about this:



That's a NOS headlight wash/wipe retrofit kit with instructions. I bought back in March. The part that has me not jumping to install it is that I have to modify the grilles (templates included) and I am not very confident in my skills in that department. I also have a standard washer tank but I think this would be a very cool addition to this car and virtually unheard of in this condition. I was gung-ho about doing it until I actually sat down to get started.

[tig]

Looks fu*king sweet on the road Chris. And now that I've tried doing two windshields myself I totally appreciate the pain you went through getting that lower lockstrip in. Unlike you, I completely pussied out and someone else did it for me. Those corners look as tits as possible.

I'm curious to hear more about the driving experience and why you were underwhelmed. Not aligned? Stuff loose?

[Collin380]

Chris, the car looks great!!!

I just wanted to share my experience on having the front and rear glass done on the E12. My glass guy installed the locking strips onto the gaskets prior to installing the glass on the car. I actually bought the tool for the strips, and he just smiled at me when I brought it out to him. After placing the strips on the gaskets, he used a cord around the inner lip of the gaskets and worked them on. It actually took him less than an hour to install both on the car. After finishing he explained to me that his father, a second generation auto glass installer, showed him how to install the glass on the older vehicles which required the locking strips and trim.

Best,

Alex