Maytag: The Alpine '87 529i

[Dub-Nub]

This helps a lot, thank you. I am slowly taking things apart from the parts car and checking the pieces. If the rubber hoses show stress cracking then i will be replacing them.

[MicahO]

EEEPS!

It's scary, to some extent, seeing the price column. I keep ridiculously AR records in Excel for the daily drivers, including the ZHP. Every single penny spent is recorded, and for the ZHP I even log every tank of gas. Everything is broken into total costs per mile/day/etc.

For the old cars, both the Germans and the Americans, I keep a record of everything I do, and every part I order, and I keep all of the receipts. But I do not keep a cost column in the spreadsheets for the old cars. I could easily reconstruct it. But I don't want the prices to be too well recorded at this point.....

[tig]

EEEPS!

It's scary, to some extent, seeing the price column. I keep ridiculously AR records in Excel for the daily drivers, including the ZHP. Every single penny spent is recorded, and for the ZHP I even log every tank of gas. Everything is broken into total costs per mile/day/etc.

For the old cars, both the Germans and the Americans, I keep a record of everything I do, and every part I order, and I keep all of the receipts. But I do not keep a cost column in the spreadsheets for the old cars. I could easily reconstruct it. But I don't want the prices to be too well recorded at this point.....

I don't keep price records of most things. If I did that, I'd never be able to look my boss in the face and tell her I only spend about $10-15k on cars (including daily driver) a year . In this case I really wanted to know what this particular project cost. Even though I knew I had splurged on new parts where I might have been able to use the old stuff, I was still surprised by the total.

[tig]

I think it subtly makes it look more factory than the anthracite carpet. This is what I'm going to go with (plus the center console will be anthracite ).

[tig]

I have a compression tester and realized I never tested Maytag's compression #s. So I figured I'd check it out today...



#1 - 210
#2 - 203
#3 - 207
#4 - 210
#5 - 211
#6 - 210

Uh, it's nice they are all so close, but why are the numbers so high? I thought they'd be in the 142-156 psi range (Bentley).

Did I do something wrong? I had the throttle open. I did not remove the air filter assembly (because Bentley said that was only needed for 533/535s).

I tested the compression tester gauge with my air-compressor system, which is calibrated at 90psi and it measured correctly.

[leadphut]

Very good. Carry on.

[JohnH]

Its down to CR and cam timing. What are yours?

[tig]

Wheels are done. I now need to get them shipped back to me...





To recap, I had the lips milled, not polished.

[wkohler]

Black? Really?

[tig]

Black? Really?

What, are you blind? These are clearly purple.

[wkohler]

I thought they were white and gold for a minute

[KrautnotRice]

They look Blurple to me

What was the deal with the high compression numbers?

[tig]

Yay! No more musky smell. I also finally have all the trim pieces (was missing the part that covered the inside of the left fender...got that from the parts car).

Now I just got to find a spare tire/wheel (the 14" wont fit over the big brakes).

[bkbimmer]

I have a compression tester and realized I never tested Maytag's compression #s. So I figured I'd check it out today...



#1 - 210
#2 - 203
#3 - 207
#4 - 210
#5 - 211
#6 - 210

Uh, it's nice they are all so close, but why are the numbers so high? I thought they'd be in the 142-156 psi range (Bentley).

Did I do something wrong? I had the throttle open. I did not remove the air filter assembly (because Bentley said that was only needed for 533/535s).

I tested the compression tester gauge with my air-compressor system, which is calibrated at 90psi and it measured correctly.

That is strangely high, are you sure it doesn't have an s38 in there?

[tig]

That is strangely high, are you sure it doesn't have an s38 in there?

That'd be one anemic s38.

[wkohler]

I've seen this motor in an M6 once.

[ldsbeaker]

I've seen this motor in an M6 once.

... And so a legend begins. You'll get better mileage out of this one...

[tig]

CJ & I drove up to Bellingham, WA yesterday (~170 mile round trip) in Maytag to pickup the wheels. Got 25+mpg for the trip. He did all the driving (manual transmission practice). He wouldn't shut up about how great a driver Maytag is; we have transformed it into a really, really great car.

Recall the wheels are BBS RZ 418 (16x7.5 E13 120x5). My goal with this project was to get experience having wheels re-finished. My vision was black-centers with a polished lip that wasn't quite chrome looking. I learned from Chris Kohler about the concept of having lips machined/milled such that they are not perfectly smooth but have tiny circumferential grooves. These grooves provide a unique shine/sparkle. I tried to find someplace in the Seattle area that could do this sort of machining and wasn't able to. A buddy mentioned an outfit near Vancouver called "Panther" that could do "anything".

I communicated with the guys at Panther Wheels (http://www.pantherwheels.ca/) and they assured me they could do exactly what I wanted. I was a little nervous trusting them, but by this point I had two people who claimed they were good. So I bit the bullet.

Shipping the wheels was easy (once I stopped procrastinating about shipping them). My work gives me cheap DHL international shipping, so I boxed them up and off they went (Feb 15). When they arrived, Panther called me to verify what I wanted done. I wasn't really sure what to do with the back-sides, but they recommended I just make them black like the centers. I went with that.

I assumed they'd have some way of painting the plastic hex nuts black too, but they told me there really was no way of doing it. This bums me out because I really don't want them sliver. I may try plasti-dip?

Shipping the wheels back turned out to be problematic. Panther only ships internationally via DHL and they require the receiver to pay. I didn't have a DHL account. So I set one up. Do you know that to setup a DHL account you have to actually talk to humans and go through a 2-week bullshit filled process? I assumed it was like FedEx where it's all online.

Worst, once I got the account setup, the cost of shipping them back was prohibitively expensive.

The good news is Vancouver is right across the Washington border from the city of Bellingham. And Panther makes a weekly run to drop off/pick up wheels at the Discount Tire store in Bellingham. They dropped my wheels off there last Tuesday, which is why CJ & I could drive up yesterday and get them.

Before:


After:


The results are spectacular. They trued all 4 wheels. The machining on the lips and the visual effect is exactly as I imagined. The paint is perfect too. I hope to get them mounted this week. It wasn't cheap, but I got a great deal on the wheels and I'm pretty sure I could break even if I tried to sell them at this point given how stellar they came out (but I'm not going to).

I forgot the center pieces Kohler sold me didn't come with center caps, so I'm working on sourcing a set of those. I'm debating whether to stick with the BBS logo, or put Roundels on them...

[John in VA]

I'm debating whether to stick with the BBS logo, or put Roundels on them...

My center caps with BBS inserts were stolen. Replaced with roundels - no molestation. Too many thieves needing BBS parts.

[tig]

I cleaned up the center cap hex-nuts to try to figure out what I want to do



No matter what I want to refinish (or replace them). These are in "OK" condition, but as-is, do not do the wheels justice. One is not like the other 3 and all are marred in different ways. Plus, as I said above, I really want them black.

I think I'm going to lightly sand one of them and try plasti-dipping it... But not today.

[wkohler]

They look stupid black. Refinish them silver and use BBS silver 3-D emblems. I had several of these stallen out of my driveway. It sucks to roll hard, bro.

[tig]

They look stupid black. Refinish them silver and use BBS silver 3-D emblems. I had several of these stallen out of my driveway. It sucks to roll hard, bro.

Knew you were going to say that. You think M-Parallel's look stupid too. Shows how much you know

I don't like the shiny bit in the middle. I want black, like on my Fuchs.

[Eta power]

Holy shit those RZs look good, Charlie! But they're for Vlad, right?

[tig]

Holy shit those RZs look good, Charlie! But they're for Vlad, right?

Nope.

[kzolee]

This thread now definitely belongs to Eye Candy.

[tig]

Sometimes these days it's easy to forget many companies actually have great customer service with real humans there to help. I wanted to where I could get BBS valve stems and whether new center caps were availalbe. So I filled out a message on the http://www.bbs-usa.com/ website last night. This morning I got a nice message from "Robert" and he answered all of my questions via email. When it was time to order my stems, he called me and got my payment info.

FWIW, they do sell the center caps ($18/$35 depending) as well as full centers ($56 for black, gold, silver, & platinum). But you can't just buy the hex-nut part, and the hex-nuts are only available in silver.

[wkohler]

As they should be.

[tig]

As they should be.

By the way, the only silver caps they make have gold lettering.

[wkohler]

These are what I suggested:

[tig]

These are what I suggested:

Then I misunderstood you.