MyE28.com

If it happens, I'm naming her Maytag. As in Maytag white.

Been communicating with the seller, so far no red flags. VIN checked out clean. 7/86 build date. Claims only issues are a 5-6 day battery drain and he's lost the code for the radio. I'm heading to check it out on Saturday morning with cash in my pocket. If it is anywhere as nice as being claimed it's a steal and just about perfect.

cek wrote:If it happens, I'm naming her Maytag. As in Maytag white.

Imus might be a good name for ‘him’ in this case.

m4ximusprim3 wrote:found this on CL in edmonds? Possibly has potential. Recent timing belt, so that's the main hurdle out of the way.

http://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/cto/4190783726.html

w00t, I hope it works out! maybe finding white 528e's on craigslist is my god given calling

keep us posted!

A Volvo, somewhat fun to drive, needs many things but can be neglected for quite a while.

Well if you decide to pass on the E28, may I present you with this fine example I recently traded in. It meets most of your requirements. Bullet proof… can deflect the worst of OK hail storms have to offer. Interesting… teenagers have been known to behind the wheel. Reasonable winter ride… FWD of course. Fun to drive… as long as you keep the gas tank above 1/2 full.

Best yet, the dealership will pay YOU to take it off their lot!

Loads of power and torque! This motor cries to be set loose.
https://vimeo.com/79541112

Art Deco windshield


Did I say bullet proof???


Custom in-door cup holders. Six pack ready.


Recessed stereo controls

Unless , its a total hack job, the 528e will be a good beater. prolly able to get a good price going away. If it was a super eta , I'd be very interested.

Let's start with what we know of the history of Maytag...

She was built in July of 1986. VIN WBADK8307H9707185.

(Note, for Vlad I had found a site that gave me all of the options in addition to the build date. But I can't find it now. Tried searchy with no joy.)

She's a 528e automatic. White with tan (I think) interior.

According to the PO she was purchased in Dallas by a lady. The PO, an American Airlines 777ER pilot, purchased the car in 1994 with 87K on it and shipped it to Los Angeles.

It was in LA until August of last year when he drove it to Seattle where it has basically sat since.

My wife and I (more on her involvement later) picked her up today with 202,305 miles on her. I paid $2k after doing an exhaustive inspection and an extended test drive around Edmunds, WA.

The timing belt was replaced at 199,000 miles. The PO had said it had been done last year, but the tag the mechanic left inside the fuse box says 2009. This means I need to replace the timing belt asap. Fun.

The car is amazingly straight. The body is actually in better condition than Vlad, with fewer little dings. There is some evidence that the front passenger door has been repainted. The paint will polish up very nice.

There is no rust anywhere that I could find. There's some moisture in the trunk just under where the factory radio amplifier is mounted, and a bit of mold where a jacket has been sitting.

The interior is in fantastic shape. There are two tiny cracks in the dash, where all E28 dashes start cracking. The vinyl on the seats is in tip-top shape. The carpet is pretty dirty and the floor mats are shot.

The suspension feels great. The shocks are not worn and the rear-subframe bushings do not feel worn. The dog-bones are shot and need to be replaced.

The rear tires are shot; they are rotting. The fronts are basically new. The chrome bottle caps are pretty tired, but they'll clean up nicely.

It's got an idle issue (hunts high).

Everything electric except the headrests work. AC blows very cold. The heater fan makes some noise and will need to be taken out and cleaned up.

It has some ancient aftermarket alarm on it. There's only one key and no keyfob for the alarm, so it will need to be ripped out.

Julie (my wife) insisted on driving her home. It's about 30 miles from Edmunds to Bellevue. I followed her in Vlad taking pictures...





Here she is at home next to Vlad...














More to come...

Let's talk wife.

She thinks I'm nuts. She thinks I love my cars more than her. She is not a car person.

When I told her my scheme to buy a < $2500 bench player for Vlad she rolled her eyes. When I told her I might have already found the car and it was in Edmunds and would she be nice enough to drive me up there she amazingly agreed...and was even enthusiastic about it. She wants something. I'm sure I'll pay.

Anyway, after picking up Maytag we dropped into a nice little breakfast place in Edmunds (The Red Twig, fantastic pastries and breakfast burritos) before driving home. She insisted on driving Maytag by the way.

While we were eating she said "You know, I think you should put some money into Maytag to make sure she's really solid and we should keep her through at least next summer. Christine (our daughter) will be home from college and we'll need another car in the family."

I about spit up my breakfast burrito.

She also suggested that I take my time finishing the M30B35 project so that we wouldn't have to take Vlad offline until after my daughter goes back to school from Christmas break this year. Again, so we'd have another set of wheels for her to use.

After driving home she declared she loved the way it drove. She thought the sport seats in Vlad were more comfortable, but really enjoyed driving Maytag.

Other comments:
"Wow, the steering wheel is huge."
"I like the brakes better than Vlad's" (Vlad has ceramic pads)
"It sounds like a diesel".

Here's a video of her driving away from the seller's house:
http://youtu.be/IQfOKQ1TATs

It does kinda sound like a diesel, especially from the inside. I wonder if I have an exhaust manifold leak or something? Do these things all sound like this?

I spent all afternoon and evening working on the car.

Step 1 - Go to autoparts store and get basics


Step 2 - Go to BMW dealer and get radio code. A tech came out and used his custom made special tool to free up the stereo so we could get the serial number off of it. He was awesome, and even gave me some input on my surging idle (suggested I clean the ICV). He's an E30 guy. He said the radio wasn't in correctly and when he put it back in, it is much more recessed than before. After entering the unlock code the radio now comes on but there's no noise. The PO says it was working fine last he drove it. I think we jiggled a wire when we put it back in...

Step 3 - Put her up on the lift, pull the wheels and start poking around.

I'd appreciate it if you old-timers/know-it-alls would comment on anything you see in these pictures that looks odd, amiss, broken, or special. I'm still learning so much...





Dog-bones are shot. Subframe bushings look ok (and feel ok).


Evidence the right front door has been repaired and repainted.










Brake pads need replacing. At what point (mm) should the rotors be replaced on these cars?












Fair amount of oil? PS fluid? gunked on..,








Didn't notice it until I looked at this picture, but it appears there's a pretty bad ATF leak (those are ATF lines, right?)


Battery disconnect (car has a 5-6 day battery drain according to the PO). Lame-o alarm:


Coolant Temperature Sensor wire has a resistor hacked inline. I saw some posts about this being a common fix for something. I asked the PO about it and he assumes his mechanic did it. I'll be needing to go understand that...


See this little switch?


You know what it does? It scares the HELL OUT OF YOU is what it does. It not only arms the alarm, but causes it to GO OFF. It's conveniently located near the siren so it is quite effective.



Step 4 - Change the oil, oil filter, air filter, and fuel filter. Drama free. Old air filter was pretty dirty. Getting the air filter on and off a 528e is sure an interesting exercise. Are you supposed to take the whole AFM/thing off? I was able to do it without, but...

Step 5 - Flush the coolant. Let's just say I succeeded in getting coolant all over myself and the garage. But I got it drained and refilled with 50/50 BMW blue. The stuff I drained out did not look murky or old.

I then spent the rest of the evening trying to diagnose the surging/high idle with no luck: http://www.mye28.com/viewtopic.php?t=121759

Tomorrow my plan is to focus on cosmetics... and go to the Seahawks game!

Wiggle the connector on the green ICM box above the ECU in the glovebox. If the idle changes, it needs an ICM refurb. If not, wiggle the connectors on the two-prong temp sensor on the thermostat housing. If the idle changes, you need one of those too.

An m20 that sounds like a diesel immediately makes me think of valve adjustment. I'd do one as part of your refresh.

Sounds like Vlad has some competition.

What others said re: clean ICV, valve adjustment.

Get dogbones and clean up leaks.

Diesel noise may just be the injectors though. My eta's were horrible that way til I replaced them. Chip and diff really pert up an eta but MPG really suffer too.

I see where this is going in a couple of different ways with the wife. When I got the ti Cindy started shopping for a new horse trailer so expect to pay. On the other side she now has a nice E36 sedan DD and brags how you just don't get the BMW thing until you spend some time actually driving one.

Congrats on the purchase.

Look at that! Maytag looks just like steve, but with a better interior! And the wife is even happy. Just call me cupid.

Maytag reminds me of my first BMW, also a white 528e, and also a Seattle car (I was living there then). Daily drove it for 11 years and it was just dead on reliable. Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone and it became the source of my current obsession with these cars.

I say rip out the alarm system (probably the source of the battery drain) and trash it. Replace the rotors with new - Brembo's are not expensive and new rotors can make a huge difference in the way these cars feel. Enjoy cleaning up the car and just enjoy it. Don't be surprised if it really starts to grow on you (and maybe your wife, too )

Here's where my first E28 took me over the years of ownership:

http://www.mye28.com/viewtopic.php?t=72084&highlight=

No pictures with a replacement set of wheels from the wheel stash? Just about anything would be an upgrade over chrome bottlecaps, I would think.

Drew in NYC wrote:No pictures with a replacement set of wheels from the wheel stash? Just about anything would be an upgrade over chrome bottlecaps, I would think.

Don't tell Kohler that!

I wanted to start cleaning Maytag up today, so this morning I dove in. Step one was cleaning the trunk. As I mentioned earlier there was a little moisture in the insulation under the pad and some mold. Getting the mold out and stopped was critical.

She came with a nice car cover and a sun shade.


I decided it was not worth cleaning the trunk carpet pieces. The mold is just too gnarly. So I'm tossing them. I'll be posting a WTB ad for a set asap...


Pics of the trunk before I pulled up the sound mat and cleaned deeply with bleach. I didn't take an after picture, but it basically looks like new now.






I didn't have time today to do a full polish, so I just experimented on the trunk lid. This is after one pass with my polisher. The paint is oxidized pretty badly. There's lots of paint on her and she's going to polish up very nicely.




I also did a quick interior clean up, getting the worst of the minimal grime off the vinyl and putting some Vinylex on. Other than the carpets the interior is like new.

We drove her to the Seahawks game today. It really is a great driving car. The idle is annoying, but only when idling in park or neutral.

Here's my current list of todos, in priority order:

1. Get the rotting rear tires off. I'll put the BBS RXs that I just had my winter tires mounted on for now. They are at my tire/wheel guy now.
2. Fix idle. Rebuilt Idle Control unit ordered.
3. Fix radio.
4. R&R heater fan. I have to read up on these.
5. Rip out aftermarket alarm.
6. Fix battery drain (if ripping out the alarm and fixing the radio doesn't fix it).
7. Steam clean engine and underside.
8. Fix diesel (clean injectors and adjust valves). Valve cover gasket, new air intake boot (current one is obviously rotting), new air intake hose to ICV (shot) all ordered. I plan on R&Ring the intake manifold (soda blast) and replacing all vacuum hoses while I do this. I will also probably replace the coolant temperature sensor since it's so hard to get to with the intake manifold in place.
9. Polish and wax. I did a test on the trunk lid today.
10. Deep clean carpets.
11. Brakes. Pads & rotors and caliper rebuild kits ordered.
12. Replace timing belt. I'm going to procrastinate on this one.
13. Replace shocks. They are tired. A cheap way of doing it might be to have Vlad's old shocks re-valved by Bilstein.

The parts for all of the above (except timing belt related stuff) come to about $500. So without doing the timing belt I'm at the $2500 I was hoping not to exceed. Of course, I'm probably going to get carried away pour some more money into her before all is said and done.

Congrats on the car. It's funny how we can see through the oxidation and see a diamond in the rough. You did well! Looks like you're well on your way to making this a permanent family member.

A few thoughts;
- that pearl beige leatherette is BULLETPROOF. It will clean up really well, and then stay really bulletproof with Vinylex on it. So keep that up.
- if the trunk carpet looks like that, you will need to clean the trunk itself better since the mold is still there. Do not throw out money on a new carpet until that is done. And that will be a somewhat tedious task I'm afraid.
- regarding leaks, moisture is fine. drips are bad. I didn't see any drips in your photos, but I didn't look super carefully.
- you have a 200K mile eta and you're wondering why your car sounds like a diesel? It sounds like a diesel because it is a 200K mile eta! Hahahahaha. But seriously, do that valve adjustment, replace the gasket AND plugs, and you will be happier. But it will probably still sound like a diesel to some degree.
- regarding rotors, there is a minimum thickness spec stamped on the rotor and I'm sorry I don't remember what it is; but a telltale way to know is by the rusty lip on the edge of the rotor; the more developed the lip, the more they are worn... (kinda hillbilly way to determine it)

Enjoy it! And congratulations! And do something nice for the wife before she tries to cash in... it'll throw her off her game. Hahahaha.

First, a glamour shot after the cleaning I gave her.


My wheel guy, Byron had some time this morning so I zipped by to have him do a quick suspension inspection and to change out the tires.


He had mounted my my Nokian Hakkepetliitta R2 winter tires on the RXs last week. He pulled off the chrome bottle caps with the rotted rear tires. He's going to dismount the rotted rears and toss them. I'll figure out what to do with the wheels and front tires later.

Dems some sexy looking Finnish tires.


I also picked up my barely used Conti DWs to take home. My current thinking is I'll put them on the Style 8s. That'd make a good non-winter tire setup for Maytag.


Byron applied his super-experienced-laser-vision to Maytag's underside and concluded that all that is needed are the dog bones and the right front wheel bearing is shot. Added one to my latest Pelican order ($80).

Shocks, bushings, tie rods, center link, etc... are all in great shape (as I thought, but glad to have an expert confirm).

She looks damn fine with the RXs on her:

Looks GREAT. I'm jelly.

I think you're going to have that car for a looooong time.

Subscribed.

I find it's always a good idea to check Amazon for E28 part needs. Often the price is just as good as Pelican/AutohausAZ but with free 2 day shipping (Prime).

Looks like you're doing a fine job, but why only do one wheel bearing? Seem like things like that should be replaced in pairs.

Eta power wrote:Looks like you're doing a fine job, but why only do one wheel bearing? Seem like things like that should be replaced in pairs.

My instinct too. But my wheel/suspension guy was adamant that I only needed to replace the bad one. He knows his shit.