E34 540i 1 Year Before & After

[Kees 581]

Since I'm on holiday, I finally have a bit of time to do an update on my E34 540i. 

 

To be honest, in 2022, I didn't do much to the car. It took 3 months for it to get a new windscreen so sat around until April. By that point I was occupied with my W8. It passed it's WOF first try in September! - the first time it had done that, and then almost caught fire that night when the alternator regulator failed and charged the battery at 19V. As you can imagine, the battery didn't fare well. 

So with an alternator rebuild plus a new battery (alternator got so hot it melted itself so had to be rewound), my wallet was quite a bit lighter so didn't drive it a tone, especially as I soon bought the Porsche. 

 

However, just before New Years, some parts I wanted came my way so the motivation to get some things done has returned. 

I went for a routine trip to Pick-A-Part to get a stock exhaust off an NZ New 540i they had just got in. Out of habit I spun the rear wheels to check if it had an LSD... to my surprise, it did! So that was coming home with me! (2.93 Ratio)

I also scored some 95' spec leather door cards, and a few other bits and bobs I needed. 

 

A pair of manual grey sports seats came up - just what I wanted as seat twist is just painful, AND I got some E34 skirts - off an M5 even! Need to have them colour matched, although its quite cool that they are still the two tone M5 colour. 

Gave the E34 Sports Seats a decent tidy up:

So anyway, I've started dealing with my interior. Wet Vac'd the carpets and installed the new seats. Carpet was pretty grotty but have it looking relatively good. Found a couple 5 cent coins - 1 from the early 80s!

Will have the driver's sports seat re-upholstered at some point. Didn't plug anything in because I don't trust the seat heaters on the 30 year old seats, and to my understanding E34s don't have seat occupancy sensors...

I then noticed that the electric mirrors wouldn't work, so I realised I had to pull the memory module off my original electric drivers seat and now they work just fine. 

I also got to the bottom of my weird climate control issues - a connector retainer clip meant one of the module connectors wasn't in properly which caused AC to not work, rear defrost to not work, and the driver to get no air blown at them. Very annoying issues. 

Also have swapped a couple door cards but still lots to do. 

Next on the list is: 

- Exhaust

- LSD installed

- Need to find M-Tech front springs (if anyone has some PLEASE sell me them!!!) 

- Side skirts painted and installed

- Blower Motor Change

- Change Head-Unit to OEM BMW one. 

- Put some more Ks on it!

 

Hope to have all these done this year. 

In terms of driving the car, in the last ~6 months its done a trip to Taupo and I also organised an E34 meet in January this year, so it has had a few long runs. E34 day was a great day out, a few forum members attended. I even had the pleasure of driving @Simca's 535iS and @e46v12's BEASTLY E34 "546" Touring. 

 

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Kees

[Eagle 1524]

That regulator failure is something. Motorcycles do it a bit but cant say ive come across the failure on a car.

[Kees 581]

2 hours ago, Eagle said:

That regulator failure is something. Motorcycles do it a bit but cant say ive come across the failure on a car.

Yeah its a bit of a story actually. 

 

I passed WOF first try which I was rather happy about as it was the first time the car wasn't going to cost me any money getting a WOF. Literally on the way home from the WOF place my ABS light came on and my radio switched off for around 5 seconds. I thought a fuse or something must not be happy so I checked everything, made sure all the fuses were pressed in properly and then took the car to work that night. Car performed flawlessly.

After work I decided I'd take the car for a motorway loop to see if it would play-up because if it did, I'd book it in with my mechanic. Anyway, I started on the shore and went out West. When I got to Avondale I could smell an eggy smell, similar to Rotorua. My stuck-up North Shore self initially thought that was just how Avondale smelt. 😂

However, by the Greenhithe bridge I realised it was definitely my car. I pulled over and smelt literally everything. I thought maybe some of my mates had hidden some food in it as a prank, and with the doors and windows open the smell quickly dissipated. Started driving again and the smell came back even worse, I pulled over again on Constellation Drive because I knew there was something properly wrong with the car. 

It was at that moment it clicked in my brain - battery in my E34 is under the back seats. As soon as that crossed my mind it all made sense in my brain. I'd been wondering why my plug in FM transmitter had become really interferency!

I touch my rear seat cushion and its really warm. F***, my car isn't spec'd with heated rear seats...

Pull the seat cushion off with my fire extinguisher ready (not that it would really help an electrical fire), and my battery is hissing and fizzing, with acid coming out the top. At that point, given it was also a Tuesday morning at roughly 1AM, I called the fire department because I didn't really feel like touching battery acid trying to disconnect my battery. 

It's funny actually - one of the fire men I'm sure a few forum members will know. I think his name was Jerry, and his BMW collection at the time was an:

- E46 M3 CSL

- 635 CSI

- X4M Competition 

- M235i 

And he said he owned many, many other BMWs prior to those, which was neat. He also knew my mechanic well as my mechanic had race prepped one of his previous track cars. 

So to conclude: It's very lucky the battery is under the back seat otherwise I wouldn't have smelt my battery turning inside out, and it could have ended in my E34 becoming a very hot E34 which would have been quite bad. 

[E28E30 334]

@Kees this is looking fantastic, and your story telling style is also a great read.   

[balancerider 703]

14 hours ago, Kees said:

I went for a routine trip to Pick-A-Part to get a stock exhaust off an NZ New 540i they had just got in. Out of habit I spun the rear wheels to check if it had an LSD... to my surprise, it did! So that was coming home with me! (2.93 Ratio)

I also scored some 95' spec leather door cards, and a few other bits and bobs I needed. 

 

A pair of manual grey sports seats came up - just what I wanted as seat twist is just painful, AND I got some E34 skirts - off an M5 even! Need to have them colour matched, although its quite cool that they are still the two tone M5 colour. 

 

Gave the E34 Sports Seats a decent tidy up:

 

So anyway, I've started dealing with my interior. Wet Vac'd the carpets and installed the new seats. Carpet was pretty grotty but have it looking relatively good. Found a couple 5 cent coins - 1 from the early 80s!

Will have the driver's sports seat re-upholstered at some point. Didn't plug anything in because I don't trust the seat heaters on the 30 year old seats, and to my understanding E34s don't have seat occupancy sensors...

Leather sports seats and an LSD ftw...assuming both of those items were cheaper than they would be for an E30? Love these E34's - there's a manual 525ix touring around the corner that I'm contemplating putting a 'will you sell me your car?' note on

[TLH 45]

@Kees Awesome score on that diff! Those seats used to be in my 540i, they weren’t plugged in so no idea on the heat working and I think it’s fair to be hesitant to try it with all you went through. 

[Kees 581]

7 hours ago, balancerider said:

Leather sports seats and an LSD ftw...assuming both of those items were cheaper than they would be for an E30? Love these E34's - there's a manual 525ix touring around the corner that I'm contemplating putting a 'will you sell me your car?' note on

I would say the seats are a fair bit cheaper than E30 seats, but unsure on the diff.

The sports seats I paid $400 for from someone in the E34 community. Was very happy with that price, have seen some black electroc ones in similar condition go for $800, but I was specifically looking for manual ones. The diff I got from Pick-A-Part for a whopping $130 😂

Diffs suitable for 540s generally range between $800 and $1500 depending on how aggressive the ratio is. 

[Vass 703]

Those seats look comfy as. Wouldn't mind a pair in the lounge in front of the telly

[balancerider 703]

1 hour ago, Kees said:

I would say the seats are a fair bit cheaper than E30 seats, but unsure on the diff.

The sports seats I paid $400 for from someone in the E34 community. Was very happy with that price, have seen some black electroc ones in similar condition go for $800, but I was specifically looking for manual ones. The diff I got from Pick-A-Part for a whopping $130 😂

 

Sport steering wheel next?

[Kees 581]

32 minutes ago, balancerider said:

Sport steering wheel next?

I was thinking that, eventually I would like to. M Tech 2 wheel would be my choice.

However, I would need to "un-airbag" convert my car which I will probably do at some point, because I'm not sure I trust my 30 year old dual airbags haha

Probably would do more harm than good if they went off. 

[Driftit 1945]

On 2/19/2023 at 9:00 PM, Kees said:

I was thinking that, eventually I would like to. M Tech 2 wheel would be my choice.

However, I would need to "un-airbag" convert my car which I will probably do at some point, because I'm not sure I trust my 30 year old dual airbags haha

Probably would do more harm than good if they went off. 

I think I have another Mtech E34 wheel on my race car.  I will take a look.  Might need some love and a new badge though.  I think it is the bigger one though.

[Kees 581]

Important job today, along with a 540iT. 

[balancerider 703]

Sorry @Kees but I want more pics of the 540iT!

[Kees 581]

5 hours ago, balancerider said:

Sorry @Kees but I want more pics of the 540iT!

She’s a stunner with those M Pars!