1987 BMW 520i. I bought this car in July '05 from the second owner, an engineer who bought it at 97K Km and, over six years, put on another 85K highway kilometers. He was a meticulous record keeper--rare in Thailand--and handed over a sheaf of service records as well as his own Excel spreadsheet of fluid changes and maintenance work! Oil changed on schedule, timing belt replaced before the required interval, etc. Even had the instrument cluster replaced with a new unit when the board (or battery?) failed.
The electric rear sunshade wasn't working when I bought it, and had been disconnected. The plastic track had broken and the previous owner couldn't find a replacement. Either could I until I was wandering through an auto parts store in New Jersey and saw a power antenna mast with a plastic track that looked exactly the same. Eureka! It works.
The original steering wheel was in nice shape, but was way too big and spindly for my taste. I picked up a decent used M-Tech 1 wheel on eBay for $30 and made the swap in about 5 minutes. Huge improvement!
I installed the Hella 500s before a road trip in December 05, anticipating lots of dark mountain roads.
I also picked up some paint-care products from autotopia-carcare.com Two grades of polish from Sonus, Meguiar's Tech Wax, and detailing clay.
I went for it and bought these staggered original Alpina wheels, 16x7 in front and 16x8 in the rear. Hope to mount them with some new Z rated tires before too long.
Also in my sights is this set of original M-tech bumpers and valances.
Strangely enough, this 520i is a Euro model but fitted with the dreaded US bumpers/park benches. I have no idea why BMWs sold in Thailand had these bumpers. Right-hand drive, so they shouldn't be extra chassis from the US production run.
Of course the car feels underpowered with a 2 liter engine. It's no rocket, but on the other hand the five speed lets you get the most out of the engine, and the BMW M20 is smooth and loves to rev high. Northern Thailand has lots of mountain roads, and I have found that with careful shifting I can usually overtake slower traffic even on the steepest climbs. But I'd love to drop in an M30B34/35, or even a 2.8 liter M52.
Lastly, credit to the previous owner for living with the original Blaupunkt radio cassette, and for not cutting the rear parcel shelf for speakers. I installed a CD, but left the rear shelf intact. The sound isn't great, only coming from the e28's uniquely weird front speaker system, but it's good enough. Check out the groovy, 80's vintage cassette holders between the AC controls (those three trays with white buttons on the side). Quaint, but hardly functional. I am considering replacing them with supplementary gauges if I can find a nice VDO set.
Bilstein HDs installed in front, rears are next. Meyle UTAs with heavy duty bushings fixed the high-speed braking shimmy. Now assembling parts for a brake project: 750i calipers and master cylinder (have them); a whole new rear, from output shafts to brake discs, in order to switch over from drums.
So many projects...
