e34 BMW 520i
February 2007
1995 BMW 520i
So what do you do when every car in the student car park needs a permit and all the spaces are taken? You go and buy another car on impulse obviously.
Having only owned the Vectra for a few months I wasn’t in any great rush to get rid of it; it suited my needs perfectly and I’d done all the little jobs on it to get it up to my standards. When this BMW turned up locally though, I just had to go and see it.
It was advertised on eBay with no ‘Buy it Now’ price, but having looked around it and decided it was worth a punt, I then had to try and squeeze a price out of the seller. He really wanted to let the auction run but after a bit of bargaining I was the genuinely proud owner of a BMW…oh yeah and the Vectra.
Here are the first pictures I took of the car moments after collecting it, highlighting a few of it’s issues:
To try and minimise any extortionate parking fines I had to act fast, so the next day I enlisted the help of a friend and we drove both cars from Huddersfield to Southampton and back.
We spent the day cleaning and polishing the Vectra and I made the advert for it, with that done we headed back to Huddersfield. My lovely parents agreed to deal with potential buyers and I let the car speak for itself, after a week I’d made my money back plus a bit to put towards the e34.
It was time to turn my attention to the new car and it need a lot of work. As it stood, it was an embarrassment to the BMW badge with ugly kerbed wheels and a ripped interior plus some mechanical issues that needed addressing.
The most important issue to sort was a vague front end with a wobble under braking and at above 50mph. This was quickly diagnosed to be absolutely knackered front shock absorbers, or ‘inserts’ as they are on this car. The damper is secured inside a housing with the upright attached. While most of the front suspension components were off the car I took the opportunity to also replace both track rod ends as they’re a common failure and were looking a bit past their best.
As I needed to buy a couple of tools to do the job, I had to leave the car on axle stands overnight right. Not normally something to worry about, but as it was right next to the only pedestrian entrance on a Friday night, I had visions of drunken students (I’ll admit I’ve been there) trying to push the car off the stand or something equally horrific. Thankfully the car was safe and I was able to get it back on the road the next day, feeling a lot stiffer and generally more confidence inspiring.
Next up was the cam cover gasket which was leaking slightly; not a particularly tricky job but you do need to be careful when tightening the small nuts back up as it’s very easy to snap the small studs. While I was working on the engine I serviced it and replaced the spark plugs. It was clear this was needed as it ran slightly smoother after the work was done. Performing any kind of work on this car was always a pleasure and it really made me appreciate the logical German design.
With the car mechanically sorted I used it as it was for a few months, learning how fun a rwd can be in the wet winter months.
A stroke of luck was to be had when I visited my local breakers yard and managed to find not only a set of alloy wheels but also a complete leather interior. The wheels are original BMW fitment with a good clean and a tyre swap they really started to make the car look how it should.
The replacement leather interior I bought was from an E34 BMW but it was from an early H reg car; because mine was a later M reg, there were a couple of variations. Luckily nothing that couldn’t be adapted or modified.
Another issue was that the plastics were slightly different shades, no matter, I would replace all the cloth items with leather and keep all the original plastics. My seats had seatbelt pretensioners in the frames whereas the seats from the older breakers yard car did not. Although there was nothing that would have physically stopped them fitting, I wanted to have as much of the original equipment remaining as possible so I therefore swapped the seat runners over.
Although to the trained eye the door cards don’t look 100% factory because of the colour difference, I was extremely pleased with the finished results.
The very last thing to do was re-spray a new mirror cover and then the car was complete.
I really did love this car and it always got a lot of positive comments, however in my opinion it really wasn’t powerful enough to justify how much fuel it drank so after a fresh MOT was put on it, which it passed first time, it was up for sale to make way for the next experience.
Here is how she looked with everything done:
