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I put the new door on the car today. It took me most of the day, but I spent most of the time figuring out what to do rather than actually doing it.

Here’s a pic of the door as it was:

I pulled off the interior trim, removed the wiring loom from the door, and then set about trying to remove the electric window mechanism from the door, which took lots of twisting every which way until it finally came out. After I had that out, I propped up the door, undid the hinges, and voila, off came the door:

BTW, did you see that carpet? It used to be black, from all of the grease and dirt in it:

So, after given the new door a good clean to remove all of the grease and stuff in the seams, I propped it up, and bolted in the hinges:

It took a little while mucking around to get the alignment right, but here’s the finished product:

The rear of the door still sticks out a little too far, but one of the screws in the striker plate is stripped, and I can’t get it loosened enough to adjust it, i’ll have to drill it out on the weekend.

After that, I put the wiring loom into the new door, hooked up the door lock actuator for the central locking. Then I removed the old manual window winder, and put in the electric unit from the old door.

The only problem I have now is that the old window was held into the support by some sort of double sided sticky tape, but I don’t know what it was. Now, because the glass is just sitting on the support, when I try to wind the window down, the support comes away from the glass. I’ll go and get some double side tape tomorrow and try that.

Today, I took it to Bob Jane TMarts in Moorabbin, and got some new tyres for it (Yokohama C.Drive), and had a wheel alignment done. Saw StreekG there for 30 secs before he had to run to work (he works at Bob Jane), I heard his new merc, sounds fabulous.

Also picked up a S/H RHS door mirror, the glass on my is cracked. I replaced the wiper blades, cleaned the glass inside and out, and the hardest part of all, I finished cleaning the carpets. You should have seen how much foul smelling sludge I got out of them, unbelievable! I’ll probably have to go over them again at some point, no doubt they can still be cleaned more. I’ve cleaned the dash, door panels, trim etc, about the only thing left to clean on the inside is the roof lining. The car still smells, but it smells a whole let better than it did.

I took it down to carlovers this arvo and give it a HP wash and rinse, just to get the grime and grease off it.

I bought a MTec wheel for it off ebay, it was made for the E28, but it wouldn’t fit my car. It was then that I discovered that late E28’s have the same steering mounting as the early E34’s, and my E28 is one of the last ones delivered to Australia. Thankfully, I had the other wheel off my M5 here, so I put that on, problem solved (Sorry Leon!). I may get the other MTec wheel retrimmed though and put that back on, just not sure yet.

I have bought a set of front indicator lenses for it, and a new high beam switch, they will get here next week. I have also ordered some custom seat covers for the front seats, they will get here in about 2 weeks. It’s all starting to come together, I was driving it for a little while today and was really enjoying it.

So, tomorrow, i’m just going to focus on the door, and on the mirror, and if I get time, i’ll clean the roof lining too. I’ll take some more pics tomorrow

Andrew from SouthernBM has had the car for the past few days, weaving his magic with it. He replaced a heap of stuff under the car that was worn, such as engine mounts, various bushes, one half shaft, sway bar links, fuel hoses etc etc, a ton of stuff.

As usual, Andrew went over and beyond what I had asked him to do. Once he gets started, there’s just no stopping the guy, I don’t think i’ve ever met anyone so passionate about BMWs.

Thanks heaps Andrew for all of your hard work, the car feels transformed. We still have a lot to do on it of course, but we made a big leap forward today.

I’ve got next week off work, so i’m gonna gets stuck into all of the minor stuff that’s left, the aim is to get it roadworthy and registered just after Easter

More soon

I’ve just been cleaning bits and pieces, it just takes so long! I’ve cleaned most of the carpet, by vacuuming, scrubbing with soapy water, and then vacuuming with the wet/dry vac. And then doing it again. Carpets came up pretty good, got heaps of sludge out of them.I’ve also been cleaning the wheels. They didn’t look too bad, but the brake dust has just been baked on, and it’s really hard to remove. I’ve been using heaps of PWC, really strong sugar soap solution, a wheel brush, and a tooth brush. Each wheel has taken me about 4 hours of scrubbing, heaps of work, but the results are worth it.

Before:

After: