SCHLEPN | The E39 540itA Story

[patsbimmer1]

DrLeadFoot said:

Priorities are to stop the rust

Then parks in salt mine...

[B C]

[DrLeadFoot]

patsbimmer1 said:

Then parks in salt mine...

Confronting my fears, face to face.

[DrLeadFoot]

B C said:

Mr. Milo!!!

[patsbimmer1]

DrLeadFoot said:

Mr. Milo!!! 

The face he makes just before "Daddy, I drive it?"

[DrLeadFoot]

Structure Fabrication cut out the rot/rust on my passenger rear jacking point and rebuilt/over built it back up looking as close to stock as possible.  Rust proofed it all.  Pretty big job as they had to pull the gas tank. They found some old bondo from a hack job fix from years and years ago.  Glad they got in there to cut out the cancer!

They also popped on my new snow tires on the "new" wheels!  245/18/40 Blizzaks on some 6 series wheels.  Not sure which style code they are. 18 x 8.5 et14 if I remember correctly. 

[straight6pwr]

bet you had some fun today!

[Jdesign]

Awesome.

[DrLeadFoot]

straight6pwr said:

bet you had some fun today! 

Not too much fun.  SCHLEPN tires & wheels back and forth from Stallis and trying to keep up with this crazy Real Estate market!  It's still going strong!

Jdesign said:

Awesome. 

I agree! 

A birdy said you're the go to guy for a suede headliner.  Let's talk!

[Jdesign]

DrLeadFoot said:

Not too much fun.  SCHLEPN tires & wheels back and forth from Stallis and trying to keep up with this crazy Real Estate market!  It's still going strong!

I agree! 

A birdy said you're the go to guy for a suede headliner.  Let's talk!

I may have done a few in my time.

[YoungCR]

Wheels look great!

[DrLeadFoot]

I'll pop some 5mm spacers on the rear to get it a little better stance. 

[DrLeadFoot]

10mm rear spacers installed.  I think this makes the wheels ET 4 in the rear and ET 9 in the front. 

Structure and Fab sent some pics of the rear passenger jacking point rebuild.  Thank goodness Chris is better at fab work than taking pictures. 

[DrLeadFoot]

Merry XMAS!!

Update: Running strong!  Need an oil change soon and the rear subframe will be coming out to pop in new M5 bushings and weld in the dinan diff reinforcement. 

[B C]

The only reason I didn’t get a real tree this year was that I didn’t have an S62 swapped E39 wagon to bring it home with. It had absolutely nothing to do with ambition.

[jc43089]

What are the OE M5 rear subframe bushings like?  I got a set of Powerflex yellow ones for my dad's wagon but haven't installed them.  It's parked for the winter so it won't be until spring.

[DrLeadFoot]

jc43089 said:

What are the OE M5 rear subframe bushings like?  I got a set of Powerflex yellow ones for my dad's wagon but haven't installed them.  It's parked for the winter so it won't be until spring.

Not sure on stiffness but the M5 bushings are a tad shorter and allow for the reinforcement trailing bars to be installed.

[DrLeadFoot]

Oil & filter change at 196,172 miles (M5 cluster).

10w-60 Liqui Moly & Mann Filter.

[DrLeadFoot]

Had a slight shimmy in the brakes so I had Mike replace the rotors and the pads.  Went with Zimmerman rotors and OEM BMW pads.

Scooped up a used M wheel with the updated airbag! Excited!

Got a power steering line leak so we'll be replacing that early next week.

Also replaced the dash lights, added the dimmer wire to my radio so the backlight on the keys works, replaced a bad O2 sensor under warranty, put new rubber mounts on the oil filter, added some leather interior bits: -steering column surround -upper & lower B pillars -center console arm rest.

Slowly chipping away!

[B C]

DrLeadFoot said:

Primer overspray? Concrete dust? Or some amazing leak detection spray I have never heard of??