My 520iA Road to 528iA '91

Subscribing to this thread for an amazing project.

Took it for a ride today as it's nice dry weather. Also changed ac condenser and fixed the kidney grill holder fitment. Oh, and clear indicators all around too.



New condenser in. Next step is new dryer and some more o-rings and then it can be refilled with r134a.

First wash after ceramic coating. It is fun to wash now.
I also installed all new front bumper mouldings so I used 3m dual lock to mount front license plate. Gotta order new plates as current ones are pretty worn.
Edit: it's gonna snow again tomorrow so back to garage...

Excellent work!

I think I found front seat that is in good condition, so we can get rid of the broken one.

Front fog lights installed, still gotta find where the wiring is.

Car looks better and better. Time to find some sport seats for it.

There is dark grey sport seats for sale at decent price but they are very far away from where I live... And right now I'm thinking it would be more interesting to but money into engine upgrade. So I'm gonna go with those basic seats for now. Going to get the new seat tomorrow, seller also had armrests that need new fabric which I also bought. Gotta take them to upholstery shop to refinish.

Little bit of seat work done. Changed upholstery from the new seat to my cars own frame.









These I got to figure out what to do.

Ordered black plastic trim for the trunk that goes behind license plate. It was cheap for original classic part, around 70bucks.

Looks good.

Your seats look amazing reupholstered! It really makes the interior stand out.

Keep going!!

Thanks, I will see upholstery guy tomorrow about arm rest, so lets see if we can find close enough fabric. Maybe I'll ask about the front door panel too, if he got idea to fix that too... Since I have not found replacement yet.

New dryer and ac pressure sensor in and some o-rings replaced. Gotta get ac refilled next week to see if it works.

AC refilled and it's cold again. Gotta order new electric fan. Bearings and resistor are bad.

Had to order new valve lifters for it. They started failing couple of weeks ago. First they where ticking couple of seconds when you shut off the car and start it back up, rarely on cold engine. Now they are ticking every start and at least one lifter won't stop ticking at all.

Took out cams and lifters. I will continue next week when we arrive from holiday trip and new lifters have arrived.

New lifters arrived. Hopefully back on the road upcoming weekend.

New lifters in and still one or two keeps ticking. Sometimes it goes away for couple of seconds but comes back.

Also new ac condenser has leaked all r134a out, so ac is not working anymore.

I'm starting to feel that I'm gonna park it in garage and leave it there...

Have you run some oil cleaner through the engine and then a fresh oil and an Italian tune up? Aka run it in higher rpms higher so maybe the stuck lifter will bleed out properly?

I ran engine cleaner before i changed oil just few hundred kilometers ago.
Today cold start and it ran nice. After it warmed up and drove few kilometers one lifter is ticking. I ordered oil pressure gauge, so let's check it. I found bmw bulleting about air getting into oil stream or oil pump check valve not working properly. So probably gotta take the oil pan out and inspect the pump.

And when I got new lifters in I drove it like I stole it.

Got parts for the oil pump. Hopefully got time to take out the pan this weekend.

Replaced ps hoses today and filled it with chf. Steering box also has small leak, I have another low mileage box which I will replace later.

Ac leak might have been my own mistake. I might have put wrong o-ring in there. Replaced condenser o-rings again. Will have it leak tested on monday.