My 1986 635 Project

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Hutch
Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Oct 20, 2019 9:29 pm
Location: Lancaster, PA

My 1986 635 Project

Post by Hutch »

Hey everyone, I posted an introduction thread but figured I would add a project thread so I could chronicle my adventures for myself and anyone else that is interested in following along. The car is an '86 with ~140k miles on it, the car used to be an auto but was swapped to a 5 speed by the PO. It seems like there are a few electrical gremlins to chase down, and the door seals are just awful, but the car spent much of its life in TX so there is very little rust so it seems solid where it counts.

Plans for the car are pretty modest, I'd say my days of extensive car mods are behind me and I appreciate keeping them largely stock aside from modernizing them in a few places and bolt on parts. OEM+ I guess as the kids say :mrgreen:

Before I get to some mods I want to do the basic maintenance stuff to get the car running in tip top shape. I've driven Saabs for a long time and have always worked on my own cars so am familiar with working on old European cars but there are obviously a lot of things to get used to with a new brand, new engine, etc. So far I really do appreciate a lot of the engineering with these cars, even if they can be a bit overcomplicated at times.

Updates on the car will follow but for the time being here are the same pictures I posted before for good measure...
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Hutch
Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Oct 20, 2019 9:29 pm
Location: Lancaster, PA

Re: My 1986 635 Project

Post by Hutch »

Heater Motor and Blower Repair
Like many of these cars I only had high fan speed so apparently it was the infamous transistor. I think the heater valve could also use replacing as the heat is only so so even at full blast, so I think the E46 valve swap will occur, luckily spring is upon us soon on the east coast 8)

So to begin with, I removed the old one, not a terrible job but certainly a bit fiddly. This one had bolts already instead of rivets but it looked like original (or maybe just old solder joints) so who knows.
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New one soldered on, writing is now upside down, but it should only go in one way so I assume its correct :-k
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The old one came with washers between the circuit board and the transistor so I put them back, I know you need airflow on the unit but hadn't really seen mention of spacers like this before. On and heat paste slathered on between Al of course...
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Then onto the next step, replacing the motor itself, its a cheap-ish replacement and seems like a no brainer to minimize the current draw of the system and hopefully postpone failure of the transistor (though I of course bought 2).

Measuring the distances, I did this again once the squirrel cages were removed and could see the line between clean and crusty. For anyone that does this I just took a heat gun and slowly worked around the shaft while lightly twisting the cage until it was free, no need to apply a large force to it IMO.
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Old vs. New
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Light persuasion taps with the plastic mallet
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Apply a light drop of oil and work down into the shaft for good measure
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And finally, the old unit, all the black crud is what fell out of it when I banged it around a bit, the motor wasn't seized by any stretch of the imagination but it sure was old and crusty so I'm sure the new one will be better all around.
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Hutch
Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Oct 20, 2019 9:29 pm
Location: Lancaster, PA

Re: My 1986 635 Project

Post by Hutch »

Engine Bay Cleanup Part I
I will probably update this over the weekend when I finish it up, but here we go.

To make a long story short it looked like the PO had taken a lot of the wiring harness apart to do the 5 speed swap and was kinda blah looking so I wanted to clean it up. I got proper tape and it looks much better and cleaned up the bay a bit, OCD me would prefer to pull the whole thing out and do it properly but this will certainly do for now.

Dirty Engine Bay
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Weird wire space I found going from the alternator to the fuel pump relay, I hate shoddy electrical stuff ](*,)
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I showed this elsewhere but this is the TDC sensor that literally crumbled in my hand
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Anyway, cleaned up harness
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New valve cover, so not the first person to paint one of these black and sand back the accents but I think its a nice look
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Was thrilled to find this upon removal of the old one :evil:
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Engine Clean Up Pt II and Maintenance Items to follow...
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hornhospital
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Re: My 1986 635 Project

Post by hornhospital »

That banjo bolt hiding below the valvetrain looks all too familiar. I hope your #1 cylinder cam lobes looked better than mine. The forward section of the cam suffers worse from oil starvation when the banjo bolt drops out.

You should have two crush washers hiding down there with the bolt. One goes under the head of the bolt and the other between the oil rail and post.
Ken Kanne
'84 633CSi "Sylvia"; '85 635CSi "Katja";'85 325e "Hazel Ann"; '95 M3 "Ashlyn"
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tschultz
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Re: My 1986 635 Project

Post by tschultz »

Car looks great! Also looks like you have the rare 16" E28 M5 wheels by chance.
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GRNSHRK
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Re: My 1986 635 Project

Post by GRNSHRK »

Agreed, looking good so far Hutch =D>

Tom, good call, I had E28 M5 wheels on my 6er when I bought her, 30 years ago next month =D>

I had a buyer already lined up for them when I bought the Throwing Stars, E28 5er guy snapped them up in a heartbeat \:D/
:mrgreen:
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Hutch
Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Oct 20, 2019 9:29 pm
Location: Lancaster, PA

Re: My 1986 635 Project

Post by Hutch »

hornhospital wrote: Fri Mar 13, 2020 2:37 am That banjo bolt hiding below the valvetrain looks all too familiar. I hope your #1 cylinder cam lobes looked better than mine. The forward section of the cam suffers worse from oil starvation when the banjo bolt drops out.

You should have two crush washers hiding down there with the bolt. One goes under the head of the bolt and the other between the oil rail and post.
Thank you for the info about needing two washers, luckily the one was still under the oil rail but the bolt head and washer showed signs that they had contacted something before getting lodged down in what looked to be where an oil return/passage hole is located :shock:

I ordered two new bolts and four washers to replace what appeared to be the old factory ones without loctite. I inspected the cam and looked OK to me, no obvious scoring or discoloration so I hope it has not been like this for long. Im thinking a valve adjustment is on the to do list as if this has been off for a while it may mean no one has had this cover off in some time...
tschultz wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 1:50 pm Car looks great! Also looks like you have the rare 16" E28 M5 wheels by chance.
Well thats cool to know! I am not up to speed on my BMW accessories but usually prefer OEM option wheels, I knew something drew me to this car!
GRNSHRK wrote: Tue Mar 17, 2020 4:21 pm Agreed, looking good so far Hutch =D>

Tom, good call, I had E28 M5 wheels on my 6er when I bought her, 30 years ago next month =D>

I had a buyer already lined up for them when I bought the Throwing Stars, E28 5er guy snapped them up in a heartbeat \:D/
Thank you! :mrgreen:

Im happy to have found a good forum like this for just this kind of info, hope I don't ask too many newbie questions in the process
Hutch
Posts: 13
Joined: Sun Oct 20, 2019 9:29 pm
Location: Lancaster, PA

Re: My 1986 635 Project

Post by Hutch »

Ok as alluded to above, I did some more maintenance and got the car running again (a "weekend" service had spitballed into a few week affair)

Oil Tube Banjo Bolts
Replaced the dislodged bolt and its partner with the OEM bolt with loctite, fingers crossed this holds up better. As mentioned I inspected the cam it appeared OK so maybe dodged a bullet here.
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Charging System
Another annoying thing I have found is the charging system appears to be an issue with my car, I left the lights on by accident (used to my Saabs that shut them off for you) out at dinner once and AAA came and jumped the car and also said the battery was at like 10% CCA capacity. I chalked it up that maybe the car spent some time on a charger and got borked up :-k The dash light also comes on at random times, most often when turning right for some odd reason, so it is either a weird electrical gremlin or there really is an issue with the charging system.

Anyway, replaced the voltage regulator as its cheap insurance and the ground strap as it was totally deteriorated, likely wasn't an issue, but again seemed like a good idea to limit issues. The brushes were worn, and Ive definitely seen worse, but it can't hurt.

Annoyingly the battery light still appears to flicker a bit so I may not have solved this just yet, but these were no brainer fixes to begin with.
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Reassembly
Again, what started as a quick service turned into a few week downtime with parts to order, etc. but now the fun part begins and I get to drive it again. I didn't really take any pictures but I replaced the plugs (had oddball Champion branded ones in there), wires, coil, distributor cap and rotor while I was in there. The car idles rock solid now and feels pretty smooth so I think it was worth the effort. I also replaced the fuel level sender as mine was totally DOA so its good to know how much gas is in there again.

Its a shame the nice valve cover gets hidden under all the stuff, but I splurged the $5 and got some nice SS acorn nuts for the valve cover to clean things up a bit.
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I don't know if I took a good before shot, but I also cleaned and painted the air filter housing as totally beat up and had flaking paint everywhere. Also replaced the air filter as the old one looked pretty old, realized I should order a new elbow to the AMM as mine is pretty dry rotted.
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Then finally had a chance to test the blower motor repair, at first it was full blast fan and I feared I had broken something but as soon as I turned the dial to zero and shut the car off and rebooted it works perfectly :-k I still need to replace the heater valve to get a little more heat but it sure is nice to have a functioning fan control again.

Goodnight, sweet price... until we meet again 2N3771 transistor...
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Up next I think I want to tackle the window alignment and seals (I hear those are cheap lol ](*,) ) as the car is super noisy on the highway and maybe work on improving the stereo situation a little bit as all 4 of the front speakers are pretty worthless, despite being new replacements.
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