Optiskate

Hey! I'm new here. I've been lurking for a bit, so I figured I'd say hi. My name Brad and I made the unfortunate decision to burn my wallet and thrown all monetary responsibility out the window and buy an E60 535i. The original plan was to buy a 335i E92, but when I saw my E60, I couldn't resist and ultimately the bigger car with 4 doors is nicer for when I do haul my kids around in it. The car is not my daily driver though. Far from it. I got it with 80k miles on it and it already had full bolt ons and 19T turbos. I went into this knowing I'd probably need to go through the whole car and do all the preventative maintenance humanly possible. I bought the car from a kid who bought the car from the guy who built the car. I've also since talked to the guy that built the car. From what I was told, the car did a bunch of sitting around as the last owner was away at college and didn't take the car with him. No big deal, but I figured there'd be some seals and things that needed replacing. I started collecting parts for all the maintenance items I could think of, whether or not it actually needed to be replaced. I figured I'd just go through the whole thing. Then last year disaster struck. No, not with the car. With another one of my passions that my state is trying to legislate away, either way, I ended up having to divert all funds to getting things I needed and wrapping up other projects before I couldn't finish them. It put the car on hold and it basically sat all this year. Realizing my daily driver was sort of tired and on its last legs, I decided its time to get the 535i drivable and reliable so I have a car while I swap a new motor and trans into the daily.

Thats sort of where all this begins. I started to do some research on the things that I feel need to happen to get this car back on the road, reliable, and looking good again. lol I honestly feel in a little over my head. I've never had a car this... fancy... Most of my automotive experience has been with Jeeps and 4 wheeling. I've build rigs to 4 wheel and cobbled together monstrosities made from parts from every manufacturer under the sun that required tons of custom fabrication, but this is a whole new animal. Quite frankly its a bit intimidating. The best way to learn is to jump in head first though. As long as I don't blow up the motor or trans, I'm good to go. I mean, its just money right? lol I have two sets of plans. The first being get it running, reliable, and looking good. Perhaps also port injection because fueling is holding the car back. The second being built motor, single turbo, 8hp swap, ect. The second will probably be a 2025 goal. Its certainly not a priority right now. First up, a new battery, new tires, all the maintenance items, and figuring out its new transmission fault.

Any way, This has turned into something entirely too long. I just wanted to say hi and I hoped I could lean on some of you guys for your wisdom. There seems to be a lot of knowledge and knowledgeable people here. Perhaps once I start attacking this project, I'll start a build thread. I must warn you though... It will probably be filled with a lot of stupidity on my part.

donpb

to the group!

JayArras

It certainly looks like a worthy project! Thanks for sharing your story and welcome to the forum! The brain trust here will you in any way we can.

Optiskate

Thanks guys! I'm definitely going to need all the help I can get. Within the next month I'm hoping to get some new tires on it so that its drivable. Right now the tires are old, worn goofy due to camber, bald, and starting to crack. I was planning on getting some NT555G2's. 265/35R19's for the front and 305/30r19's in the rear. I need to figure out what to do rim wise though. I need to measure my rims, but just looking at them I doubt those tires will work. My fenders are rolled and the car is on coil overs. I was looking at some Aodhan DS08's. Its just going to cost a little extra money to get the rears in 5x120mm and I also need to figure out if I can make the options they have for offset work for me. Getting all the camber stuff dialed in so that I don't wear just half the tire is also something I need to look into. Then as soon as shes drivable I'll get her to my buddy's shop and on his lift where I'll tackle everything that can possibly leak under the car as well as figure rebuild the mechatronics stuff and replace all the sleeves. Thats the plan so far anyway.