It’s over :(

It was time to be realistic. It’s been over 10 years since the project was started and there hasn’t been any progress at all in many years. As tends to happen, other projects and just life in general kept me busy.

As the body of this far-from-mint example was the least valuable part of the formula, and the body hadn’t exactly gotten better by standing outside for 10 years, I decided to have the body scrapped. I’m cutting my losses by selling the rest. The engine and transmission have already been sold. I’m still looking for a buyer for the interior, rear silencer, Bentley workshop manual, headlights etc. If you’re interested in the parts, leave a comment.

Thanks for reading, now go look up some other project, the internet is full of them. May I recommend Project Binky for instance?

-Edvin

Updates coming soon..ish

I have two weeks of summer vacation left, starting next monday. I intend to work a bit on the engine during my vacation among many other things, so updates are coming soon!

Edited October 17th.: The vacation came and went, unfortunately nothing happened to the car. I built a workbench in the garage, bought a new daily driver (another 7-series), traveled to Paris and worked on my new and old daily driver, but had no time left to work on the E32. I’m still hoping to get something done soon.

A few parts acquired

Got a few parts and did a little work today. First of all, the Bentley repair manual I ordered from Amazon.com arrived. I also bought the transmission rear oil seal from the dealer. A friend of mine had a few used E32 parts for me, the left front fog light and a pair of boot shocks (thank you Mikko!). I went on a shopping spree on ebay and bought new headlights for both sides. I actually only needed them for one side, but they were so cheap I decided to buy both because the lights can never be too good. Also it would look a bit silly with faded old lights on one side, and new on the other side. I also found this great E32-guy on ebay, who has lots of cheap used parts for sale. I bought the missing original air filters and lower b-pillar interior trims from him, and I’m sure I’ll be buying stuff from him again. The new seats don’t look too bad, even tho they are much darker than the rest of the interior. The difference is even greater in the pictures because of the flash. Maybe I’ll get leather seats at some point, but I dunno… I sorta like cloth better. Especially on older cars the leather tends to squeak and rattle and it shows it’s age worse than cloth.

Hadn’t planned on doing any work today, and didn’t actually do too much. I was just trying to make some storage space by changing the rear seats. The old seats, still fitted in the car upon purchase, were E34 seats. Apparently some previous owner has sold the original leather interior at some point and fitted a E34 cloth interior instead. However the last owner had gotten a black E32 velour interior as a replacement and had changed the front seats. The back seats weren’t installed and were taking up a lot of storage space in the car. I removed the E32 rear seat and swapped in the new one. Now I can store some of my parts inside the car for the winter. The rear seat swap didn’t take long but I discovered a few missing pieces I’ll have to hunt down on ebay: the plastic covers around the seat belt buckles and the spools.

I also found out that the carpet is ruined under one of the rear rubber mats. Apparently some fluid has spilled there and has eaten away the carpet. Luckily it’s under the rubber mat, I just hope it hasn’t corroded the floor underneath. Will have to check that at some point.

Parts acquired	B-pillar trims need to be replaced	E34 seats are too narrow
New darker seats	Out with the old…	…in with the new
Whoa! What died here?

Project assessment

Today I took a closer look at the car and added some repairs to the already long list. I’m sure that there will still be plenty of surprises in store once I get under the car. On the whole I was pleasantly surprised with the condition as it’s been more than a year since I last saw the car in daylight. There was much less rust than I remembered, just a few spots in the bottom of the doors and by the fuel filler cap. Right now it looks like there’s not a whole lot of welding to do, but who knows what I’ll find underneath. Of course there are some dents and dings, but for a 21 yo. car it’s quite acceptable. Still, it’s not gonna be a minter without some serious attention, but that’s not what I’m after anyway.

Here she is	Pretty nice and tidy	Closeup of RH front door
Typical rust spot	Drivers door looks ok	Rear LH needs a new door trim
Front RH needs a new trim	Rear RH is ok	Some rust above taillight
Some small dents	Some stone chips	And a big dent in rear door

A few other faults I noticed was the hanging exhaust pipe, horrible radio antenna in the windshield, broken front foglight, horrible foam air filters, metric wheels and tyres and that one of the headlights needs to be changed. Also the headlight wirings looked a bit suspicious and will have to be renewed. The TRX wheels look nice, but the tyres are expensive, hard to find and inferior compared to modern tyres.

 

Exhaust attachment needs fixing	Busted foglight	TRX wheels
Smiley light on the left	Stupid foam filters	Wiring mess

I even tried starting the car and to my amazement she started right up. I only kept the engine running for a while, as there’s very little oil in the transmission. The engine sounded healthy but the exhaust gases were bluish, probably because the car hasn’t been started for a while and there’s probably oil all over the exhaust. I also took a few pics of the parts that came with the car. Among them is a used fuel tank, which shouldn’t be leaking and a pair of non-LAD shocks for the rear, just in case. Also both rear wheel bearing housings and swing arms, but I’m not sure if I’m gonna be using them. I guess at least the brake calipers may be salvageable.

Fuel tank and shocks	More rusty parts	Cool detail, wiper heating
New rear seat waiting to be installed

After that I gave the car a quick wash and put the car cover on. Winter is practically here so the project will be on hold until spring, when I get my motorcycle out of the garage and can start working on the car. There might be some small updates along the winter if I’m able to obtain some missing parts or start tidying the parts that came with the car. The rest of the pictures can be found here.

Left side	Buttshot	The oily bit
Good night, E32!

Fetching the car

The beginning of the project. Today the car was fetched from the seller, and transported to the place where I will be fixing the car. The car had been sitting in a garage for almost a year, but everything still went well. The brakes weren’t stuck and the battery wasn’t completely empty. We didn’t even bother trying to start car, as we knew the car wouldn’t move on it’s own power. Apparently the transmission rear oil seal leaks at the same rate that you pour new fluid in, so there was no point in making a mess.

The car may start moving again once the seal has been replaced and the transmission is refilled, but I’m not holding my breath. I’m prepared to change the transmission if necessary and already have one used transmission scoped out. I may end up buying it anyway, since winter is coming and I won’t be working on the car (outside) until spring. If I don’t need the transmission I can always resell it, or swap it in any case. Now that the car is home, next up is an up-close investigation of what needs to be done with the car. I will also take pictures of the car.