1983 BMW 728i (e23) - new wheels test fitting (final page)

[foxye28]

Hi everyone,

I'm back in the retro fold again having just picked up a lovely e23 728i from John (JohnK on here) in Bronze.

Pics to follow once it's had a clean as it just made the 300 mile trip home from north Yorkshire to Essex last night in the rain so is looking a little worse for wear.

Hopefully this thread will be of interest to anyone who likes the large bodied early 'series' cars and i'll just use it to chart some of the tidying up work that i'll be doing the car as it's in really good shape as it is.

[quattromanta]

Welcome back.

The fact the Beemer made the 300 mile trip is an excellent start!

I'm a mk1 Mondeo man but have an appreciation for rear wheel drive :-)

[foxye28]

First job was to sort the broken indicators and the non functioning electric windows.

Luckily i managed a quick fix on the indicators by bodging the cracked connector under the steering column so they are back till a new stalk can be bought.

Windows were even easier, the switch for the windows was turned off under the steering column, circuit breaker cutoff and turned it on and boom, 4 functioning windows back and working excellently. Happy day

[THE_Liam]

Absolutely love these!

[foxye28]

Pics as promised. Still unwashed and un-fiddled with. I aim to give it a clean tomorrow including starting on the under bonnet and bringing the black trim back up with the trusty peanut butter and heat application

[DWDarkWheels]

Respect. I can't imagine I'd buy a car 300 miles away.

[foxye28]

to be fair I wouldn't have bought it entirely blind, but I did exchange quite a lot of details with the seller first on here and phone and he was very upfront about that I was buying into, so there were no surprises on the test drive.

[DWDarkWheels]

....as is right. Just admiring your dedication.

[foxye28]

haha yes, dedication, needed in this case, not like these pop up every day for sale, in fact it seems that all working examples seem to be owned by a handful of people lol

[GT4ME]

Nice old car.

[Bolf]

Great car , I have a 7 myself , albeit 11 years newer and a little mental

[foxye28]

Todays jobs were to look at the non functioning heater blower.

Found there was no fuse, so stuck in a new 30 amp, still no joy, so i'm going to swap in a known good relay from another system once it stops raining and see if its the relay, if not then I guess i'll have to swallow the cost of £50 from the breakers for a used blower motor and fit that if i can't find obvious broken/unplugged bits of the loom

On a good note I did use the trusty jumper wires to reset the service indicator so i'm now faced with this :



rather than a glowing inspection warning light, and its a 30 year old car so who really cares about the green lights, but it looks nicer than pulling out the bulb or sticking tape over the light to stop it annoying me on a daily basis!

[JohnK]

Glad to see a thread up on here Tim!

Still think that out of both my E23s, I sold the wrong one!

John.

[foxye28]

That green one you have looks really nice though, certainly did in the rain anyway, stick up a thread on it, so I can feel jealous of your wood trim and trip computer thingy.

[JohnK]

retrorides.proboards.com/thread/165532/1983-bmw-728i-auto-1986 some more pics of it in there

[foxye28]

looks good that, maybe i'll come back and buy that one off you too lol

[JohnK]

Haha it might be sooner rather than later it goes up for sale! I've found a 735i on an A plate which i really shouldn't think about buying but still ....

[106e30]

I got to borrow one of these for a day a few months back. Such a cool car and the M30 felt so smooth.

I had a brown for the day so nice and 70's, but both your cars look much better than it did.

[foxye28]

Ok, I now have a fully working HVAC ventilation system, vacuum pump opens and closes all the vents as it should.

Problem is the blower motor only runs on setting 4 full speed. Anyone know these old bmw non AC hvac systems? Is there a resistor/rheostat somewhere that is knackered meaning fan only runs when fully on?

[foxye28]

More of a picture based update today

No before pics unfortunately, but the black and dark grey trim was all faded by the sun as tends to happen on older cars so I re-oiled it all using peanut butter on a rag, let soak in then buff off leaving no residue and a lovely finish that seems to last forever and never streaks or feels oily.


door mirror housings


Bumper and front airdam bit


Rear bumper valance

As you can see I have also re aligned the broken exhaust tip trims and given them a polish

While I was at it I also wasn't happy with the car feeling like it was going to stall at junctions on idle, seemed to be idling too low, closer to 650rpm. Now I don't have the idle speed as it is factory set noted down anywhere but it felt to low, so I cracked open the screwdriver and opened up the idle control screw with the engine running till it smoothed out, and now I have it set to around 850rpm, which just feel more 'right'

Next job is to get plusgas and brute force on the bolts for the towbar, as it will never be used to tow and I never really like the look of towbars on anything other than a big off roader