Just picked up a BMW 745i on the Cheap! Am I cray cray?

This is insane in the best way. Showing this thread to my wife will easily justify all scary future purchases haha. Great job!

How are the valve stem seals and Valvetronic motor doing? 

NickD said:

Is it safe to admit that I actually liked the Bangle Butt?

I never thought that particular detail was a problem, at least not compared to the oddball proportioning and general fussiness his car designs seemed to have.

Wow parts are cheap for that thing!

In reply to yupididit :

Seriously. This is making my question my current addiction to sub $2000 Toyotas.

Duke said:

NickD said:

Is it safe to admit that I actually liked the Bangle Butt?

I never thought that particular detail was a problem, at least not compared to the oddball proportioning and general fussiness his car designs seemed to have.

I liked the overall funkiness of Bangle designs. 

In reply to NickD :

NickD - I don't see an issue with the "big butt"! Looks beautiful to me, lol, then again, Ima black man, genetically predisposed to lovin' big butts! BBD told us not to trust them, but I can't help it (if you know of this early 1990s song i'm referring to, 100 points)!

Seriously, if I could, I'd love to change just the front end to the 2006 refresh as that makes a world of difference to me.

Sobe_Death- With it being a "fleet car", I knew the dealer would make all of the those "hush, hush" fixes when it went in for service, like more frequent oil changes, TSB fixes, etc, and looking around, I can see the "fixes".

It needs wheels to fill it out, like now!

Where are you finding a front end suspension arm kit for $185? Are they OE parts? Be careful with cheaper, non-OE bits, as they will tend to wear FAST on such a heavy car.

02Pilot said:

Where are you finding a front end suspension arm kit for $185? Are they OE parts? Be careful with cheaper, non-OE bits, as they will tend to wear FAST on such a heavy car.

I know for older BMWs (like the 1980s) there are suspension kits on eBay that are really cheap, but they also don't last.  On the other hand there are some good online parts  sellers that will get you the best prices on OEM quality stuff .  I like https://www.blunttech.com

In reply to yupididit :

I'm looking into that now! Only thing is, I want to go with 20's, and even the OEMs will cost 2-2.5k! If I do that and then choose to sell, I'll never get any of that back, unless I part it out.

In reply to 02Pilot :

Good ole' EBay! my concern is not the new, non-OEM bushings going on, it's the ball joint. I'm planning on making some poly bushings with the original arms I end up taking off the car.

I also have access to a lift. I'll be able to level out the arms prior to torquing to spec-which makes a huge difference in wear.

4cylndrfury said:

google images arent loading in his post? Can anyone see these? Im having to dig the link out by looking at the HTML in firefox

I dub thee “moby dick”!

In reply to Trackmouse :

Uh, OK. I don't really consider myself, "Captain Ahab" in this adventure. I'm still ahead in this game in terms of dollars invested, and nothing's costing me an arm, or more appropriately, a LEG, haha!

Watch Bimmerforums for wheels as all the oem bmw wheels go really affordably as folks want aftermarket. Seriously a great idea - love the color.

Look on stanceworks as well

I'll be interested to hear how long the bushings and ball joints survive. FWIW, the OE kit for my car is close to $500, hence my surprise.

I know most of the usual suspects for BMW parts. Agreed that Blunttech is a good one - I've ordered a few 2002 bits from them. I tend to use FCP Euro these days, as they are a lot closer to me and they lifetime warranty every single part they sell (wear items included).

In reply to 84FSP :

Thanks for that! Now I just need to get a list of the cracking OEM rims I need to avoid!

In reply to 02Pilot :

Gotcha! If I hadn't already made bushings of all types (delrin, UHMW, poly molding) I would have gone your route.

I'm thinking, someone can get this.....

https://lakeland.craigslist.org/cto/d/2003-bmw-745-li-blown-head/6353190200.html

And fix it with stuff from these guys...

https://sacramento.craigslist.org/ptd/d/parting-out-2002-bmw-bmw-745i/6372078000.html

A guy in Chicago has one for sale - $4,000.  Not sure I get the NASCAR theme.  This ad would discourage me from buying this car rather than encouraging me - I wonder if he questions why nobody is calling?

I am a second owner of this car. I bought it in 2004 when the car was 1-year old with about 28,000 miles (someone did a lot of driving in a year). Since then I drove "only" 112,000 miles in 13 years, including several long-distance trips over 1,000 miles (North Carolina and DC to name a couple).

But as the car got older, more and more things started to go bad. I probably put another 25k fixing the car once it crossed 100k miles. Right now it is leaking oil and coolant. The leaks definitely need to be fixed and repairs are not going to be cheap for sure.

When I read 745 I was expecting the older turbo model that BMW never really imported here from the '80's.

$1800 for a yours is a steal!

Here's a shot of some of the things needing replacing on the 7.

Unfortunately, the head lamp bulbs were the only thing I could replace today. Thought I had all the necessary tools to complete the pulley kit install, but I, unfortunately, didn't have a Torx 55 to loosen the belt. I could have just cut the belt, but I didn't want to chance any type of damage from the pulley snapping back in tension.

Ended up getting the proper sized Torx when I picked up my kids from daycare and promptly went on a child-mandated "adventure". Work shall commence tomorrow in the am.  

 picture no worky

In reply to yupididit :

Weird- I'm looking right at the picture now! Me needs halp with posting pics!