Welcome to The Archives.

Archive for January, 2010

Jeff’s E34: Not Busted, Less of a Pile

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

The first post about Jeff’s E34 left us with a mildly improved, but still rough, engine and idle. The door pull cable was still in shambles and both windows on the driver’s side didn’t work. Thankfully, we have made some progress.

In driving the car around town, I noticed the idle getting progressively lumpier. Acceleration was taking a similar hit – the car felt like VTEC was kicking in and was surging badly. Yes, the M50 motor in the car does have Vanos (BMW’s term for variable valve timing) but the variances should not be noticeable to the driver. This was …


Jeff’s E34: The Busted Pile, Part One

Monday, January 18th, 2010

I met this guy Jeff during orientation week, back in August. I was an orientation guide and he’s an RA in my students’ dorm. We had some time to chat during the week, and it came up in conversation that he had a BMW. Of course, this set off my car interests, and we established that it was a 1995 525iA.

Nothing more was said, and Jeff and I didn’t see each other except a quick “hey” in passing, if we ever saw each other around campus. I ran into him right before Thanksgiving break, and he mentioned that the car …