Mario and Tami Perez' 1979 528i

Contact: Mario and Tami Perez
MarioP3@PerezSoft.com

I (we) have a 1979 528i, of which we believe we are the third owner of. It is an automatic, has *just* 227,000 miles on it and may have had the head replaced in the early 80's. We accidentally obtained this car from my parents in the late 90's (around 1996) because at 140,000 miles my mother was "nervous" about potential failures. Of course her only experience up to this point was American cars, which rarely made it this many miles. So she sent it to my house to look at, and see if I could fix it up. Well after two years of it staying here, we all decided that she really didn't want it anymore. So she sent the title to us in September of 98.

We (I) drove it only doing required preventive maintenance for those two years. I didn't fix anything that wasn't essential to the safe operation of the car. I did find and tighten some loose bolts holding the A/C compressor to the block (one of those bolts had fallen on the floor of the garage prompting my mom's attitude about the car). I changed the oil (my dad would sometimes go a year or more between oil changes) several times in only a few hundred miles to clean out the block.

In 1999 my daughter got married and some family friends came up from Louisiana where they were stationed with the ARMY. They wanted to borrow a car, so my wife came up with a clever plan of loaning them the BMW (my daughters Rabbit was out, it didn't have enough room in it, my big Bronco was out, no one could afford the fuel for it, and my pickup had to few seats and gets even worse mileage than the Bronco). So we loaned the BMW to them for the month they were here.

Well my wife's friend's husband was a former cop and when he was stationed in the eastern part of the state, he was buddies with most of the state and local police, so speeding (sure the "officials" would probably deny it) was something he did most of the time. And he never was ticketed... Well, my car was in pretty good shape for 150,000 miles. But eastern Washington in August is HOT. When my car was returned to me, it wouldn't auto-down shift when you stopped at a light, or even when you first put it into drive. And they didn't realize what was wrong. So they left it in "D" and drove it hard. It would start in drive, just not very well!

Well after they left I parked the car for about a year while I researched the 3HP-22 transmission. It seems that BMW nor ZF will part with a manual for this box. And I usually fix my own stuff when it breaks, or at least KNOW exactly how to do so, should I entrust it to others. During that time I was able to obtain a partial manual, learn more about the box, and find a used box (rebuild by ZF at some point according to the tag).

I finally found that Peugeot uses the same box as BMW, and found a manual for a Peugeot on eBay. Well, the long awaited motor for my Bronco became an issue in December of 2000 so I parked the Bronco until I had "time" to put the new motor into it (it's still blocking most of my garage). So I started driving the 528 regularly. I just manually shift the box, and live with a strange up shift (full throttle) at 5200 RPM's. I have been disciplining myself to finish one project before embarking on another... But the 60 hour work week and a family seems to leave little time for fun.

I did do some essential maintenance. I replaced the struts (KYB's) lowered it using B&G Sport springs, replaced the idler arm bushing, the entire friction surface of the brakes (rotors and pads all the way around) except for the parking brakes, they are still very good, found replacement wheels from a dead E12 (stock size), figured out why the A/C wouldn't hold a charge for more than a week AND converted it to R134 (they told me it HAD to have a new compressor. BS! My compressor had a leaking end-cap. The o-ring failed and was bleeding out the R-12 and lubricant. The local hydraulic shop found an o-ring of the appropriate size, I flushed out the old lube completely while I had the compressor cover off, blew out the condenser and evaporator with plain old compressed air, found new copper sealing rings for the line connections [Williams Oil Filter Service, Tacoma], reassembled it [tried to replace the drier. It was back-ordered so I said well, what the heck], sucked the air out with my handy vacuum pump, tested for leaks, replaced a copper washer that I forgot, pumped it down again, and serviced it with R-134.) That was in the spring of 2001. Now, in February I had an opportunity to test the cold air. It is still cold...

Along with the A/C, suspension and regular maintenance I found that I had an occasional "no-start" problem. It seemed as if my car was flooding. So initially I pulled the plugs, cleaned them and reinstalled after each episode. [twice in one year] Finally I figured that I should probably learn the ins and outs of the Bosch FI system. Which I have. Sort of. I read everything I could find on the net, bought the books from Robert Bosch, tested components, and still it would occasionally flood. So I did what any self respecting tester would do. I unplugged the connection from the cold start valve (the thermal switch tested good, and it SEEMED as if it was only running the cold start injector when it was cold but...) Well, that took care of it. For a while. Then it would flood cold. I think I finally figured it out. Sometime (long ago) the auxiliary air valve failed in the open position. Which presumably screwed up the warm idle speed. Which some enterprising soul adjusted down.

It passed (still does) the state emissions inspection.

It started and ran pretty well (this was for at LEAST 110,000 miles. Since my parents never had it worked on by anyone other than me).

It shut off with no run-on...

Well when I get the new aux air valve I will see how much better it starts and runs. Assuming that I don't find any more surprises...

Speaking of long time between maintenance. My parents never replaced the plugs or the wires. They did replace the cap and rotor just after they bought it. It had a no-start that was odd. No spark to any plug. But good spark at the coil wire. The rotor had burned out between the center contact and the outer electrode. When I got it I just plain forgot about the plugs until I had put about 30,000 miles on it. I pulled out six worn out Bosch Platinum plugs. They had been in since the car was sold to my parents... But there was no evidence of miss-fire or reduced mileage...

The only modification (so far) is that I've lowered it. And I found a right side mirror. The power portion of it had quit, but since I am the only (usually) driver, who cares? I replaced the stock headlights with Hellas. I removed the stock Bosch fog lights and added some itty bitty fog lights that haven't hit a curb yet. It does need to be painted, and the passenger door is damaged a bit from a side-swipe from a drive by idiot.

Well, I've rambled on long enough I think.

Oh, and my mom decided that she had to have another BMW (it was just a matter of time). So we got her a 1992 750il... Which yours truly has to learn about and maintain. THAT will be and has been fun. And it has 122,000 or so mile on it, but probably will not get too many more while she owns it.

I wonder if I could shoe-horn a V12 into an E12 engine bay? But would I have time?

Mario Perez
Tami Perez
Recent BMW CCA addition (Why didn't I find this club earlier??)
'79 528i
'92 750il by adoption