Asheville, NC saying Hello

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Vandriver

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Hello. Bruce Robertson, Asheville, NC.

I've owned two Bavarias in the past.

First one was a '73 that I purchased used about 1978, and then about 1992 I picked up a '72. Both were 3.0 with manual. LOVED those cars…..eventually drove the wheels off them. Both ran fairly well up to about the 180K miles range. Haven't had one since the end of the 1990's.

I've come to this forum primarily for one reason and I don't want to sound like an ungrateful heathen, but I have some bits and pieces to get rid of and I'd like to find a worthy home for them.

Backstory:

I was living in Atlanta, GA. The '73 eventually developed a head gasket problem. I put the car up for a year or two but didn't get rid of it. I picked up a lightly used engine and transmission out of an '85 635i from a wrecking yard, with all the intentions of doing what many of you are doing now. Life got in the way, I'm self-employed. I had much less time than I thought to work on cars. Never got around to fully installing engine and trans.

Fast forward some years and I bought the '72 as it was a healthy driver, and it served me well for 4-5 years as a personal car.

At any rate, I still have the 3.5 engine and five speed, and a bunch of miscellaneous parts that I have just stored with the intent of eventually finding a buyer/home for them. I moved to Asheville last year and I still have the BMW stored in Atlanta.

I'm hoping that someone in Atlanta or not too far out has an interest as I'm working on clearing out a storage unit. Will move them north if I need to, but pretty much done with moving this stuff around in life….gettin' too old for that and an E3 project is not in my future.

Picture of the '73 was somewhere out west, that's the best photo (scanned) that I had of the old beast.

I'm also kind of green to posting things of forums, mostly a reader, so let me know gently if I'm stray from the acceptable. Thank you.

Scan 7.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Vandriver said:
Hello. Bruce Robertson, Asheville, NC.

I've owned two Bavarias in the past.

First one was a '73 that I purchased used about 1978, and then about 1992 I picked up a '72. Both were 3.0 with manual. LOVED those cars…..eventually drove the wheels off them. Both ran fairly well up to about the 180K miles range. Haven't had one since the end of the 1990's.

I've come to this forum primarily for one reason and I don't want to sound like an ungrateful heathen, but I have some bits and pieces to get rid of and I'd like to find a worthy home for them.

Backstory:

I was living in Atlanta, GA. The '73 eventually developed a head gasket problem. I put the car up for a year or two but didn't get rid of it. I picked up a lightly used engine and transmission out of an '85 635i from a wrecking yard, with all the intentions of doing what many of you are doing now. Life got in the way, I'm self-employed. I had much less time than I thought to work on cars. Never got around to fully installing engine and trans.

Fast forward some years and I bought the '72 as it was a healthy driver, and it served me well for 4-5 years as a personal car.

At any rate, I still have the 3.5 engine and five speed, and a bunch of miscellaneous parts that I have just stored with the intent of eventually finding a buyer/home for them. I moved to Asheville last year and I still have the BMW stored in Atlanta.

I'm hoping that someone in Atlanta or not too far out has an interest as I'm working on clearing out a storage unit. Will move them north if I need to, but pretty much done with moving this stuff around in life….gettin' too old for that and an E3 project is not in my future.

Picture of the '72 was somewhere out west, that's the best photo (scanned) that I had of the old beast.

I'm also kind of green to posting things of forums, mostly a reader, so let me know gently if I'm stray from the acceptable. Thank you.

View attachment 92870
Click to expand...

Hi and welcome! I could be interested in helping to clear out the building. I have a truck and trailer and live in South Georgia but have family in Atlanta.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
To answer a couple of question that have arisen. This is long, not for the faint of reading.

The Bavaria(s) are long gone. Dang.....wish I'd kept them a bit longer. I let my son, who was in his early twenties, use my 1972 for a year and he moved, leaving the car at his apartment complex. By the time I heard about it the car had been towed and was racking up storage fee dollars. Didn't seem like it was worth it to bail out my wheels....coulda, shoulda, etc. Car still needed a good bit of work to make really nice, but it was streetable and not too bad. It's just that the value wasn't there in the late '90's. Think I paid about 4K for it used and drove it for maybe 4 years. Sad now when I look at some of the nice E3 restorations; these cars get to your heart.

The engine and transmission are out of an '85 635csi from what I was told when I bought them around 1986 from a German car specialty wrecking yard north of Atlanta. As I told another member of the forum, the sales guy told me that the donor car had been totaled due to a cabin fire. I did laugh as he told me he thought it was a case of the "insurance wire shorting". Go figure, it may have been BS, but I didn't see any damage to engine that might have suggested it was in a wreck. Engine was partially mounted in my '73 Bavaria for about 6 months and stored outdoors with the hood in place, then I brought it indoors.

I think the engine could use at least use a minor teardown to see what needs to be done. If I was putting it into a decent car of my own I'd pull the head and see if there was any appreciable surface rust in the cylinder bores. I think all the normal hard parts would be fine and nearly new regarding wear. I'd take the time to go through the head and replace seals and check for valve face condition, then reassemble that. Judging from what I can see with the valve cover off, I'd assume the bottom end is probably OK as is, but pulling the pan and removing a few bearing caps would be good to check. Engine is a bit rough on outside due to surface rust here and there. Clutch is rusty, but probably functional if demounted and cleaned up bit.

I have the Bavaria intake manifolds and exhaust manifolds mounted. I have another set of exhaust manifolds that I believe are from the 635 donor car. I do have the original FI manifold with all the injectors and the Motronic distributor housing, cap and sparky wires. AS seen in the photos, I did mount up a 3.0 upper housing to mount a standard distributor drive and modified ...only.... the cam sprocket attaching nut so that it could fit the 3.0 distributor drive shaft. I was going for a simple, reliable engine that I could work on like the 3.0. BTW, this engine supposedly has a CR of 8.0:1 (per Wikipedia info) probably due to emissions concerns at the time. Son has grown up to be a car guy and he toyed with doing something with the engine as he said it would be interesting to turbo with the lower CR. Had a set of 32/36 Webers that said son scrounged from me for other project.

Getrag 265 is probably good to go, always stored indoors. There is a breakage of the upper left mounting boss for the shifter mount, was that way when I bought it and I did a repair (good enough for me) by drilling slightly deeper into the case and tapping to extend the thread for what should be a stud, then replacing with a bolt of suitable length. This can be seen in the one decent photo of the whole transmission. Not perfect, but didn't have apply heat for a TIG weld. I think this is a low stress connection and what I did was my best plan for what should work. Trans never mounted in my Bavaria, so who knows....can't guarantee.

Trans rolls over smoothly; I think it's fine. I did want to use the standard speedometer drive so I removed the output yoke and removed a factory spacer that replaced the normal speedo drive gear. This transmision has the correct casting so that an old Bavaria speedo drive does bolt in. The insertion area was blocked with a pressed freeze type plug as that hole wasn't needed with the Motronics brain.

I do have, as a teaser, OEM front and rear window seals that I bought when considering having one of the cars properly repainted. They've been around for a while but always in original plastic bag.

Oh, and I was so gung-ho back then I bought an E3 2800 parts car which had been partially wrecked and stripped it completely. Don't have many of those parts, but some. And I stripped the '73 at some point as it was the intended recipient of the 3.5 engine but I failed to launch.

Other goodies, and I'll try to do a more thorough list later, front struts, rear shock/struts, axle half-shaft (unknown condition), fuel tank sender, multiple turn signal switches and misc. doodads, sort-of-usable aftermarket windshield, OEM rear glass, tail light asemblies, pair of headlight grills, brake master cylinder (not sure if it's still good), two clocks, front turn signal lamp assemblies. New bearing that I believe are rear wheel carrier bearings. Mechanical fuel pumps. Alternators and starters for cores at least, probably including the ones that came with the engine. New, unused radiator. One Getrag 4-speed from my '73 and a 4-speed ZF from the 2800, conditions uncertain. I throw out very little, part of my problem ;-)

Within Bruce's unhindered brain pan would be a best case scenario where a local guy would just buy the whole lot from me and I'd be done with it and not have to try to ship an engine on a pallet or box a bunch of little pieces, I don't have time for that. Then he could part out the stray bits and pieces and recoup enough to partially pay for what he wanted. (Sorry to offend if there are any ladies here rebuilding, but I will accept due punishment as necessary.)

Price? heck I don't know yet, but I was thinking that if someone would pick them up in Atlanta I would consider the whole as three units: a) Engine and any associated parts, b) transmission(s) with bellhousing, girdle, and shifter, and c) chassis/body parts to include any suspension, electrical switches, clocks, glass, seals, lamps, grills, tail lights, radiator,

Perhaps $700 per grouping, $1800 for whole lot, cart it off. I think piecing off the chassis/body parts to those who need parts might pay towards an engine/trans combo. I'm completely open to someone telling me I'm uninformed, as I mostly am regarding this marketplace, so have at me.

Also, I am aware that some some have tried to scam you guys with used parts.....I took the time to look at the parts for sale section. That's a shame. My only credibility for you guys is my Facebook page, you should be able to see my occasional posting history....I don't do much... and that I have real friends. https://www.facebook.com/bruce.robertson.585

Teaser photos attached. I think I will try to keep my parts offering to this thread.

Will be willing to converse by phone or email if it's easier for you, if acceptable to forum mods. PM me.
 

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