I Bought a Totaled BMW E12 to Make Mine Better | Also Is my Drivetrain Actually a Euro M90?

you may be thinking what is Josh doing bringing home another e-12 why would I need two e12s looks like a pretty nice E12 doesn't it cool blue nice Wheels Euro bumper well I'm hiding something from you guys and to show you guys what I'm hiding we'll head over to the other side of the car yes unfortunately this is not an ic12 this is a struggling e-12 this is a on its last leg E12 this is a going to die E12 unfortunately this car was obviously in a very bad accident we have a crumpled quarter panel we have destroyed rear suspension this tire is lodged into the door doors bent rocker panels destroyed this is kinked I mean this thing took a hit and that is where I will start this video of E12 in this because a lot of people have been asking what's going on with your E12 is the E12 really M90 car I'm going to answer all those questions in this video and as a bonus I will be showing you guys around this crazy find of an E12 that I bought down in Miami Florida and got shipped up here this car was purchased for a reason and the first reason before we do anything else can you take a guess okay so what is the ugliest part of my e-12 it's a very simple answer you may be overlooking it but it is staring you in the face times two ugly okay well that was supposed to be a slick way of me showing Chrome mirrors on my car because these black ones are just hideous but uh turns out they don't bolt right on there's modifications needed which is ridiculous didn't realize that so anyway I was trying to be slick not gonna happen I'm stealing these Chrome mirrors for my car because as I said the black mirrors just kill it because like it's a totally Chrome 70s car and then you give it black like E28 mirrors and it's like why so that's a cool plus but that's not the reason why I bought this car so a little history on this car guy built it down in Florida shortly after he built it meaning Euro bumpers new interior I think he repainted it it got hit wrecked and now here it is you guys know me I'm the garbage collector so this is a 1980 528i and that means uh one good thing if you can guess and it all ties back into this car what is this car missing that was stolen from it that thing right there this car has the four-speed trans in it 85 28 eyes are supposed to have five speeds so this is a five-speed car gatchrag 265 I believe which is what this car came with from Factory this is also a 528i 1980 and uh yeah it's been it's been robbed of its five speed and I am here to bring that five speed back I'm a little skeptical getting in here because it's a little moldy but but if we hop in one two three four okay four five and it's not a dog leg but yes we have a five-speed gearbox five speed Swap and in the E12 world that is very desirable because first off rare as can be only came in two years V12 but second I believe this manual swap you can do or use for e9s and all that stuff so it's worth a pretty penny it's worth more than I paid for this car and to ship it here and the plan is either throw it in this car or if I can get good money for it I'm gonna sell it because this car I also have plans for that I may or may not need that gearbox and I'll get into those in a little bit here especially after we check and make sure if this is an M90 or not but otherwise very sadly the rear Euro bumper was destroyed it did not survive the incident it's all crunched up brand new bilsteins I think they lived um this one's just a little kinked it's got these nice Wheels which look like Alpena wheels and I think that one probably survived but it's bent it's gonna need to be repaired so it's probably still usable in the future Chrome mirrors I think are rare on a later model car so that's why those are desirable so many people have wanted to buy those off me it's crazy but coming into the engine bay then we have the m30b28 looks no different than that car but that car supposedly has an M90 and we're going to figure out why or why it does not I think for fun I think we should try to start this car because I think that would be interesting to see if it fires up after sitting for I don't know how long by the looks of things it's been sitting for a long time Chrome Euro bumper that's a little rusty which sucks but at least we got it and then little things like uh the headlight Chrome I'm going to want for this car because I believe one of these is kinked oh yeah right there is damaged um just a lot of stuff off this car I think will make nice parts for this car which I'm Gonna Keep obviously and it's a much nicer car the interior unfortunately he said it was redone but it is just brutal condition the headliner let's just not even look at that it's disgusting um I don't know the black seats are super nice but they're cracked to to Kingdom Come the black door cards are nice but that's about it you know cluster and stuff maybe the dashboard which actually doesn't have any cracks in it which is kind of crazy um so yeah there's a lot of Oddball stuff in here that I want just because E12 parts are rare but mainly I want the five speed I want the wheels I want the front Euro bumper and you know spare body panels are cool I just want to show you guys around that and as a kind of intro into what is going on with this thing what are my plans what am I going to do with it and is it really an M90 in this car because that's the big controversy on bring a trailer and in my comments everyone's asking is it actually an M90 high compression Euro engine and to answer that we are going to head to my shop pull this thing in and I will be able to identify hopefully whether it is or whether it isn't I've done a lot of research I've Dove deep into the rabbit holes of old 70s and 80s BMW engine identification it is not easy to figure out but hopefully we will have a definitive answer and before we can do get a definitive answer I'm about to borrow a special set of tools we're gonna do some testing on this E12 to see if it's actually a Euro M90 a lot of people from the day I got it have been questioning it the bring a trailer listing people were questioning it because there isn't definitive proof like you see on most m90s with the raised water passage and the L this thing does not have that however it does have obviously Euro insignia's on it like it is definitely a older 3.5 but it's an M90 and before we go and find out this answer I just want you guys to know that I bought this car not caring if it was an M90 or wasn't because I care about the car itself not so much the drivetrain because the Euro M90 sweet if it's not still sweet so how you tell if you have a M90 engine a Euro engine being a high compression engine is first off you can check numbers or that raised water passage if you don't have that which they say early m535s don't have the raised water jacket that's what they say you can go on the forums and try to dig up old archive pictures of the bottom ends and the block numbers and I have looked that up and I have it here the block on mine is consistent with M90 numbers the date makes sense and the numbers add up from what someone's posted however my head and I'll show a picture of that hopefully I have does not the head on this car actually has 84 stamped on it and 84 does not make sense because m90s were last produced and I think 80 or 81 um so 84 cannot be an original M90 head but there is a part you can get to convert a later head to the early style distributor you know the one uh the round one uh so I think that's obviously been done here the head we know is an original but that what makes them 1990 is basically the bottom end the heads I believe are all the same so if we have a genuine M90 bottom end that is still considered M90 because you still have the high compression Pistons Etc so the hope is that we do but we're gonna go for the definitive answer and we're going to get the borescope out and check out these piston heads because that's basically the only way to confirm so we're gonna do that so I gotta take out a spark plug here hook up this boroscope I'm gonna try to understand how to use it spark plugs are burning nicely these are the spark plugs I put in in California before I started the drive and they're actually burning like perfect so that's that's a nice sign that the early ljet is doing its thing but now let's figure out how to use this oh it works look at that all right well let's go in where am I going in the spark plug well that does not look like a piano top pistol oh I lost signal Okay so well you guys will see here we do have a little bit of cross hatching which is nice but if you look at the top of this piston oh I'm out there is absolutely no piano top to it unless it was they're so carbon deposited up that I can't see it but from what I see here there is no piano Tops on these so this is not looking like a high compression engine which sucks but like I said I don't care but what that does is that brings us into the next step with this car and we will chat about that in a second but otherwise aside from that looking up at this valve you see that right there that's like holes in the valve like pitted holes it looks like the moon's surface dude so I have no idea what's going on in here this I don't know if that's a design if I'm looking at it wrong or if this is a very unhealthy engine like that valve looks kind of chewed up so yeah that's interesting but we'll get into that one day but for now no piano tops so confirmed not an M90 engine so it just might happen now that that posts in the forums that says that these numbers are consistent and then I'm 90 is either wrong or the block numbers match this bottom end and other bottom ends it is a 3.5 bottom end it is a euro because it's got the three slash Five instead of 0.5 so what the difference is I'm not sure what car this would be out of I'm really not sure maybe a late 635 but it's it's marked early so this is absolutely a Frankenstein maybe it was an M90 block but not M90 internals anymore I have no idea but that piston tells us what we need to know and that is that it is not a piano topped M90 so that sucks but I'm not worried about it and we will discuss that in a second okay so now we're back at the garage we're here with the E28 teasing the next episode of the series that's exciting isn't it but so yeah where are my conclusions with the E12 as you guys saw with the boroscope it is not an M90 engine which sucks but and I said it in before this video I've said it before to many people I could care less if that was an m30 uh M90 or whatever I wanted the car for what the car is and what matters an engine transplant is an easy thing a clean rust free E12 with rare Parts is not so who cares about the engine disappointing sure but it is what it is um unless the carbon pist unless the Pistons were just so carboned up that I couldn't tell but I think it would be a little more apparent that if it had piano tops I mean they are literally the shape like a grand piano I'll put a picture up um but yeah so basically where does this video tie in with the crashed E12 well that car is going to be half of my parts car and then half of just obviously for profit but I'm thinking with my E12 future plans I got suspension coming I got a lot to do I think I love e12s arguably more than e28s and yes I'm building this and it's going to be cool but I think ultimately I won't keep the E28 and I think the E12 will be a car where I will do a really cool drive train in it because that engine it overheats I think it's really at its last leg if it's not an M90 it's essentially worthless in my eyes still 3.5 but yeah um so I'm thinking and this will be a long term this will be you know in the future nothing's happening anytime soon I got too much stuff going on I think that car will be a cool drive train maybe like an s54 an s38 something something unique and cool and I'm gonna make that like my perfect E12 you know cool Wheels nice suspension all that stuff um because I think it deserves it so that is why this video is here and I'm gonna steal the five speed swap from that car probably so yeah that's the crash car comes in place for the five speed Swap and the Chrome mirrors and stuff and then some sort of drivetrain once I find one I'll just make my decision but I think that's the plan with the E12 since we found out now that it's not an action M90 engine but uh yeah this was just a quick little introduction of or not introduction a quick little update on what's going on with that car it's just been sitting I mean it's it's it's drivable but the suspension is so bad on it and the motors just overheats and it's just a kind of a nightmare right now it's not really worth even driving so we'll get to it one day we'll be it will be Revisited on this channel I'm not gonna sell it and it'll be a pretty cool build I think so looking forward to that thank you guys so much for watching this episode I hope you enjoyed and I'll see in the next one peace and this will be the next one foreign

Channel: M3nameisjosh

Views: 8,256

Keywords: bmw, e12, 5 speed, crashed bmw, crashed e12, euro m90, engine identification, euro, rare cars, rare bmw, 5 series, bmw classic, bmwcca, m3 josh, m3nameisjosh, new car, buying cars, vintage bmw

Id: 5NjqlTWrWuM

Length: 14min 49sec (889 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 02 2023