£450 740i what could go wrong?

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It's back, mammoth effort to get the land barge back, got it for £420 due to muck about with it.
Got a few videos to upload which I will do asap

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S10GTA said:

No key?

Yeah, but if no key turns uo I'll just break it

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Yeah £750-1200 should get you a tidy 728 or a huge mileage 740, but recently they've bottomed out and started to even increase slightly, good ones are hard to find and they're a well built solid car.

Still wondering what the fk I have done

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Trabi601 said:

You've bought a worthless hulk for £420. Spent a load of time and effort on it. You could have bought a working one for not a lot more!

Bet you're fun at parties. Find a low mileage one that hasn't been abused with a ticket and good spec for £600, anything over £600 to fix it and I'll break it.
£600 engine
£450 interior
£200 nav system
£400 LPG system
Everything over the interior is a bonus, but if I can cheap V8 I will, and if I can have a challenge I will, there's something much more fun when you rescue a car like this for little money and see what you can do with it.

Will it be concourse, no, will it be fun, yes, rather say I dragged my car out of a ditch and fixed it than, I hunted through auto trader and saw loads of stters, you're looking at this like it's a serious purchase, it was £400, just have a bit of fun with it, £65 for some struts, £50 for mot, then have a laugh with it, either sell or break it

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sparks_E39 said:

To buy a truly decent E38 with no rust and full service history you are looking at £3k upwards. I've given up trying to find a good one now.

It's one of the reasons I considered this, it has full service history, it's actually complete, original phone and sim cards, and on the face of it, pretty much rust free, most importantly for me it hasn't been messed with bar LPG kit, original wheels.
Too many of them with a million owners, nasty wheels and spaceship miles.

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Will upload pictures tomorrow, cleaned the outside today, it's actually not that bad. Passenger door has some rust, and one rear arch has a bit of bubbling, boot is full rubbish that I've cleaned out, definitely wet vaccing and disinfect the whole interior.
Found two unopened condoms in the back, normally wouldn't care, but since learning the owner has a GMC day van full of dildos, porn and underwear, I don't want to know what happened in here.

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Nsfw possibly, I think I may have to repaint it like this
http://i.imgur.com/wxmJEIc.jpg

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Another day goes by and still no sign of the key, the guy I bought it off did promise me £100 back if he couldn't find, BMW wont provide me with a key until I get logbook back, so need DVLA to hurry up.
I have rung loads of locksmiths and been told the same thing "R reg BMW is dealer only" so I can't get a key from a locksmith.

It has spent the last few days though, when not raining with the doors wide open to help air out the smell of damp, I just want to start getting somewhere with it.

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TonyRPH said:

I'd really like to see you get that back on the road - I've always fancied a 7 series, they have such presence on the road.

I thought I recognised your username, you contributed to my thread about my E39 lol.

Incidentally, a new rubber coupling does seem to have cured the vibration on mine.

Glad that's sorted for you, I have to do my guibo and bearing on my 39, as well as a manual conversion and strut top mounts.

Just been to BMW, £145.18 lighter

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I did it online, took 3 days, hoping I get key tomorrow now

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Well I'm not going to ring BMW, I've saved myself for bitter disappointment so I'm off out to get my new wiper blades for the tourer, and pop into BMW knowing full well my key will not be in till Monday.

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£145 cheap.
However, I can give you all this as an idea
Click click click
Chug chug chug cough cough cough.
Brum.

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https://youtu.be/5FsZ67bKCus

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Washer bottle is sadly full, I checked, few lights out as well on it, main issues are ABS/DSC warning lights, probably dead abs module.

Nav screen doesn't work and there's a lot of pixelation, also it's done no miles since last mot.

Next video is uploading

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Washer probably work, haven't done a full electrical test on yet I know some bits aren't working

It's 20pin obd, so plugging it into tomorrow to check.


Moment that most have been waiting for, it's first cough into life in 3 years
https://youtu.be/a25UNQWy8CM

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TonyRPH said:

But the temperature gauge is reading normal rather than cold?



Sounds lovely though.

It's having a few electrical gremlins at the moment, that one seems to have fixed itself for the moment, after turning it off it went back to cold and then warmed up normally, in one of the videos I have a full tank of fuel whilst trying to start it
To give you an idea of how funny the E38/9 electrical systems can be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTJhGvJxJ7Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYqI6sCKVD8

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Battery is actually fine, charged up fine and holds charge, was working on a car that hadn't run in a month, think everything was just a bit stiff.

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Located some cheap struts, so going to go out today, jack it up, get it on stands, assess the underside of the car and then drop the struts off it, should get new ones in the week.

Going to try get code reader on it as well

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I'd consider battery but I know it's less than a year old, it's held charge on the other car for 3 months enough to start it.

Well read fault codes, can't tell what abs fault is, cleared codes, started it back up and alternator blew up and almost caught fire.

So now I'm in two minds with the car, it's worth circa £2k I reckon with mot, but the cost is slowly adding up on it in my head, and feel it may actually end up going in the bin.

126k on motor and box
Interior is good
Most panels are good
Can make money back easily I think, but shame to break it