I’ve long wanted a BMW, any and all of the E3x chassis were on the cards, but I was gravitating to the V8’s… but I knew I always truly wanted a V12…

the E32 and 38 are just so timeless… but that 38 had got under my skin...

And then this thing popped up on my marketplace feed, $4000 and local to me… I went and had a look, and honestly she’s on deaths door with the amount of work needing done, it honestly was so close to becoming a parts car, but a mate and I chose to save it and bring it back to life. I could honestly make a Youtube video titled “I bought NZ’s cheapest 750iL and brought it back to life” lol 🤣

  
Thankfully there’s a 730iL with the same interior being parted out north of me, so I have already found a new drivers seat, but I may as well buy the whole interior at this point!  

So the pro’s: Paint and body are in surprisingly good shape, no major work needed! No peeling clear, New back bumper required though.

She ran and drove home under her own steam, though she is very unwell. But, no knocks or bad sounds from the engine.

Has new tyres! Literally half the value of the car is in the tyres lol.

  
The cons:

A mouse has been in here - I have to fully strip the interior to do a full audit on the state if the wiring, as he’s been right from the engine bay to the battery compartment.

The prior owner is one of those types that don’t know that sky water can collect in cars with the windows down, so she got a bit moldy. Thankfully it’s not too extensive. it’s been drying out in the workshop.

It barely runs, hook the battery after a month disconnected, start it up, immediately into a hard fault CEL and limp mode. there is probably a myriad of sensor failures and faults with it. I need to get set up on INPA pronto.

The engine bay has decades of shoddy fixes. being new to the platform has its challenges, but i’m learning. Seller reckons a BMW tech said it had an M70 slapped in when the original M73 blew a headgasket, but so far the only evidence I have found to support this is that it has a donut sensor on the leads on the left bank. everything else is M73 to my untrained eyes. I know if i whip a rocker cover off I can tell by the oil squirter bar, but any other methods, please let me know.

Secondary air pump has been deleted. is it possible to turn off codes for this on these cars? It still has the pipes on the exhaust, and by M539’s vids, apparently you can’t mix M70 and M73 exhaust manifolds? did i miss hear that? he had to make custom manifolds for his M73 he’s putting in his early M70 850i.

Purge control has been deleted. Dito on the codes?

multiple hoses have been shortened, i presume from attempts to fix leaks, so many are kinked and crimping over now. its gonna need a lot of new hose. 

  
Plans for the work to be done:

Caps and rotors are toast, so i gotta replace them. may as well do plugs, comp test and bore scope it. and test the leads. given the left bank has M70 leads, i should just replace them too.

fix hoses in the bay

Service engine and trans.

Rip interior out and also audit all trim bits and make a list to get it nice inside.

Find a hoist and audit the suspenion too.

  
well, I’m excited. Dream car. Coming from twin turbo subarus, this engine bay is completely unintimidating, sounds like the V12’s are positively oldschool in the best way, compared to the V8 cars. Stoked.

My first BMW, finally a member of the E38 club.