So just let me introduce myself

[AlpinaPat]

My name is humpty, pronounced with an umpty...

^Digital Underground^ 

New member here as I finally found an E28 Aug 2024! Mainly I've had E30's, some E24's and E36 but this '87 JDM 520i auto is my first E28!

So far I'm loving it, it feels way different than my previous E24's and even with the 520i auto its still super fun to drive! What great cars these are!

Previous owner did the Alpina tribute and euro conversion and I love the look. Also the car has cloth 0211 houndstooth interior and its a slick top so no worries about a broken / leaky sunroof! The trunk seal is another story though...


It has the brown tinted glass too which is super cool imo. So far some small maintenance stuff to do and would like to manual swap it

[AmanM]

Where in Canada are you? I have a e28 M535i, living in Oakville.

[AlpinaPat]

Where in Canada are you? I have a e28 M535i, living in Oakville.
 

I'm in Calgary

What color is your M535i?

[CanadianMiniFan]

Nice to see another Canadian e28er here, I’m up in Edmonton!

[AlpinaPat]

For sure! Is there many E28 guys in Edmonton?

[1st 5er]

Congrats on the purchase and welcome to the community. 

Car looks nicely done. 
Would like to see some interior pics, pleeze.

[Aldo525]

Hello and Welcome!!!...here from Chile. Just for my knowledge, e28 520i is to me an Euro version not available in North America....Was Canada a BMW (e28's) market more "Euro" in versions instead of US versions???....or your car is an exception???...here was (and still is) full euro versions, more common was (in order):

518i most common
520i common
525i a few....
528i rare
535i extremely rare
533i ...not delivered here
528e (or 525e)...not delivered here
524td...not delivered here
M535i or M5....maybe a couple....

[tig]

Welcome!

[AlpinaPat]

So the car is a 520i and was made for and sold in Japan originally, and was imported from Japan by a previous owner.

Agreed they weren't sold new in North America, we got the 528e instead.

This is a picture of the rear seat, I don't have other pics handy at the moment, and have an upgrade in the works for the front seats.


Thanks for the welcome, I wish forums weren't on the decline, love them!

 

[1st 5er]

I wish forums weren't on the decline, love them!


 

This one ain't. 
it just got a major restoration, frame off rotisserie style.

[Chimi-Changa]

Welcome, Nice looking ride! Our cars would look cool cruising together.  (The interior code in mine is 0262):

[Nebraska_e28]

Looking good!

[austin8753]

that's a pretty rad e28. welcome to the madness, enjoy your stay.

[AlpinaPat]

Thanks guys!

The interior code in mine is 0262

I assumed E30 and E28 interior/fabric codes were the same? It seems anthracite houndstooth is coded 0211 for E30 and 0262 for E28?

If that's the case then my E28 is also 0262.

[Chimi-Changa]

If that's the case then my E28 is also 0262.

It may be! Mine had the original card under the rear seat. "Pepita Anthracite" and is the only way I knew what it was. It came from Ivo in the Netherlands and he said it was originally in a diesel e28 over there. Any more under hood/ interior pics for us of your car?

[AlpinaPat]

Interesting, I'll have to check under my rear seat for a build sheet!

Here's a few more pics of the car as I bought it:








And these are something special going in soon

[tig]

I dig those doorcards!

[AlpinaPat]

I dig those doorcards!

Thanks, was definately part of the appeal of this car for me

So I have a self serve scrap yard 5min from my work. Some may think I'm crazy, but I often pop down there on my lunch break to snag parts for my old german relics - lol.

Todays score was a set of rear headrest brackets out of an E23 733i My E28 despite having rear headrests was missing the brackets for some reason

Should I pull the side mirrors? This E23 has the chrome ones. How hard are they to fit to an E28?

It may have an LSD too, but the car is rusty crusty underneath, and its cold as hell up here so not attempting that feat.

[CanadianMiniFan]

My understanding is one hole needs to be drilled in the e28 door to mount the e23 chrome mirrors. I also got a junkyard set but haven’t fitted them, so I can’t say with 100% certainty. The diff isn’t too bad to get out, I’m sure you guys will get a Chinook soon enough. Maybe not a lunch time job tho!

[AlpinaPat]

March update

Picked up this parts car yesterday! My second E28 has a full 5 speed swap among other small goodies for my car! It was a pain to retrieve, about an 8hr round trip, but I’ve been watching for 5 spd parts locally since Aug. 2024 and not much in the local salvage yards or otherwise, so I grabbed this when it came up. I’m going to take what I need/want and the remainder will be for sale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t feel too bad about parting it as the body is pretty rusty, but it does have active status (clean title), lowish miles, and it runs, but poorly, mostly because it has 2yr+ old gas.

  

 

[AlpinaPat]

May update!

I recently resurrected my E28 from winter hibernation and have made a few changes:

New BMW trunk lid emblem, and installed the Alpina emblem that came with the car
 

New hood BMW emblem, old one was flaking away
 

The wheel center caps were missing when I bought the car, so I took a chance on some from Ebay, they fit perfect!
 

Installed the Alpina dead pedal I traded for with a MyE28 member. I know, I know, the car needs a clutch pedal, its in the works

 

Finally I installed the houndstooth E30 OEM Recaros with Massive adapters. I imported these from the Netherlands and the seat rails took a beating on the journey to Canada. The little plates surrounding the bolting locations were bent, they were dirty, and showing their age. I pulled them off the seats and repaired / straightened the plates, cleaned and repainted the rails prior to installation. It ended up being a lot of work!

 

I also installed a euro analogue clock in place of the 2 button digital clock. The mounting surround is different too so had to source the correct one. Unfortunately after polishing out the scratched clock bezel, I found it DOA. I have another one on order, hopefully this one works! Forgot to snap a pic of it but will add one.

[Chimi-Changa]

Yay! Those seats are super nice. Worth any effort IMO. (Dancing Banana)

[CanadianMiniFan]

Looking great Pat!

[AlpinaPat]

Summer update!

In early summer I did a bunch of work in the trunk, annnnd didn’t take any pics – sorry. Basically the trunk, license light seals were shot and allowing water to leak in which was unacceptable.Here’s what I did:

• There was some surface rust both inside the trunk, around the trunk opening, and around the license plate lights that I treated and repainted
• Removed the blown amp and worn out subwoofer
• I replaced all the trunk carpets with the ones from the parts car because they were in better shape, and not smelly
• Replaced the trunk seal with a genuine BMW one, glued in with 3M weatherstrip adhesive
• Installed the grey trunk lid liner from the parts car, my 520i didn’t have one
• Replaced the driver tail light with the better one from the parts car. The original had missing studs, and intermittent brake bulb connection

The result is a tidy and dry trunk with no smelly smells!

Here's a couple of before shots of the trunk, it was worse in person!  

Here's a couple after shots of the trunk, before the trunk seal especially by the rear window was loose and flopping about, now the new seal is locked in place with the weatherstrip adhesive, pretty happy with how it turned out!
 
  
  


More recently I endeavored to replace the badly cracked dash as it was letting down the interior. I sourced a dash from Ebay that was recovered in new vinyl, same idea as justdashes without the (apparently) long lead time, and you don’t have to send in your original dash
  
  
  
  
  
  


The recovered dash was beautiful and only issues were some trimming of the new vinyl around the mounting holes to aid reassembly, and it was missing a mounting bracket that I robbed from my old dash.

The recovered dash also didn’t come with the HVAC venting so I transferred those from my old dash, and at the same time I installed an early operable dash top vent from E28 Goodies
  


 


 


 


Because I had an extra map light mirror in stock and my original rear view mirror was corroded, I replaced it and wired power from the check control panel
  
  

 
  

 
 

[AlpinaPat]

Getting the dash reinstalled with the HVAC venting is challenging! E30 dash swaps are way easier!
  
  
  


The glove box latch panel took some fiddling and adjustment to get it to latch properly, and I had to pull the instrument cluster a second time to get the illumination working, otherwise it all went pretty smoothly
  
  

As a reward for all my efforts I treated myself to a special package from Alpina, contents are a new steering wheel, hub, and shift knob (for future use). I looked for months for a good used Alpina steering wheel, but found most sellers are asking new prices or greater for used / worn ones.
 

 
  

It was a LOT of fiddly work but I'm really happy with the result, the interior is really a nice place to spend time now. And the car ALWAYS has a sun shade in place if parked outside now, lol hopefully the new dash lasts.

Maybe next up will be a genuine Alpina trunk spoiler to replace my worn zender one, we'll see they're eye-wateringly expensive from Alpina... Thanks for looking!

[4DSC]

Nice work. I did the dashboard swap twice this year and those pictures are triggering. You are right about it being fiddly work... all the small things. Was just randomly in Calgary on Sunday passing through on vacation, would have been cool to catch this car in the wild! So it was originally ordered for Japan but it's an LHD car? Curious... shouldn't it have been RHD?

[AlpinaPat]

You did two dash swaps this year!?  You really like to torture yourself lol!

I think all Japanese market German cars were LHD unless specifically ordered RHD. Thank god, I wouldn't like the Japanese-German cars if they were RHD, and I own 4 of them. I think the LHD were seen a status symbols over RHD Japanese makes at the time.

[4DSC]

Yea.. sadly I did. Had the whole car apart to redo the AC system and heater core and then later found a leather restored dash so off it went again. I think you are probably right about the status symbol! Personally I can never get quite used to the RHD.

[CanadianMiniFan]

Nice work on the dash, not a fun job to be sure! A dry trunk is always a benefit, and the steering wheel was a well deserved treat. Looking good.

I think a lot of German cars were brought into japan in a sort of grey market manner from Europe, by the mid/late 90s there are RHD examples coming from there so I’m assuming that’s when the dealer network maybe was more built out? Or as above, an imported car could have been a flex back then.

[vinceg101]

Nice work on the dash, not a fun job to be sure! A dry trunk is always a benefit, and the steering wheel was a well deserved treat. Looking good.

I think a lot of German cars were brought into japan in a sort of grey market manner from Europe, by the mid/late 90s there are RHD examples coming from there so I’m assuming that’s when the dealer network maybe was more built out? Or as above, an imported car could have been a flex back then.

It was also kind of a status thing to drive a LHD car in Japan, especially the German cars.

Nice job to the OP. Did you replace or overhaul the HVAC system while the dash was out (other than the vent work)? Would have been the ideal time.