October 2008

Oh My God!!! Where do I start?????

I foolishly thought that I'd have a bit of an easy time in October after the panic in September... how wrong was I?! Thanks to RK the ball started rolling early with the AC Schnitzer decals and the ACS type4 staggered 18" alloys. After lots of searching and discussions with RK I decided to "open the flood gates" and throw everything I could at the car, starting from the ground up! Whilst typing this I'm just thinking of all the emails that have been sent to and from suppliers, its amazing how much work has gone into this!! The situation now is as follows........

The car is coming off the road in the next 2 days and the first jobs to be done are.... New Brake calipers (I have warped 2 sets of discs in 2k miles due to the calipers, time for a change I think!), New cross drilled and grooved brake discs (the standard set up just isn't up to much), OMP Road & Sport pads, Goodridge braided steel hoses, fully adjustable coil over suspension, brake fluid change to DOT 5.1 hopefully (if I can find some quickly) and a full wheel alignment to finish it off. I was also going to fit a set of Powerflex bushes, but I think I may leave that for another time.... more about that later!

Once the above is completed the car will be back in the bodyshop where it will have the front bumper removed and have a Hamman carbon splitter fitted on it, Hamman fog light ducts, Carbon kidney grills and Carbon eyebrows, M5 lower grill with polished alloy induction rings for brake cooling and a Dinan style polished alloy fresh air intake system. There will also be a set of AC Schnitzer side skirts painted and fitted, an AC Schnitzer rear window spoiler painted and fitted. The newly painted standard mirrors are also being replaced with M5 electric heated and folding mirrors, again painted before fitting along with a replacement door switch set so I have an original folding mirror switch. I also have a Sport steering wheel to replace the one I currently have fitted. On top of all this work I am hoping that the bonnet will also be painted along with the passenger rear door in order to rectify stone chips and parking dents in the door (I HATE people who do that... inconsiderate bast**ds!!). I'm also thinking about painting the engine cover and sides. To finish it all off I have a set of AC Schnitzer pedals and matching handbrake handle and of course, the AC Schnitzer decal kit...... I say finish off, did I happen to mention the full SatNav kit and M5 interior? No? I didn't think so! ;-)

All this lot above is going to be a mammoth task, I'm worried that I won't have enough time to get it all done and complete for the show, but it will be, it just means that I have a lot of work to do!!! On top of this all, I am organising the shirts, t-shirts, flags and banners for the London show too... that bit should be easy compared to the car.

Now... the car! Having spoken to Steve Wright and also having tracked down some precious M5 parts, I decided to buy the remains of an M5 that had been heavily rolled. It started out as just the interior, but it turned out that I now have 2 pallets of M5 in my unit with almost everything apart from the engine, gearbox and body panels. This, of course, means that I have a full wiring loom, the sat nav system, complete interior including dash and carpets, basically everything out of an M5 minus the engine, gearbox and a few broken bits and pieces..... I will not be fitting any of these parts in the car before the show, but will be attacking it sometime after with the plan to tansplant the better M5 parts to my 540, hopefully with the help of Steve Wright for the tricky electric bits. Anyone seeing the work he put into his M5 touring would understand why I'd love his help and experience with the project! Hopefully his car will be back on the road soon, he has borrowed my newly aquired M5 diff as a temporary replacement for his own diff that is sitting in a box of bits in my office at the moment, waiting to be re-assembled :-) Needless to say, I have every intention of fitting the M5 LSD and M5 steering box on my car to try and tighten up the feel, along with the anti-roll bars which I've been told are slightly thicker. Along with this lot there will be the quad exhaust which will be developed around xmas time ready for the car and anyone else that wants one....

I was going to post pictures of all the work being done to my car as its being done, but I think I will let the car speak for itself when it is unveiled at the show in London and I will post pictures of the transformation after the show.

Fingers crossed...... hopefully all will work out well.... more in my next blog :-)