1997 Bmw 740il e38

It started the first day I had it and ran okay, but second day and the alternator went up in smoke as soon as I hooked the battery up. Luckily I have a spare engine so swapped the alternator over and now seems all good.



This is the current state of play as it was the easiest way to remove the alternator and inspect the rest of the engine, might as well replace the drive belts and what not whilst I'm at it.

So far I've poked around and it needs:

A full suspension rebuild, most arms/bushes are shot so they'll need to be replaced. Two front shocks seem okay but the rear has sls which seems to have leaked, I'm possibly thinking coilovers all round.

Fuel tank repaired or replaced as it's steel so has cracked and leaked.

Paintwork - is surprisingly good but has a few odd spots of rust and a few marks, such as lacquer peel on the rear door.

Passenger door is stuck shut, this will be a tricky one without chopping something or destroying the door card (which I'm not prepared to do).

Interior needs some attention as some of the stuff doesn't seem to work. Lifted the front seats out last weekend and realised they were heated and active which is a massive bonus! I just need to wire them in.

Still looks pretty modern until you see the telephone handset! nice motor though

great cars, mine was still going at 280k miles

My last was on 211k, this one is 155k, I'm sure it'll last many more miles.

It is very well spec'd. Missing rear a/c, rear MID, rear door blinds, wood grab handles and fridge.
Most of that I can retrofit easily enough, and plan to eventually, with the exception of the fridge.

Thanks for that, I'll give that a go and see if I can get access to it, I just didn't want to risk damaging the door card.

Great cars! My dad had a 96 740i for 13 years.
The sound of these doors shutting is just PERFECT!! Even the bonnet shutting sound great!

Great build and love the highline interior. My dads had the same problem with the door.

Haven't had much time to get much done to this recently due to holidays and my daily had needed a few bits doing.

It's gone through another alterator so I'm currently spending time trying to trace the electrical issue. It's an odd one as it started up and ran well once the alternator was fitted, then a few weeks after I hooked the battery back up then straight away smoke from the alternator without even turning the key. Has to be a short somewhere but surely it wouldn't have started the first time around hmm.

So after many weeks of hunting for an electrical issue I ended up just buying a new battery and replacement alternator, fitted those and it now starts and runs absolutely fine. Still unsure on what the issue was, I assume jumping the dead battery was causing the previous alternators to work overtime thus burning out the diodes.

So now it is back up and running well, I decided to tackle another job on the list, suspension! I’m making a start with the front and have purchased a complete suspension rebuild kit consisting of Meyle HD parts, hoping to get these fitted in the next week or so then I can start the rear, then fuel tank and new windscreen are next on the list before MOT.



I also fitted some orange film over the corner of the indicators to give them the ‘lemon slice’ look as I always liked the look of those indicators and had some on my previous e38, but they only came on the facelift cars, this works really well in my opinion and I’m happy with how they turned out.

Been making a bit more progress with this recently now the cold weather is starting to dissipate.

Sourced a brand new fuel tank and got that fitted.

Old tank out:


And new tank in:


Also replaced all pipework and lines whilst fitting the new tank so nice and fresh!

Pleasantly surprised by the underside of the car when removing bits to get the tank out, no rot or rust whatsoever.

Also picked up a single stage half wood wheel which I’m very pleased about as the current one is shot. It was either this or a heated steering wheel, which I’d still like too for the winter.

(I’ll be using my original airbag rather than the one with the Schnitzer sticker)
It needs a little love and a major clean but will get it cleaned up and reconditioned before fitting.

Hoping to make some more progress pretty quickly with the aim of getting it back on the road this summer. Next will be rear suspension rebuild, replacing shocks and springs all round and having the windscreen replaced.

A little bit more progress lately.

Have everything to rebuild the rear suspension now so that is currently ongoing when I have the spare time.
I also ordered coilovers, I decided to go with BC racing and chose the ‘extreme low’ option after being disappointed with how low the standard ones went I wanted to have the option to drop the car if I wanted to, so figured this was the best of both worlds.


One front strut in! 😁


I was hoping to have the car finished this summer but that’s looking unlikely since we’re already half way through it.. but I’m hoping it should be on he road in the next 6 months or so. Slowly but surely making progress!