adamrudolph.com » GreaseCar

Manuals for BMW 524td

adam — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:00:46 +0000

I’ve had my grease car for over a year now and I’ve thoroughly searched for technical resources supporting the rare 524td. Although there are a lot of general manuals, a few resources provide the most accurate and valuable information.

The Bentley manual

All the forums and car KBs online talk about the Bentley manual as being the premier manual. Compared to the other printed manuals, I would have to agree. But this manual specifically doesn’t cover the 524td, just the gas cars. It is helpful for general repair and maintenance, but not worth the 30$ you’ll pay on ebay.

Chilton’s General BMW repair manual for 1970-1988

This is not the greatest manual either. Probably the worst you can get for the 524td, just too general for most stuff and you’re constantly trying to find your model in each section.

Haynes Repair manual for 3 & 5 series

There is a PDF of this manual on almost every torrent site. Again, broken record, but this is a general manual which doesn’t cover the TD engine. Worth torrenting, but not buying a paper copy.

OnDemand5 software from Mitchell1

This software is available on torrents also. Large files due to the extensive coverage. I just DLed the imports DVDs, not domestic. Installation is pretty tricky. First you have to copy the DVDs to disk, in certain directories within the first DVD’s directory tree. On my laptop I needed to install a floppy disk emulator to install the license while I configured the repair manuals. So install was a pain, but this was definitely worth it. Good directions for diagnostics and repair. Tables, Graphs, Diagrams are invaluable.

1984 Lincoln shop manual

The Mark VII has the M21 engine also, so this manual is great for engine related stuff. Best diagrams of the engine I’ve seen anywhere. The engine rebuilding section is very thorough.

BMW shop manual for 524td/535i

There is a copy available online (appears the domain is down right now). This is the best overall source you can get. The quality of the photos is pretty bad, but it’s directly from BMW so the information is great. This manual coupled with OnDemand5 makes for a better fight against tough to solve problems, or if you’re just a noob like me.

Pictures of Brint

adam — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 12:34:50 +0000

Finally got some pictures uploaded. I’m going to rock this page out at a later day with details of Brint.

http://adamrudolph.com/?page_id=7

[tags]wvo, grease car, bmw[/tags]

Finally…I got my grease car!

adam — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 05:27:32 +0000

After months of searching through every used car site and paper listing, I finally found my car. I’ve looked at several diesel cars but most of them were crap. Tonight Heidi and I drove down to Eagle Lake (near Mankato) to drive a few already converted diesel cars. The seller had 3 cars for sales, all greasecars. He has converted 14 cars now. He’s good, no, damn good at it–and a great guy.

We first drove an 85 Mecedes-Benz 300SD. This was the car I thought I’d be buying tonight. It’s sweet looking, drove great. But it’s a boat. I’m a sucker for an older Benz….so it was hard to say no to this one.

Just for fun(we thought), we took the 85 BMW 524td out for a spin. WOW. This tiny car has a 6 cylinder turbo diesel engine which just purrs. We were flying down a country road at 40-50mph, with little effort it jumped to 80mph. I felt like 16 again (how can you put a price on that?). Before we got back in the driveway I knew it was perfect.

This seller gets his veggie oil from restaurants in the Mankato area. Culvers alone gives him 200 gallons each month. He filters it in his shed, sells it for ~1.25$/gallon or 1/2 of diesel price. I couldn’t even count the number of jugs in his shed. Unbelievable guy, crazy smart with car engines.

So Saturday morning we’ll pick up the car, do the paperwork and I’ll finally have my greasecar. We’ve already named it ‘Brint’ since we are big fans of Zoolander. Our other car is Meekus, other Zoolander roommate. I’ll have a new toy to place with this weekend. Soon I’ll be heading to fast food & chinese restaurants once again, this time for fuel, not a double chin.

[tags]wvo, bmw, grease car, zoolander, diesel[/tags]