Firstfives.org

Update - down to 1/4 tank with no symptoms yet. This is the lowest the fuel level has been since the fuel gauge sender was rehabbed. Weather is finally OK in New England so I can hopefully use the rest up this weekend and see what happens. If she's back to normal, it was probably just water in the g...

I was having an intermittent short on the circuit including the marker lights and the dash lights. I replaced the fuse and the lights were fine for a few days, and then the fuse would blow. Long story short - the jack had pushed the harness down onto the corner of a bolt in the corner of the trunk w...

OK, great - thank you for the product and the advice. A dab'll do ya. I'm wondering what I'm going to find when I pull the cover off of mine. Do you know what's a good solvent for this stuff when dried? It's an RTV silicone-based product - have you tried a silicone dissolver like Permatex's?

Any recommendations on gasket sealant for the thermostat cover? Haynes refers to it as "jointing compound," which back in the day might be Indian Head or shellac, but Permatex 2 or even the spray-on might work OK.

I had some very strange electrical behaviors and had overlooked that the charge indicator light was dark when the key was in the ON position before starting. It turned out to be the voltage regulator. Once I figured that out and thought to check the voltage from the system while the car was running,...

I'm getting a violent hesitation under load at full throttle (i.e., hard acceleration) under these conditions: 1. Below 1/2 tank of gas exclusively 2. Warm engine 3. Car will idle fine and will hold 4K RPM when parked without stalling 4. The hesitations don't usually have time to register on the tac...

Amazon Prime has a lot of BMW OEM stuff, and the shipping is always free, at least in the US. For one-off parts like a bleed screw, it's been a good resource.

If you ever order a new OEM cover again, order the bleed screw as well because the cover doesn't include the screw.

Thanks guys. As it turned out, I needed $4 worth of knurled nuts for the taillight covers in the trunk. They have them at bavauto.com, but I needed to spend $99 for the free shipping. It turns out that adding the thermostat cover and the temperature sensor brought me right to that free shipping. I c...

Only peripherally related - the bleed screw on my 81 528i is ... or was ... the slotted one, optimistically designed for a flat blade screwdriver. It's really stuck. I've tried dribbling different types of thread oil on it for weeks at a time, and it won't budge. The slot is mangled now. I confess t...