Wanted to post this here since this place is a lot more active. Back at it with another touring.
November 2021 Update
I sold my alpine white touring in May 2021 and have pretty much had sellers remorse ever since. I got an awesome offer that I accepted so it made it better but not much. I ended up with an E39 525it as an "upgrade" that has been good but it's not my E34 wagon. I bought another 95 540i6 that I didn't do much with except drive it and fix a few minor things with it. Traded the 540i for a 525i with an M52/ZF/s3.23. The 525i came with a lot of cool stuff including a blown M52 and another good M52 with almost everything to reseal it sans the head gasket and a lot of other parts. Intentions were to swap in the good M52, clean up the engine bay, and eventually turbo it but plans change. This was my same goal with this car too.
A pretty cool 95 525it in calypso popped up on Facebook in October 2021 and within the hour, the deal was done. The night before I had ordered a lot of parts for the black 525 and thought that it would be cool do to this stuff to a wagon...worked out well I guess. It came with Open Road Tuning coilovers, M bumpers, a bunch of recent maintenance, and no wheels. It did have BBS RS wheels on it. I had some mpars with new tires so I decided to save a few bucks and put those on and let the seller keep his BBS wheels for his next project. So the plan is to now manual swap the wagon with the stuff from the 525i, OBD2 swap it, and eventually turbo this car instead. I thought about putting the M50 and slushbox back into the black 525i but I'm not sure I'll have the time (or motivation) for an automatic swap lol. I'm currently parting it so there's that too.
Only issue with the wagon is the rebuilt title. I found the auction listing online and it was totaled for a "minor dent" and "small scratches" per the listing. I usually do not buy rebuilt title cars but this was an exception since the total loss equated to probably less than $1500 worth of damage. This also happened in 2019 in California so if I had to guess, the adjuster was already deadset on totaling the car due to age. Interestingly enough, the damage really isn't visible in the pics :confused I do not plan on selling it anytime soon so it's whatever at this point.
The latest wagon.
Really cool having these two next to each other. Never had a calypso car before so this is a welcomed change.
Photos from the previous owner.
The engine bay in this is very clean. The engine had some work done to it and the valve cover is new. Props to the previous owner for giving a sh!t :)
The rear seat had some tears in it. Luckily I never throw anything away, it all ends up in my attic for some reason. When I swapped the interior to black in my alpine wagon, I kept the seat bottom and some other parchment items and stored them away. A little over three years later...
My E39 touring doing werk. The SLS worked wonderfully. Brought the M52 home in it and have it sitting to the side for now. A lot of the OBD2 swap stuff has already shown up including the M50manifold.com kit (I used this kit before and really like it), oil pump safety nut, SAP block off plates, and some more "while you're in there" parts.
December 2021 Update
I pulled the 525i in and started taking stuff off it. The suspension was sold so it was gone first; seats and the front end also went. The seats went a week earlier so I had to get creative with moving the car with no seats.
My son modeling with the new seats :)
Tear down...
After work fun
Engine and transmission out.
It came with a red46 skid plate so I'm going to put it on the wagon.
Going to need to get a new transmission crossmember. This car was manual swapped as well but there have also been a few things that I have questioned about it.
More to come. Still have some stuff to remove and have to get rid of the shell.
January 2022 Update
Small(ish) update.
After a month of off and on disassembly on my parts car, I finally got it out of the garage and off to its new life as a washing machine. I've caught some crap about leaving the doors, trunk, and some other small parts but after making a few part out posts and having no bites...it all went with the car. No room to store doors and other body parts at my house and even if I had room, those items would have gone with the car anyway. They take up too much room. I did manage to get the back glass since that seems to be hard to find now. The front glass had way to much glue so I wasn't able to get the trim off along with the window, saddening since the trim is NLA now. You can see that there was some anger relief on the windshield in one of the pics :D
I got the important stuff so it's whatever at this point.
The headliner was recovered so this came out and will end up in the M Sport since the headliner in that is starting to sag in the back. 26 years will do that I guess...
The carcass
The wagon inside finally. Still needed to clean the garage up but progress.
After sitting since October; I cleaned the car up some and replaced a few things that I found broken that could have caused the car to fail such as a cracked tail light and a couple bulbs that were burnt out. Luckily I have a few sets of touring tail lights so it wasn't a huge deal. Went for a couple of test drives...all was well. Whatever I could find that was broken and could cause an issue was fixed. I was fretting a little over a few things after the inspector emailed me what they check. They check vehicle measurements, windshield damage, lights, ABS, airbags, tires, wheels, brakes, etc... They obviously look at what caused the car to get branded as well. The part that got me was the fact that the car was lowered significantly, has tint on the friggin windshield, not original wheels, not original bumpers, and I did not have a trailer to take it to the inspection office. So I decided to go full send and drive it nearly 100 miles away to an inspection station that was a stones throw from Tennessee. I have never had to go thru this process before sooooooooooooooooo what could possibly go wrong?? 
Fast forward to Saturday...
Here is it driven to the inspectors station in their parking lot. I pulled in and there were a few other people getting inspections done who had driven their car there too. The nervousness subsided a little. One guy brought a car there that was different colors, not even sure if he passed but there was no yelling or anything so I assume he passed?? No longer that nervous.
My turn. I pulled it in, left the window down, and start shooting the sh!t with the inspector and his friend. He asked if I knew the history of the car and I told him what I thought was done (the light tap on the rear left) and that I had bought it this way from a friend in South Carolina. He turns the car on, messes with the lights, checks the ABS, checks the airbags, inspects the rear left of the car (where the damage was), and looks under the hood for any damage (there was none since it was not damaged in the front). Never bothered to put it on the lift (the Jeep before me was on the lift, I guess the level of damage severity determines if it goes on the lift), messed with a few other things, and passed the car. Never mentioned anything about the windshield tint or lowered suspension. Ended up worrying about those things for nothing because they were both non-issues. I am relieved. 
Tonight...the modding begins with what little light I have. I swapped the school bus steering wheel and radio. These were in my parts car. The 95MY 525i's used a different slip ring than previous model years so I couldn't use the earlier model E36 M3 wheel that I have. The biggest thing incase the inspection becomes an issue again is that the SRS system continues to work properly so swapping in an Mtech2 wheel is not an option. The Mtech3 wheel works great and looks good in this. I also ditched the Continental radio in favor for one of my older Clarion pro audio decks. It sounds better, still has Bluetooth, variable LEDs, and I'm able to use my lifetime Sirius tuner with it. Simple enough and it starts to get the ball rolling with the car since it's no longer an issue with the inspection process.
Progress should speed up a little more now that I have the paperwork pretty much done with the GADMV. I was not about to start putting in work that could have possibly been a waste. Apologies for the long post but hope you all enjoy.
Vintage 2022 prep has officially begun!!!!:D:D:D:D:D:)
May 2022 Update
So I haven't really done much to the car except drive it and fix a few things on it. I've been busy so most of what I've been doing has been acquiring parts that I'll use at some point. I did get the new motor resealed and rid myself of the blown M52 from my parts car. It's ready to drop in and hook up when the time comes.
February 2022 Caffeine and Octane in Atlanta.
Both engines next to each other. Basically resealed the new M52, moved all of the E34 bits over, oil pump safety nut, and some minor things. Did some minor cleaning as well. When I get ready to drop it in, I'll clean it some more. February 2022.
Hopefully I did this right. I did buy two of these for some reason lol...
Next to the M Sport. I'll admit, I'm a bit spoiled with a fully functioning automatic in one of these...maybe that's where some of the procrastination is coming from
I found that when the M5 bumper was installed, the touring specific gasket was missing. I ordered one and installed it. It was also a good time to survey what damage there was to this area of the car. Looks like there was none below the bumper line. Good enough for me. 
Drove to South Carolina for the BMW CCA MX1 Experience. Totally worth the drive since the E31 M8 Prototype was there.
Vintage 2022. I originally wanted to have this swap done before the Vintage but yeahhhhh that didn't happen.
E34 crew. That's Logan taking in his first Vintage experience.
Blue Ridge Parkway.
Logan passed out from a long weekend...face first.
Soooo my original plan for boost was a turbo but this kinda just landed in my garage. It's a V3 Si that needs a little TLC. I do need a charge pipe for an M50 car so if anyone has a lead on one, let me know. If not, I'll have to get one made. Also need some injectors and a tune.
