Alpina B8 #64 of 93 Limo

[Stirling]

Nice work. I'm without a centre armrest in the B10 and I miss it.

[jrsmitchell]

Car looks great! I too really like the arm rest. Not sure why anyone prefers it without to be honest.

[Scooter]

Not much to update here, but I took the car for a drive the other night and thoroughly enjoyed it! Sadly she hasn't been driven as much as I'd like this summer. Something on the front needs some work. I'm getting vibrations from the front right on braking. I don't think it's a warped rotor, but maybe it is. I just haven't had time to look into it.

The good news is that I'm moving in a few weeks and she will FINALLY get to live in a garage! I'm super excited about it. I've been waiting a long time to buy a house and store my car(s) in a garage. It will be especially nice to have a covered place to work on my cars. Hopefully, gone are the days of rolling around on the road next to and under the car and occasionally getting wet from rain or someone else washing their car down the road! It will also be nice to be able to stop work part way through a job rather than "needing" to finish in one day

[Scooter]

Long time no update...I'm dealing with a fuel leak. Just waiting for new parts now. In the mean time, I found replacement door cards in pretty good shape. The Alpina wood trim is old, cracked and expensive to replace, so I got other inserts. A bit of glue coming undone on the inserts, but not bad. Replaced 3 of 4 last night. Before and after of one rear door below.





Slight difference on the front doors was the tweeter speaker was different (my car 1996, donor car 1992). I was able to swap them out, but in my car the speaker was a bit smaller, so I had to get it lined up just right to not show a gap on the edge.

Both door cards showing the different speakers:



Speaker swapped:



You can see the larger imprint from the original speaker.

Next on the list is to replace the driver's door handle including swapping the tumbler so I don't have two different keys. I'll do the door card swap at the same time. Then on to the fuel leak.

[Stirling]

Nice job on the door card. The door cards were always my nemesis on the B10. So hard to find replacements that weren't peeling too.

[Scooter]

Thanks! Yeah, always tricky to find replacement interior parts for older cars.

I got a little over half way through the handle swap yesterday. Pic of old vs new, but I have already swapped the sensors over to the new handle.



So the whole issue was because of one little plastic piece on the linkage. You can see where it's missing on the picture below. If I had known that, I probably would have just tried to figure out a fix rather than buying a whole new handle. That would have saved me doing the tumbler swap.



Tumbler swap wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it was going to be, but it did highlight how worn out my key is. Old vs new:



You can see the waffers sticking out a little bit on the old one (right) compared to the new one. This made it a bit tricky to remove from the handle, and it also isn't working properly with the new handle, but it works ok with my spare key, so I'll just need to get a new key ordered and use my spare key for now.

[Scooter]

Lots done over the last week. Driver's window installed with new plastic slider clips. I'll replace others later in the other three windows. I decided not to replace the vapour barrier seal for now. The barrier was sticking ok once it was heated. "New" door card also installed.

Fuel leak was also fixed. Here is the old line removed. I guess the seal is just old and was causing the leak.



I was able to replace the line without dropping the tank. Using my phone with the light on, I could see the clip on either end that you had the lift the line in/out of. If you have big hands or fat fingers it might be a bit difficult to do. The hardest part for me was getting the rubber line connected to the hard line under the car. If you have the car on a hoist I'm sure it's not a problem, but lying under the car and working in a tight space, it was a PITA.

Photos of the two clips on top of the tank.





She's now in good enough shape to put insurance on. I plan to put it on for 7 months before the end of this month since ICBC insurance rate hike comes into effect April 1.

When I was checking for the fuel leak I also noticed the exhaust hanger looked odd, so I ordered two new ones. I also suspect this may have been causing the mystery rattle I couldn't find. The old hanger was really hard, and was just hanging loosely at the hanger location. I'm guessing it was also some kind of generic type hanger.

Old left, new right.

[Stirling]

Must be nice to be able to work on your car in February/March!

Around here the snowbanks are over my head.

Are you able to get Hagerty insurance on the Alpina? Much, much cheaper than regular companies.

[Scooter]

Originally Posted by Stirling

Must be nice to be able to work on your car in February/March!

Around here the snowbanks are over my head.

Are you able to get Hagerty insurance on the Alpina? Much, much cheaper than regular companies.

If it makes you feel any better my place looked like this a few weeks ago.



Not really...Insurance over here must be purchased through government owned ICBC...well...Basic insurance needs to be. You can purchase extended insurance through private insurers, but so far, when I've checked it's more expensive or they won't provide coverage for vehicles more than 15 years old.

[Stirling]

Hagerty specializes in older vehicles and collectibles. Try their online quote mechanism here:

https://www.hagerty.ca/apps/manifold...&make=56%3BBMW