RE: Opinion on 87 528e ZF Autotrans ...

[michael_kohlbrenner@xxxxxxxxxx]

- -----Original Message-----
From: JHahn22@domain.elided [mailto:JHahn22@domain.elided]

> if I liked the car and it was in good shape aside
> from the trans, I would switch to a manual
> transmission...

Go here to see what this entails:

http://www.fatdaddybmw.com/kan/e28.html

It is a pretty big job from the perspective of time
and the fact that it is all under the car with some
heavy components to deal with.  I faced this dilemma
with my old E28.  I was not set up at my current
house to do this, especially since I don't yet have
a welder -- from the above site:

   "Since the automatic does not have a manual
    shifter bracket, we (Bobby) had to weld one
    in. I used a Milwaukee Sawzall to cut one
    out of a donor car and then cleaned off the
    excess metal on the bench grinder..."

This was more than I wanted to deal with and I ended
up just getting a nice E34 5-speed.  I sold the E28
while the auto still worked...

It is worth doing if you can handle the job yourself
and would prefer a 5-speed.  If you have to start
paying someone else for the job, you're probably
better off either getting a used auto trans for it
(which is risky, of course, since "they all fail
eventually"), or just keeping or unloading your
current car for parts and just buying a new one that
already has the 5-speed you want.

Looking at the situation financially, your car is
probably worth somewhere in the $500-$1000 range as
it is now.  After you spend $2500-$2800 to put a
new/rebuilt auto trans into it, it will likely be
worth $2000-$3000 depending on condition.

You do the math...

Good luck,
Mike Kohlbrenner

------------------------------