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Upcomming issues on #231 (ABS system, front wheel shimmy)

50K views 84 replies 10 participants last post by  raymondw 
#1 · (Edited)
ABS issue

Already in 2007, I observed the failure of the ABS system at speeds above 220km/h during road trips through Germany. Then still on a German temporary registration (5-days KKE), there was no need to comply with any vehicle inspection such as MOT, APK, TuV, MFK or whatever.

When I decided to register #231 on a Dutch registration I had to resolve the Dutch APK relevant issues for which we performed a pre-registration checkup in the winter of 2008. During those inspections, I discovered that the impulse sending wheels of the rear-wheel drive flanges were corroded as can be seen on the following picture.



This explains for the ABS failure at very high road speeds. However, for obtaining a Dutch registration in May 2008, this was a non-issue, as the RDW institute would not test the car under such extreme conditions. Since #231’s ABS system was fully functional within the legal speed limits in the Netherlands with a margin of 100km/h, this wasn’t a critical issue hence why I placed this issue on the back-log and planned to solve it in the winter of 2009/2010.

Then in June 2008, the engine failure came in between. With the following engine rebuild between March and September 2009, addressing the ABS issue was not important at all and remained low on the priorities list. Granted, I could have combined this the installation of the rebuild engine, but decided against that to obtain focus to the main objectives for that time.

With the running-in phase almost completed, solving the ABS issue is placed higher on the priorities list, especially since the speed at which the ABS warning light illuminates has lowered to about 190km/h on the speedo-meter. This reduces the margin to less than 70km/h from the legal limit. Although this still is more than enough to have my driver’s license being put through the ‘shredder’, but with the expected decay, it can become a relevant issue sooner or later and I’d rather resolve it in my own time and not with a fixed time-table to meet the criteria for obtaining the next road-worthy certificate.

I have just received the parts quotation from my dealer and although the drive flanges are just Euro 42,87 each, their status is backorder from factory. With other words, delivery time cannot be confirmed at the moment.

Appearance of the differential

Another issue that bugged me for a long time is the corroded diff-housing that deteriorates the otherwise very clean bottom of #231. Just like the ABS issue, this issue was placed on hold following the earlier mentioned engine failure.



Since the drive-shafts need to be removed for resolving the ABS issue, this is a good opportunity to improve the differential at the same time, therefore I plan to remove it as well according to the following scheme.

1: Remove drive shafts, inspect them and replace the boots of the universal joints if necessary.
2: Replace drive flanges and solve the ABS issue
3: Remove differential from car
3: Disassembly of the LSD, but leave the pignon-shaft in place because of the required pre-tension
4: Remove the rust and clean the housing.
5: Paint the housing with black POR15
6: Reassemble the differential, use new parts where necessary.

Front shimmy

I already have ordered two new lower control arms for the front suspension to solve the shimmy that I have experienced during recent road-trips. I have decided against aftermarket such as Meyle HD or Lemforder for two reasons.

1: Originality
2: I am not convinced on Meyle HD on my father’s A6 quattro were I preferred these over OEM. The ride still is a bit deteriorated by mild vibrations, even when new OEM shock absorbers with all the associated parts were installed soon after to eliminate other sources.

Front wheel arch liners

Following the experiences of member BMWWGN’s experiences with his recently acquired South African E28 M5, I decided to check the cover liners of the front wheel arches as well. This resulted in the decision to replace them on #231 as well, including the rubber seals. Fortunately, #231 doesn’t suffer from corrosion in the enclosed area behind these liners so there is no need to do some bodywork there.

All the required parts have been ordered; some of them already have arrived. I will update this thread from time to time and report the progress.
 
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#66 ·
Becker

Raymond,

Nice. I hope the Volume button works properly and being not lose/play as its an issue on this cassette player.

Night time will be little interesting because we are use to the red matching lights form the BMW red stereo.

Post soem pics when installed it

Anri
 
#67 ·
Raymond,

Nice. I hope the Volume button works properly and being not lose/play as its an issue on this cassette player.
Hi Anri,

The Becker needs a restoration anyhow of which I will post pictures and a write-up later. It certainly isn't ready to use, but the build-quality and its modular design is unmatched and I know that only from some specific Saba receivers from the late 1970's era.
 
#72 · (Edited)
Apart from the third shark-nose meeting in May, I hadn’t used #231 for an appropriate trip this year. This changed on last Sunday (21 October) as I arranged for a small insider meeting in the South of Limburg near Maastricht and Belgium. This also was the first time that I could fully assess the change to Mobil1 Extended Life 10W60; granted the recent roundtrip to the German autobahn allowed me to get a baseline, but in essence its duration is very small, 160km in just 90 minutes including a fuel-stop in Gronau and thus hardly stresses the engine oil. This would also not happen for today as the shortest route from my premises to Teuven in Belgium is not through Germany, but straight through speed-enforced Netherlands. The route over Nijmegen and Venlo (A73) is shorter in distance and time as even in Germany there are not that many unrestricted autobahns, especially not in the congested Ruhr Area. The journey towards the gathering point in Teuven went uneventfully. I had to refuel just before Maastricht where I filled #231 with 31,6 litres of BP Ultimate 98. This means that #231 averaged 10,3ltr/100km since the last fuel-stop in Gronau late in September. Not bad at all considering the fact that I wasn’t driving on economy, but stayed relatively close to the speed-limit for 90% of the time.

In Maastricht, I left the A2 highway in favour of the N287 towards Margraten and Vaals entering an scenery and landscape that is untypical for. This region is located in close proximity to the German Eiffel and the Belgian Ardennes and offers some nice driving-tours in a hilly-environment with mountains up to 360mtr’s in height. Just before entering the village of Slenaken, a Polaris-Grey E24 came from the left and I quickly recognized this as Rob’s car. Although we participated in Email discussions for quite some time, we never met in person. In Slenaken, we both turned right towards Teuven in Belgium were we arrived at tavern Moeder de Gans in Teuven (Belgium) only ten minutes after the scheduled time of arrival.



Robert, Martijn and Han represented the S38-popution with a 1992 E34 M5 3.6 respectively a 1995 E34 M5 Touring. They arrived at around 12:30PM.



After the initial greetings and chats, we walked towards tavern Moeder de Gans for Lunch. This is an old-and popular establishment where one can eat in casual environment without worrying about protocol or time.



At around 3:00PM we all finished our meals after which we started with the driving-tour. This driving tour is identical to the tour that we drove on the 7th of November 2010 with m5board’s E39 M5 community, albeit in a much warmer ambient; temperature rose to almost 22°C which is unique so late in the season in this part of the hemisphere. It felt as if it was spring, but the nature had progressed well into the autumn; one could describe this is a golden-autumn.



As there is only a very small area in Belgium south of the border with the Dutch-Limburg that has Dutch as native language, we also entered French-language Wallonia. This crossing is only noticed by the names of the villages. We $planned our first stop at the abbey of Val Dieux, but with such good weather, there was no opportunity to line-up the cars so we continued driving. We maintained a moderate pace on the small and poor condition Belgium country roads; Sometimes spirited, but generally relaxed to enjoy the lovely scenery as well.



After about an hour of driving on the Belgium roads that generally have a poor state of maintenance compared to the roads in the Netherlands and Germany, we crossed the border at Le-Planc towards Slenaken and Eperheide where we stopped for a brief moment to enjoy the scenic view. The Classic Bugatti was almost left unnoticed on the parking area.



This particular car certainly isn’t a Pebble beach or Villa-d’Este contest-winner, but does it have to be ? One can smell the cars history and lovely patina of decades of enthusiast-use. Actually, this is much better than those overtly restored cars that are stashed away inside museums and private collections ?





Note the eight sparkplugs; lovely.



Well, back to the topic and subject; #231 at Eperheide with a view onto the Vijlenerberg and Vaalserberg.



After about thirty minutes, we resumed our trip towards Epen and the Vijlener-forest and the small ascent to the Vijlenerberg where we ended the driving-tour on the terrace of café ‘t Hijgende Hert.



From a driving point of view the south of Limburg offers more than plenty routes; don’t expect challenging driving-roads such as the many passes in the Alps. For that, the hills are by far not high enough. Even for spoiled enthusiasts like me, the south of Limburg and the nearby Belgium country-side offers a unique friendly and open atmosphere that doesn’t really compare. And if that is not enough, a visit to this region can easily be combined with the Eiffel-region or the Ardennes, albeit the condition of the tarmac in Belgium is way below Dutch or German standards.
 
#73 · (Edited)
I used the holidays to tackle some issues on #231 that have long since been planned and partially overdue. One of these is the replacement of the output flanges that contains the actuators for the ABS sensors. These fine machined tooth’s are prone to corrosion and their failure is a common issue on E24’s and E28’s.



In the case of #231, their replacement wasn’t really necessary as the ABS system only went into error-mode well above autobahn speeds or more precisely above 200-210km/h on the speedometer. This means that in my speed restricted country, the ABS system stays fully functional and its failure will not be noticed during MOT. I wanted to replace the flanges already in 2010 and submitted the order, but BMW didn’t stock them and needed almost two years to have them remanufactured.



Disclaimer: Although this job seems simple which to some extent is true, safety concerns make that this is not a DIY job without implementing all the usual precautions that should be heeded when working on a motor-vehicle. Neither the author and webmaster accept any responsibility and/or liability for damage or injuries sustained as a result of using the information in this note.

The first step is disconnecting the two driveshaft’s from the output flanges. There is no need to remove them fully but make sure to secure them. I used electric hook-up wire to fix them to the anti-roll bar. Please note that the car needs to be lifted to gain the required clearance to remove the universal joints from the flanges.



With the driveshaft’s out of the way, the flanges locking nut becomes visible. Its size differs by model, but for the M5 this is an M27 nut that is tightened to 250Nm. The nut is secured with a securing plate that has to be removed first after which the nut can be loosened using a 36mm socket and a breaker bar.

note: This part requires full safety measures to prevent the car from falling or dropping. With other words, never ever use a jack-stand.



The next step is the removal of the flanges themselves and also here, extreme caution should be taken as the flange sits very tight on the splined shaft. I used a pulley-puller that is centered against the splined shaft. Without such a device, pulling the flanges is simply impossible.



The following picture shows one of the old flange. Clearly visible are the corroded actuator tooths. Their depth is no more than 1-2mm whereas for the new parts this is at least twice as much.



Ideally, the ABS sensors have to be removed to drive the new flanges onto the splined shafts. However, this is not really necessary. I applied a small amount of molycote grease before driving the new flanges. I used a small hammer and a wooden block for that.



The M27 nut has to be tightened with 250Nm requiring a suitable torque wrench. Mine only went to 210Nm, but I tightened them with an additional 10degrees with the breaker-bar. This is close to the required 250Nm.



Although the securing plates were supplied two years ago as well, I only found one of them in my parts-bin meaning that I had to order another one before being able to reconnect the driveshaft’s. These will take a few days to arrive.



This already looks much better and should solve the problem.



To be continued!
 
#74 · (Edited)
During the suspension overhaul that took place in the winter of 2010/2011, both front shock absorbers and springs were not replaced; I already explained about the arguments in an earlier post and explained why this eventually was required after just one season of driving.



It has been about three-quarters of a year since the dealer supplied the new Bilstein B6 shock-absorbers; these parts are specially valved units for the E28 M5 and E24 M635CSI and are not used for any other car; in fact the stamped BMW number on the shock absorbers does not match the ordering number in the ETK, but this has been explained in an earlier post as well.



As I didn’t want this to interfere with the 2012 driving season, I postponed their replacement to the 2012/2013 winter-season. In the mean-time, I decided to replace both front springs as well as these would then be the only two parts that would not have been replaced and it was penny wise pound foolish not to do so in the first place.



Disclaimer: Although this job seems simple which to some extent is true, safety concerns make that this is not a DIY job without implementing all the usual precautions that should be heeded when working on a motor-vehicle. Neither the author and webmaster accept any responsibility and/or liability for damage or injuries sustained as a result of using the information in this note.

Details about the strut dis-and assembly can be found in earlier contributions, more particularly those added between November 2010 and March 2011, hence why it does not make sense to repeat each and every detail again. However, the lessons learnt in that exercise were translated into the acquisition of new tools to eliminate the risk of damaging parts.



A good example are the spring compressors; for the previous session (now two years ago), I borrowed some from my neighbor who runs a professional workshop. As can be seen on the previous picture these consist of three individual compressors, each with a single hook construction. Although this tool is simple in construction, its use is rather complicated. Ideally, the three compressors are separated 120degrees apart to obtain an even load of the spring, but the narrow grabbing-hooks drift easily during the compression phase.

Much better are compressors with a dual hook design. Generally, these consist of two individual compressors that are placed opposite to each other with an ideal angle of 180degrees. The dual hooks cover about 90degrees of the circumference eliminating the risk of them to chance position. This not only eliminates the risk of damaging the spring, but more important increases the safety by quite some margin as there is no risk of an uneven load of the spring.



Another tool that was specifically bought is the ‘special tool’ for loosening and tightening the locking nut for the Bilstein B6 shock-absorbers. Until now, I used a home-made special tool, but learnt that it was impossible to tighten the nut with the correct torque without the official tool.



The ‘special tool’ from Bilstein has an extension with a rectangular hole for fitting a ½” torque wrench-or ratchet. The following picture shows the usage of the special tool with a simple ratchet during the removal of the tightening-nut.



The torque wrench are placed outside the opening for the tightening-nut, hence the effective length of the wrench is extended and thus also the force. The Bilstein instruction manual that is part of the delivery specifies a tightening torque of 130Nm, but it is unclear if this should be the effective value or the setting of the torque wrench. Based on the limiting value that is stamped on the ‘special tool’ I reasoned that the 130Nm is the effective torque and thus compensated the setting of the torque wrench for the extended length, estimated at more or less 10% resulting in 90% of 130Nm or 117Nm. This worked fine.

The following picture shows the old (right) and new spring (left) prior to installation of the new spring. Their height and stiffness are identical proving that the spring-constant of coils-springs doesn’t change throughout the years. The old springs aren’t really bad, but why bother at 80 Euro/each ?



Prior to inserting the new shock absorber, I compared the new unit (right)with the old 28year old part. Given the fact that the strut was disassembled from the car in its entity and thus the there is no weight of the car that compresses the spring, the piston of the shock absorber should have been in its maximum outbound position. The following picture clearly demonstrates that this is not the case.



I already noticed that both springs needed to travel a considerable length, almost reaching the critical point at which it was impossible to continue. The following picture clearly shows the required compression.



I failed to notice that the piston of the shock absorber was travelling to a more inbound position as well. To my recollection this was also the case two years ago; my main concern being safety and proper alignment of the spring compressors, hence I paid little attention to the behavior of the parts. With that in mind, I could have done with a little less travelling of the spring, but one first has to learn before obtaining knowledge.



Please note the difference in the distance of both grabbers in the above two pictures; With the new shock absorbers being in their most outbound position, the springs needed to travel much less to install the top mounts; this not only simplifies the installation, but also adds to the safety. Before reinstalling the reassembled strut, I cleaned the strut tower and added two layers of zinc-primer. The following picture shows the condition of the right strut-tower prior to cleaning.



Looks much better !



Please note that I waited with tightening all the nuts and bolts once the car was standing back onto its own wheels.

Expectations:

Although I have to wait for a few months before adding some mileage, the outbound dampening will improve a lot. As long as the tarmac is smooth and predictable, the springs and dampers won’t travel that much. But on rougher roads, as for instance can be found in the Belgian Ardennes or e.g. the Stilfserjoch in Italy, the suspension takes that travel and with the old shock-absorbers, the outbound from the neutral position relied on the stiffness of the spring. Now that every part in the front suspension is new, I expect nothing less than a significant improvement of the cars handling and predictability.
 
#75 · (Edited)
Despite the 12Mpixel of my ‘new’ Point-shoot Camera, Nikon S3100, the sharpness is not according to my expectations; It appears as if manufacturers tend to soften the pictures of their ‘budget’ point shoot cameras to compensate for the weaknesses in their sensor and picture-processing designs at the cost of the ability to capture detail and sharpness. This clearly proves (to me) that more megapixels makes no sense unless the rest of the camera system is capable of processing the large data-streams coming out of these high resolution image-sensors. My Nikon D300S is the complete opposite; it also features an (much larger) image sensor with 12Mpixel, but each one of those is of a much higher quality than those of the S3100.

Granted, one may not compare an 1200 Euro high-end Digital Single Lens Reflex camera-body with a 100 Euro point shoot.; however my nine-year old Sony DSC F717 only has a sensor with 5Mpixel, yet the contrast and sharpness of its images is much better than modern point-shoots such as the earlier mentioned S3100. The S3100 would perform a whole lot better if its designers had focused on the optics and digital post processing rather than merely following the industry trend by increasing the sensors pixel-counts. With my F717 out of commission (another story) and my unwillingness to use a high-end and expensive DSLR for documentation purposes, I have no other choice than relying on the ‘budget’ S3100 as workhorse.

Back to the topic; the last missing parts for #231 arrived last Friday. The securing plates appear to have a minimum order quantity of five pieces, but at 75cents, I cannot bother. The stabilizer- links were needed for the front suspension as the old part broke down during the removal of the right-strut-assembly.



Fitting the new stabilizer links is not really an issue; with no more than a few nuts and not even bolts this is an easy DIY issue. Installing the new parts was just a matter of placing and tightening using new self-locking nuts.



With the completion of this issue, each and every component of the front suspension has been replaced with new parts in a timeframe of just two years (January 2011 – January 2013). It would be interesting to make a breakdown of the cost; I estimate the in total roughly 1200-1600 Euro’s worth of parts were used; errrr, maybe I should not do that and leave it at an estimate, but it certainly looks nice.



The securing plates were punched into place with the same 36mm 12way socket that II used to tighten the M25 nuts of the output-flanges. This basically replaces the BMW special tool ‘33 4 060’ that is listed in the E28 repair instructions without any issue; in fact, there is no noticeable difference in the end-result compared to a factory installed securing plate. Unfortunately I have no pictures to show as I accidentally left the above mentioned point-shoot at home. However, I did make a picture of the final result afterwards with the drive-shafts installed and tightened to the flanges.



The only disturbing factor is the rusty appearance of the final drive’s cast-alloy enclosure. For a proper appearance, the enclosure needs to be sandblasted prior to repainting, but this requires the removal of the pinion, which is not so easy as there are specific mechanical requirements for the pinion-sprocket to crown-sprocket interface. Adjusting this correctly requires special tooling and craftsmanship, hence that is better to be combined with a full rebuild of the differential by a specialist at a later date, but there are no concrete plans for doing so in 2013/2014.



What remains is a thorough inspection of all the work; checking all nuts and bolts and make sure that they are correctly tightened.
 
#76 · (Edited)
Some time ago, I was approached by a company representative of F. Breeman, an official BMW dealer in the Rotterdam area with the request to loan #231 for their classic car event to be held in the third weekend of March. The objective for this event is to gather a unique collection of BMW’s from the 1960-1995 era and display them for a public audience to show BMW’s heritage not only to (potential) clients, but also to a broad public of petrol heads, press and enthusiasts.

Needless to say that it is a daunting task to gather such a collection; something that is only possible with the help of BMW clubs and private enthusiasts, collectors and specialists. Suffice to say that it is an honor to cooperate with such a unique initiative so I agreed to the loan of my E28 M5 for the duration of the event. Logistically, this was a puzzle for me though as the distance from my premises to Rotterdam requires me to take a full day off, something that my work-load doesn’t really allow at the moment so I decided to take their offer to arrange transportation for me on the 21st of March. This normally concedes with the start of the spring and thus the driving season and thus the weather conditions should not be a risk.

But suddenly the winter stroke back hard in the 11th week. A cold weather front coming from the northeast caused a cold-pit with ambient temperatures well below zero even on the highest of the day. At the end of that (last) week, some serious snow-fall was thrown in, meaning that lots of salt would be thrown on the roads. This made me worry, even when on transportation, but fortunately, there was a slight break in the winter for a few days, melting the snow and the occasional rain washed the salt away. This gave me some confidence, but I had to perform some checks the day before pickup, including refueling with Shell’s finest. This also gave me the opportunity to check phase 2 of the front suspension overhaul that was completed in last January.

This overhaul was an extension to the phase 1 front suspension rebuild that included each the four suspension arms, tie-rods stabilizer links and top-mounts. This solved the heavy vibrations that occurred when braking from median speeds (120-140km/h), yet didn’t solve the steering-torque when cornering at spirited road-speeds. The small trip to the petrol station was too short to obtain a detailed description of the (phase 2) improvements, yet long enough for an impression.

With the new shock absorbers, the chassis-roll under steering has significantly been reduced, allowing for a much more precise turn-in when cornering. The dead-zone in the suspension travel definitely is eliminated………..

Well let’s hope for better weather in the next weeks. As for the Classic car event at F Breeman in Rotterdam; when did you see this for the last time at your BMW dealer ? (Picture courtesy from www.driving-fun.com. )

 
#80 ·
Great video Raymond!

Despite the lack of an M88/3 soundtrack, the period-perfect U2 track works so well with the mood and scenery of this clip.

The visual effect is stunningly beautiful, accentuating the feeling of spaciousness in the cabin of the E28, as well as the superb all-round visibility.

This brings back some very happy memories of my own M5.

Brilliant!

Thanks for posting.:M5thumbs:
 
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#81 · (Edited)
Last weekend, the ASVH,which is a local car club in Hellendoorn, the Netherlands organized a meet-and greet event for its members who happen to be owners of classic cars. The general definition of classic cars is 30 years and older, but as there are many owners of special and unique cars that are a tad younger than that, the term youngtimers has been defined; generally cars between twenty and thirty years of age.

This event was aimed at a wide variety of owners, thus not limited to a specific brand or genre. The event started on the 20th of April at 13:30 with a static show followed by a small drive towards an old motorcycle track, the Luttenbergring. This ‘ring’ still offers some driving thrills and a unique location for a photo-shoot. Nowadays, the Blikweg section is a public road with people living in its close vicinity, hence it goes without saying that we behaved as gentlemen rather than hooligans. Nevertheless we had fun.

The following series of pictures show #231 approaching the S-curve in the Blikweg section; As the camber changed direction for three times before exiting the second curve, it is best to turn-in sharp in order to obtain a best approach for the second. If one stays to the outside for too long, one not only loses time, but also fails to settle the car properly for accelerating out of the second corner, which is essential for the high-speed left-turn that follows soon after. .



This approach simply would not be possible without the new suspension components that were fitted in December/January. The above picture clearly shows the difference in suspension travel on both sides. Upon exiting the first part of the S-curve, one has to allow for some settling time, a second or two will do.



Upon the turn-in of the second curve, #231 is stable and ready for picking up speed before….



Entering the second corner that can be driven in a straight line at full speed without disturbing the cars balance.



Picture courtesy by Richard Hammers ( www.rallyinthepicture.nl ).

The overall summary is that I am impressed with the new front suspension. I have often driven the same road with a various number of cars and with #231 it was not possible to do that with the same agility and control as on last Saturday.

More pictures of this event can be found on my facebook album
 
#82 ·
The M5 looks nicely balanced thru that S-curve, Raymond.

Roughly what speed are you carrying through there?
The front-on images don't give much indication of this, but I'm sure you weren't on a leisurely Sunday drive!

Very nice photos all the same...the car looks superb!
 
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#83 ·
The M5 looks nicely balanced thru that S-curve, Raymond.
Yes, it even surprized me

Roughly what speed are you carrying through there?
The front-on images don't give much indication of this, but I'm sure you weren't on a leisurely Sunday drive!
My turn-in speed was slightly above 80km/h; kept it constant until the car settled, and accelerated through the second corner until reaching about 110km/h.

Very nice photos all the same...the car looks superb!
Thanks; the photographer did a damn good job.
 
#84 ·
The sharknose meeting is an annual event for owners of classic BMW’s until the E30 model range. This year’s event marked the fourth edition that for the first time took place in Arnhem, The Netherlands on the premises of the Rijnhallen exhibition-center.

Whilst the F Breeman Classic car event was aimed at displaying the top of the classic BMW model range, the Sharknose meeting is aimed at a wide audience ranging from regular models that are still used on a day to day basis to the very top; not only qualitative, but also rarity, amongst others some very rare Alpina and M-car models.

The distance from my home to Arnhem is more or less 80-90km, mostly highway but also a small section of a lovely country-road through the Sallandse Heuvelrug which is a combination of hills that originated from the last ice-age when the glaciers retracted to the North. A lovely road, around ten kilometers in length connects two villages, Nijverdal and Holten. Now, the downside is that this is one of the national parks in the Netherlands because it’s the habitat of a few rare species; nevertheless, the road is still open and enjoyed by many.

Already in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s era, local owners of performance cars used this road for ….. errrr ….. let’s say spirited driving. My own father for instance has a lot of memories from that era, not least because he wrecked his brand-new Opel Commodore GS/E in 1970 or 1971 whilst attempting to break a four minute time barrier in an off-line competition between members of what was then still an unofficial car-club, but who annually participated in the ‘ten countries tour’, an event that was aimed at driving through ten countries as fast as possible with custom stamps in ones passport as proof. There is little written proof from that era, but from the same memories, the fastest time was achieved by an owner of a BMW early in the 1970’s; a few hours past a day’s limit for little over 3000km

Now weather or not these statements are accurate or even possible is open to debate. To achieve a four minute driving time between the two villages, an average speed of 140-150km/h is required. This compares to a lap time of 8min42sec on the Nurburgring Nordscheife, something that only a very few cars could achieve; Porsches 911(F) Carrera RS 2.7 comes to mind and maybe very maybe BMW’s own E9 3.0CSL road-car, but these cars were built to be light an agile and both were in the 200bhp league.

Another benchmark is BMW’s E34 M5 that achieved about the same lap-time when it was released in 1988, but needed a much more powerful engine with 315hp and a much more sophisticated suspension to do the same. Therefore I doubt that road going cars, as sophisticated and performance oriented as they were for their own time in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, were capable of achieving such a fast pace; …….; A fact is that their spirit of driving was heroic to some and declared insane by others and by today’s standards still is insane for twisty country-roads.

Nevertheless, despite some changes to force a lower driving-speed, the Holterbergweg still offers some serious driving-fun, but we ain’t living in the early 1970’s anymore… nowadays, the tolerance for spirited driving is low…. Very low, but nevertheless still fun to do so from time to time;. Enjoy.

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/68493086" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/68493086">Driving fun with a BMW E28 M5</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user7724484">raymondw</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

Oh yes, #231 performed flawlessly; the video footage actually confirms that the suspension repairs of last winter resolved the last suspension issues; there is absolutely no vibration or brake-judder anymore; furthermore, the precision of the steering greatly improved resulting in a much better agility and suppleness then before.
 
#85 · (Edited)
Reinstated the URL's to the pictures for a second time; this time following a critical issue in my photobucket account, which photobucket acknowledged, but could not resolve.

Please note that this also applies to all my previous postings that date back to 2004 or so. I will repair the links, but this may set me back for about at least a year.
 
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