Just bought an 89 535i

[nirvana19]

Hello everyone, i'm still fairly new to this board, but I'll probably be spending a lot more time as this as I finally did buy an 89 535i I was looking at for a bit. The car is in pretty good shape, and the previous owner was an enthusiast who lives five minutes away. The car is a black on tan 535i automatic (i know, i know) with 280000 km, spent the first 10 years of its life in Ontario and was sold as a Canadian vehicle. Problem with this car is, the owner is in the military and was in Iraq for some time, so the car sat outside under a cover for two years... so there are a few things that need attention, no major problems came up in the pre-purchase inspection except for maybe the sword switch and the lkm (had no low beams at all, tested with a working one and everything worked fine, so i just bought one on ebay to put in). I'll probably post pictures of the car fairly soon

For the time being however I had one question...
The car doesn't have airbags (I don't know if any of the 89 models did), so it has the regular steering wheel with manual tilt. However, even with the lever released, the wheel seems to be stuck. Doesn't move at all. Not the most important thing, but I wonder why...

[winfred]

no tilt just telescope

[Podmore]

Check the large nut down low on the steering column just above the firewall. If you undo this and spray a bit of WD40 on the column, then give the wheel a bit of a tug, you may get it to slide. When it's moving easy, just tighten up the nut to the point where the column can still slide but the nut is firm.

[nirvana19]

Check the large nut down low on the steering column just above the firewall. If you undo this and spray a bit of WD40 on the column, then give the wheel a bit of a tug, you may get it to slide. When it's moving easy, just tighten up the nut to the point where the column can still slide but the nut is firm.

I'll try that tomorrow morning

[Felixdacat]

... (I don't know if any of the 89 models did)

My '89 had a driverside bag only.