No pictures but...

Matt and I had a look at an '86 740 GLE. A few things strange about this car...

Engine bay is perfectly clean.

It had a B230FT in it. The tag said B230F so it's obviously a transplant.

It had a ZF transmission in it...not that this is impossible, I've just never seen one before.

The front and rear seats are out of a Nissan of some description. We know this because it has Nissan seatbelts in the front. Nice seats and would likely have pulled them if it wasn't minus 150 out there although it looked like someone went to a fair amount of work to get them in there. Not sure I wanted to go to that much trouble to get them in my car. Nice seats though. Big side bolsters, even in the rear. Fronts were hybrid...manual and power adjustments.

Later dash. 91+? More rounded than my 90.

Couldn't see any issues with it so I suspect the transmission may have failed. I wonder if it was ever running after the engine swap...

Cool! I love hearing about finds like that. I'd be awfully curious to know how fresh that b230ft is.

Well it was CLEAN, but it was early. Pre -90 manifold, Garrett turbo, Pierburg CBV, non-K block, so almost certainly '85-87. The block was painted and the head might havre been scrubbed clean but looks like it might have been blasted at some point. Tough call, since the entire engine compartment resembled a soon-to-be snowdrift.

Ya...hard to tell. It had been repainted and had a 530 head on it. Matt mumbled something about a later harness in it too. Didn't think to look for a crank position sensor on the bellhousing that would indicate LH2.4. Later block might mean a squirter block but we couldn't see the date code. It had an earlier turbo manifold on it although that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

The ZF shifter has D-3-2-1 positions in addition to a switch on the shifter. Any hints as to what that might do? Lock out a lock-up torque converter?

There was an LH2.2 ECU in the box behind the car, though again that doesn't mean much. I think it was just a replacement harness, which I should really grab next weekend if it's still there.

Oh, and we forgot to mention those funky wire guides bolted to the strut towers. I've never seen them before on a 740.

Plus it had accordion bumpers (pre- '90 to match the body) but the front air dam was replaced with one from a 90+ car. Never seen that done before either.

Other than the turbo engine, not much performance on the car. It may have had Tokiko shocks (blue) but it still had small sway bars, 10" front brakes, and what looked to be the original rear axle. I doubt anything's been done to make the car go any faster than a stock '86 740T (except that it's not the way the chassis started life). It did have a sweet sweet glasspack underneath, though.