Initial upper engine disassembly and seeing what we have to deal with is starting. First observations - Leaks oil heavily. BMWs are notorious for valve cover gasket leaks, and this thing looks like it's a candidate for the leaking gold medal. This was a known, but man, this thing has to have been leaking for years. Next challenge-- One of the plugs was like "I'm not coming out, no way..." This was the scariest moment, because something dumb like a spark plug either pulling out the threads of the head, or breaking off in the head, would pretty much wreck this project before it even gets going. Patience and good learning for Boy Genius as well as myself-- Whatever you do don't break something off in the head.
Next observations - No doubt thing thing had an off-road excursion that didn't go all that well. Off comes the front end, and initial review shows that the radiator is no longer on mounts, and parts of the core support are broken. The intercooler is holding in the radiator, and the intercooler is held in by coat hangers that were twisted together to form supports. Yep. The fan shroud is totally broken at the bottom but somehow the fan still runs and somehow the radiator is not damaged. However, the radiator is off kilter, and my OCD is flaring up almost in an uncontrollable fashion. This would explain the upper radiator hose weeping, and now I can tell it's because the radiator isn't where it should be.
The plan will be to get the oil leaks stopped, get new plugs in it, change the oil, fix up the broken radiator mounts, fan shroud, and whatever else we find in there, and run it just a bit to get some sort of baseline as to how bad the rest of it is while we get more parts ordered.