Roxy, the not project project 318is!

[Holland]

Strange, they covered my 85 318i....

[Holland]

So, I am no propulsion scientist, but I do believe that this car has had some form of non-consensual contact on the passenger front at some point in its life. Not only is the valance tweaked, but this...

[Holland]

Rusty bracket will not do, I make a new one... er I make this one pretty.



Lick of rust converter, primer, and SEM. I am are Concours now.

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[Holland]

Last thing on the list is a recharge. This post is not that. I will likely take it to my old job (dealer) because they have an AC machine and can not only do an exact amount of freon, but also vacuum...

[Holland]

Home stretch on the AC rebuild, only need to remove half of the dash, but I did a dash swap on the 85 so no biggie. This right here is the case that holds the evaporator in the car. There is a bolt in...

[Holland]

So this is where car repair adventure can take you. This is a Denso compressor remanned by me myself and I. Let me tell you, do not do this at home. You need about 4.5 hands...

[Holland]

At this point, I am now doing my own reman compressor. I need to use the casing from my original compressor, the bores are very much worse for wear but options aren't options at this point. This compressor...

[Holland]

To condense the story a bit, I ended up having to get a new bearing since I do not have the correct tools (a press) to extract the bearing from the new compressor (BFH and 22mm socket) which destroyed...

[Holland]

Now that we got the condenser done, I decided to remove and clean the compressor lines. This is where the ole one bolt away from a 5 minute job turning into a 5 hour job, except it was actually a couple...

[Holland]

Here begins the AC saga. Here's the culprit in question and the new AC line:



First fix to clear the hood, space the hinge so it does not contact. Someone had backed the nut...

[Holland]

Late, but I have both E30's on Hagerty. Agreed value on both, 20k on the 318is, 25k on the swapped 318i....

[Holland]

The biggest thing on this car so far was to get the AC running. It technically did when I got the car but had a little mishap when aligning the hood better. Car only had the R134a adapters on it and when...

[Holland]

Bummer! Hopefully all is well now. This was not on my 2026 bingo card and we found out my wife was like 5 weeks pregnant after my stroke so life has been super interesting now....

[Holland]

Little Life update since I am posting retrospectively. I had a stoke back in late February at the old age of 37. Do not recommend. I am recovering slowly but surely, very lucky the only thing that really...

[Holland]

Funnily enough, you know way more history on this car than I do so feel free to correct me if I get something wrong. I'm basically dong investigative archaeology as I own the car....

[Holland]

Thanks! I have a light up key on the 85, just went for the standard key but nice to have a not worn key. fresh Chrome kidneys totally transform the car, it's not even funny....

[Holland]

Next order of business was fixing the gauge cluster. Odo gears were broken, and technically TMU, but I ended up doing a guesstimate when I registered the car and updated the odometer accordingly.
...

[Holland]

Omg this is true... The amount of money a good E30 is now is ridiculous....

[Holland]

First thing I did after buying the car was get a new key, and replace the black kidney grilles. I know that's a contested take on here, but black kidney's do indeed suck. bUt THere'S nO ChOME On ThE cAr!!!...

[Holland]

Well, time to finally make a thread for this one. I bought this back on New Year's day 2026. Car is a 1991 318is that has been on and off this forum throughout the years. Car used to go by Roxy so we...