Heartbroken! Tell me there's Hope!

[87-325ic]

Hello E30 gang, its been a while.
Ive moved out to Western Colorado, and have been putting my wrenching skills to use on an XJ (jeep cherokee) these days.

I had my beloved 87 cabrio sitting, well kept, in a garage back home.
Well, hurricane season came, and the barn went away, e30 with it.
The whole property flooded for a day or two, and the car was under water.

What do you Honestly think the chances are, of
1) this car firing right back up after some serious cleaning,
2) this motor ever running again,
3) pulling the motor and using whats possible to swap to another rolling chassis

Where do you think I stand!?

please tell me she's still unstoppable...






meanwhile in colorado..

[Kershaw]

E30s are tough cars. I would:

1. new battery
2. new DME
3. new spark plugs
4. new oils (all of them, engine, trans, diff)
5. new ignition coil
6. clean cap and rotor

I would probably put a little ATF in the engine cylinders when the spark plugs are removed and rotate the engine by hand a few times. Once it's running, bag off the electronics in the engine bay and hose everything down. Once you get it running, I would change the oil after 20 minutes of driving.

Good luck on the interior.

[djjerme]

First:

Was it river or ocean water. Assuming it was just rain and maybe river/ground water, I don't think you'll be running in to issues like salt corrosion. But the key now is to get it clean and dry. As stated above, try to get everything cleaned and lubed back up as quickly as possible. Any connections/switches get a bottle of contact cleaner and hit it. The fabric surfaces, get a fabric cleaner and get all the mold/mildew out of it.

Resist the urge to hit anything with a pressure washer, it's just make i worse.

Savable, but it'll take some time.

[RobTapps88]

Fresh water you will be in better luck... Salt water will kill electronics as it's like 5x more conductive.. take a hose to it and clean it up and bust out the DMM.. if it was fresh water you may be super lucky and just require a new battery.. but be sure the entire car is dry (inside anything that contains a PCB).. I've had electronics come back from a watery grave before (PlayStation, laptop, 6 or 7 phones, ipods.. the list goes on..) so you may luck out.. best of luck and hope insurance covers some of the bill!

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[EyExR]

I bet you'll be ok. I would basically do what Kershaw recommended but I would open the throttle body and air box to make sure they're dry as well. I'd also pull the fuel relay and crank it a few times (after hand cranking) to get good oil pressure then fire it up...

[N2MYE30]

Dang, that sucks. Did this happen in NC?

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Dont forget the fuel system if the tank wasnt full i bet is now.

[87-325ic]

Thanks for the kind words everyone!
I have some more hope instilled.
So, while mulling this over in my head, i went and found a 2dr eta for what i think is a good price, 500 bucks. Runs, drives, clean title. Needs some work though.
Thoughts on that price?
Options/ opinions for swapping stuff, combining best pf both, trash the vert?, try to make two good runners? Focus just on the convertible?
What would you do..?

Yes, this was in Fayetteville last fall. Got flooding there bigtime.

[RobTapps88]

Thanks for the kind words everyone!
I have some more hope instilled.
So, while mulling this over in my head, i went and found a 2dr eta for what i think is a good price, 500 bucks. Runs, drives, clean title. Needs some work though.
Thoughts on that price?
Options/ opinions for swapping stuff, combining best pf both, trash the vert?, try to make two good runners? Focus just on the convertible?
What would you do..?

Yes, this was in Fayetteville last fall. Got flooding there bigtime.

Pick it up for that price lol could even be used to help fix your other car.. that's 2k less than I paid for my ETA lol

Depends what way you wanna go man if you were happy with the vert or want a roof..
.. you could stroker it if you have the 2.5 in the vert..

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[ohthejosh]

That vert needs to be completely stripped and dried to salvage it.

[e30davie]

Gawd what a disaster!

I reckon you'd get the engine going relatively easy but who knows what damage the water has done to the rest of the car. I reckon you will be forever chasing gremlins associated with water damage. Id say buy a new complete car and take all the good bits off the submarine and put it on the new car and then sell the left overs.

[sgtskid]

Anything is salvageable, just takes time and money. Sometimes more of one than the other.

I had a buddy put his into a pond, completely submerged under several feet of water and had to leave it over night until a wrecker could retrieve it the next day.
It took almost a year of work but he got it back on the road. The only thing he didn't reuse was the interior. He scrapped it and turned the car into a track car. Seats, harnesses, cage...

[crash n' burn]

damn. Yeah, I saw pictures and would have never guessed flooding would have gotten as serious as it did here. You must of been down stream from the dam failure to be that bad.

Its sat this long though, even if you could get the car up and running again, the interior work needed alone would not make it worth the effort in my book to keep it. Get it running, pull the drive train and any salvageable parts..get rid of the rest

[87-325ic]

Thanks everyone.
So, I picked up a beater eta for 400 bucks yesterday. Shes been used pretty hard, but the engine started, and the car drove fine. The engine sounds decent, the transmission shifts smoothly. It clunks and rattles on every bump though, i think it needs new bushings and balljoints everywhere. It doesnt have ac or pwr steering. It does have a "cold air intake filter", decent ish interior, kinda, a "straight pipe exhaust", held up with wire, and drilled and slotted rotors up front, discs in rear. With some ceramic pads and maybe a master cylinder in the trunk. the body is mostly decent. So for 400 bucks, I think its decent..
I am also looking at getting my car shipped out here real soon.
Plans are to keep the eta block, and put on all the 325i top end and electronics. Make a cheap 2.7i for the eta. If the eta block is bad ill keep it all 2.5i. Im pretty sure i have some bigger injectors and m30 afm sitting around there too.
Also swap all other goodies from the vert.. everything from the controls arms and all stock bits, to the 95 m3 rack and euro smilies headlights, full headers and exhaust.

I think itll turn into a rally-esque, desert dirt roads, paved canyon road fun crusher. Eventually, when its all sorted and running well, and maintenance is caught up, Id like to put a cheap, basic turbo setup on it.

Hopefully i can get some pics up soon.