Hayzee's 325ix

[Hayzee]

August 2015. I was 4 months removed from dropping out of college, 2 months removed from being fired from my first "car job" (working in a body shop) and was desperately looking for a direction. The local Pep Boys had just hired me as a Service Advisor and my lack of any car knowledge had me believing I was hours from being fired again. One Monday morning on my second or third week I was driving in thinking about how I couldn't tell a customer the previous Saturday what a tuneup would cost on his truck because I had no Idea what a tuneup was -__- . Worried about how close I was to getting fired I was driving in a haze. My focus was grabbed though when I pulled into the parking lot at work by a little grey box on wheels. This car had style, was good looking without any inherently attractive qualities and was just plain fun to look at. I asked the mechanic who was stepping out of it a few questions, specifically "what is that car?" 1990 BMW 325ix. My first e30 experience.
By November my car knowledge was much stronger, but I was looking to get my hands on a project so I could learn how to wrench. I was perusing craigslist and doing a large amount of research on the E30 and settled on purchasing a 325i or is model. There were many cars I checked out that were in very sorry shape, but one stuck with me. That original 325ix I saw. There was something cool to me about a rare version of a common car that wasn't necessarily a sporty model. So I altered my search and began looking for IX models.
In December 2015 I stumbled upon a listing on craigslist. This was the main listing photo

The car looked pretty straight and clean, but the list price was over 8 grand. Pass. Come January the car was still listed with now an OBO. I went over to the guys house after work and checked the car out.


Walking up to the car I was shocked because the body was just as clean in person. The car did have a bunch of oil leaks and the diff and trans were sweating too but I was undeterred. These were things I wanted to learn how to fix. We test drove the car, and it felt pretty decent. My heart was telling me "BUY THIS CAR NOW." I took a few days to think about it, but I knew I was buying the car. A few days later I called the owner back and we worked out a price. I ran to the bank, took out the cash, sped to the DMV and picked up the car a few days later.

I drove the car directly from the previous owners house to work. Rich, the mechanic who owned the 325ix that got me hooked on these awesome little boxes, had his E30 at work and I had to park next to him for a photo shoot.

[bostonvert]

Awesome start! Amazing cars, once you get hooked your a gear head for the rest of your life.

Always liked the ix kits, any modifications planned or just maintenance?

[jeenyus]

gotta love the IX. Good luck! Every piece of the suspension is different than the RWD e30s, at least upfront. Just remember that when buying parts.

[Kershaw]

That's in amazingly good shape. Getting an ix with a manual trans is also pretty rare as well. 88s are the best year.

[ACVC325ix]

Sweet!

Welcome to the IX club!!:coolphoto:

[Hayzee]

I cleaned out my garage and rolled the girl into her new home. This was the first time I could look the car over as an owner and not a prospective buyer aka the enjoyment was over :P.
Here she is resting at the new home


View from behind the wheel


So it was now time to start being the owner of an old, high mileage car. I had never wrenched on cars before, so the following is the story of how my automotive repair knowledge evolved.
Remember those oil leaks we were talking about? Well the first one to tackle was the valve cover gasket. The oil leak was bad enough that the cover was covered in dirt and oil


I pulled the spark plugs while I was in there and found them to be pretty fouled out. New plug can be seen in the foreground


Soaked the valve cover in degreaser and scrubbed with a metal bristled brush. Finished it off with a brillo pad and more degreaser and sopped up the liquid mush with paper towels. End Result

[Hayzee]

So continuing on with the story of this car. I unfortunately bought this car without any plans of starting a project forum thread, so there are many photos missing of the shape the car was in when I bought it and many things that I have done along the way. My original plan with the car was to do a light mechanical restoration, keep it for a few years and sell it for a profit. I slowly but surely realized I wanted nothing to do with selling the car any time soon. So now I am going full resto-mod with the car. But more on that later.
Back to winter of 2015. After replacing the spark plugs that were fouled out by oil leaking from the valve cover gasket, I performed my first valve adjustment. Then I reassembled the engine and took the car for a long run from Northport on the North Shore of Long Island down to Robert Moses State park on the South Shore of Long Island. This was the longest I had driven the car since I purchased it.


I had only learned how to drive stick the summer before buying this car and was struggling to get used to the clutch bite point and rev matching on the car. But it was making a very good first impression. Since high school my daily driver has been a Ford Fusion 4 Cylinder Automatic. A bit overweight, very floaty and not a very engaging car to drive. This was the opposite and was everything I was looking for. Maybe a bit slower than I would like but for road use, it is plenty fast.

I drove the car twice a week for the next few weeks and put 500 miles on the car. In that time I found out the horn was inop (blown fuse, easy fix), the 12 button computer backlights were burnt out, the coolant temperature gauge did not work, the driver and passenger seat adjustments were binding, the ac was not cold and I was losing coolant but had no visible coolant leaks.

I tackled the seats and 12 button backlights first. I ordered the LED backlight kit from garagistic and picked up some new pistons for the seats from work (at Pep Boys at the time). The seats came out fairly easy, but it took me two days to pull the seats apart, clean and lube the gears and replace the pistons. Afterwards everything worked great. The backlight took all of an hour and one thing was tackled.

The coolant loss was getting worse and I occasionally had some very white smoke in the tail pipe so I assumed it may be the early signs of a head gasket. Especially with the temperature gauge still not figured out I went ahead and ordered a head gasket kit. The engine was covered in oil, the belts were very old and it was just time for a general refresh. You can see here how oily the engine head was and how torn up the heat shields for the exhaust were.



The pistons had a decent amount of carbon buildup and there was oil leaking out of every oriface. I spent days with degreaser, wire brushes and brillo pads cleaning the block before going any further. I replaced all the oil seals and gaskets on the front of the engine, replaced the timing belt, drive belts, cap and rotor and water pump.

[Hayzee]

From Here I cleaned up the carbon build up on the top of the pistons and inspected the cylinder walls; still had the cross hatching and no score marks, so looking good.
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Inspecting the head, looks like the previous owner was liberal with his oil changes. Free of sludge and only a nice even golden sheen on the inner walls and mechanicals of the head.
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Sent the intake out work a sand blast, internal cleaning and a black powder coating at Prismatic Powder Coating in Medford, NY. Came back looking really clean and like new, price was reasonable, and they were great to work with. They're my go to now on powder coating.
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Sent the head out to be checked for warp and to have the valve seals and guides replaced. Installed new springs as well while in there. Assembled the head, intake and exhaust before re-installing the head assembly. Looking good again (finally).
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Re-assembled the engine, cooling system and wiring connectors. I cleaned as much oil grease and grime as I could from the engine bay and installed new hoses and clamps for the cooling system and power steering. Cleaned the car, took it for a drive and put it back in the garage for a quick photo.
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[Hayzee]

The next 16 months of this car's life (June 2015 - October 2016) are unfortunately mostly un documented in photos due to my drunk self leaving a phone somewhere on the LIRR and it never being found. That's what I get for not backing up my phone I guess.

Anyway, I drove the Car throughout the summer of 2015 and used it to convince a girl to date me (not the whole story but its the only logical way I could convince someone to deal with me :P). The suspension was in desperate need of some loving, but I was more worried about the constant fluid drips appearing in the garage. I decided that over the winter I would take the car off the road again for some much needed love. But I would keep driving it occasionally until then because driving this car is addicting.
Unfortunately, While driving to work one day in early November, I was turning onto the Sunken Meadow Parkway and went to downshift for a spirited sprint to 60mph and was surprised when the clutch pedal shot to the floor. The car was able to limp the car to work, but my slave cylinder had given up the goat. A quick inspection on the lift showed fluid pouring out of the bell housing. Shit.
Limped the car back home, mapping out a route where I would only need to use the clutch 5 times, and lucked into using it only twice.
She burbled into the garage and was placed up on jack stands within an hour. Looking around confirmed my fears that the slave was not my only issue. The minor front and rear diff leaks, transmission leaks and transfer case leaks had turned into gushers. So she would stay there for the next year while i aimlessly wandered through the process of resealing the leaking components while also determining what else I should do while I was removing important components from the car. The finality of the November 2015 - November 2016 project was:
- Resealed rear diff, transmission, transfer case
- re-booted rear axles; replaced driver side due to binding in joint
- replaced all rear subframe bushings, trailing arm bushings etc
- replaced fuel tank and fuel filler neck
- replaced all rear brake lines and rear brake hoses with stainless steel braided lines
- powder coated trailing arms at prismatic powder coating in Medford
- installed rear camber and toe adjustment for trailing arms
- stripped peeling undercoating and removed light rust around spring seats and fender wells as well as under rear floor and resealed with new undercoating
- replaced rear shocks, rear shock mounts and rear springs with the Bilstein sport, H&R HD setup
- stripped and painted rear differential
- painted rear calipers m sport blue
- replaced u-joint and rebalanced rear drive shaft
- replaced all guibos in driveline
- replaced clutch (car still had original clutch!!!!), pressure plate, throwout bearing
- Replaced clutch slave and master cylinder and installed stainless steel slave cylinder line
- replaced fuel filter, all fuel lines and hoses

[MortyCrock]

Geez, our cars are twins! Great job so far! keep up the good work!

[Hayzee]

Thanks Mort! Got any pictures of your car? Also what's your plan for your car?