Minty-fresh Barn Find and Rebuild: 1986 325e Sedan
The whole project started when i sold my E90 for a cheaper and easier car to work on and to prevent myself from needing student loans sooner than later.
Bye bye E90. The search for e30 begins....
I found one on craigslist and drove about two hours to scope it out. Needless to say, I was very impressed by first glance. (SCORE!)
What an interior!
The car had been in a shed about an hour southeast of Kansas City for what the owner said was the last 20 Years. The only transfer on the title was from his sister to him so it was basically a 1-owner vehicle. The title was being transferred from his sister who lived in NY to him so that it could be sold here in Missouri, so we couldnt take the car home that day but it wasn't an issue for me. The carfax checked out with 1 owner and one recent transfer.
I call bs on the 20-year story as the car had a 2002 inspection sticker and the odometer read 141k... but it was in a shed and looked pretty unmolested. It did act like it had been sitting there forever, so something was fishy, but other than a few issues needing attention it was in damn good shape so i gave him the benefit of the doubt. I went home and calculated what i knew it would need from looking at it:
The good
- Brand new tires
- The car starts
- Gas can cleaned out (We later found out that this was NOT the case and it caused all sorts of problems..)
- new battery
- new Muffler (cough...story on this later)
- New spark plugs in the trunk
- Fresh oil (which diddnt matter because we were going to pull the engine apart and would have to change this a few more times anyways).
The Bad:
- Major Idling Speed issue (spikes high and low and does not stay stable at 800rpm as it should)
- Big dings and paint touch-up in a few places
- Radio did not work as someone tried to take the factory one out and it did its anti-theft job of not working after that.
- broken front bumper trim
- needed engine reconditioning to get it running smoothly again after sitting for so long
-Hood needed body shop work and paint (even though it looks good in photos...it isnt...more on this later)
-Tiny hairline crack on passenger side of dash (as usual... :()
-fog Lights are broken (probably for the same reason the bumper trim is broken off :???:)
The guy wanted $3500. I said No Way Jose and talked him down to $2500 which was still too much i thought. I figured what the heck since i just went from a $13,500 car to a $2500 car so we made an agreement that i would come back and get the car for $2,500 when the title came back in his name. I would later find out that given the car's needs, i DID overpay.
I bought this plastidipped beater for $1800 to get myself around in the meantime. It had an LSD and a upgraded stereo so it was a lot of fun to drive for a month. I ended up selling it for $2500. A nice little flip.
The seller of the black ETA called a few weeks later and we did business. Unfortunately we had a hard time getting it started again. We put in a new battery and headed to O'Reilly's who diagnosed a bad alternator (Dang!). We ordered a new alternator (seller absorbed the cost) and left the E30 in the parking lot until the part arrived. We went back up the next weekend and changed the alternator in the dark of night. Finally, she was running well enough to drive her back to my old man's garage to get started on the engine reconditioning.
On the way back home:
Finally, time to put some lipstick on this pig and blow the sickly gunk out her sinuses.
The build has begun.
Bye bye E90. The search for e30 begins....
I found one on craigslist and drove about two hours to scope it out. Needless to say, I was very impressed by first glance. (SCORE!)
What an interior!
The car had been in a shed about an hour southeast of Kansas City for what the owner said was the last 20 Years. The only transfer on the title was from his sister to him so it was basically a 1-owner vehicle. The title was being transferred from his sister who lived in NY to him so that it could be sold here in Missouri, so we couldnt take the car home that day but it wasn't an issue for me. The carfax checked out with 1 owner and one recent transfer.
I call bs on the 20-year story as the car had a 2002 inspection sticker and the odometer read 141k... but it was in a shed and looked pretty unmolested. It did act like it had been sitting there forever, so something was fishy, but other than a few issues needing attention it was in damn good shape so i gave him the benefit of the doubt. I went home and calculated what i knew it would need from looking at it:
The good
- Brand new tires
- The car starts
- Gas can cleaned out (We later found out that this was NOT the case and it caused all sorts of problems..)
- new battery
- new Muffler (cough...story on this later)
- New spark plugs in the trunk
- Fresh oil (which diddnt matter because we were going to pull the engine apart and would have to change this a few more times anyways).
The Bad:
- Major Idling Speed issue (spikes high and low and does not stay stable at 800rpm as it should)
- Big dings and paint touch-up in a few places
- Radio did not work as someone tried to take the factory one out and it did its anti-theft job of not working after that.
- broken front bumper trim
- needed engine reconditioning to get it running smoothly again after sitting for so long
-Hood needed body shop work and paint (even though it looks good in photos...it isnt...more on this later)
-Tiny hairline crack on passenger side of dash (as usual... :()
-fog Lights are broken (probably for the same reason the bumper trim is broken off :???:)
The guy wanted $3500. I said No Way Jose and talked him down to $2500 which was still too much i thought. I figured what the heck since i just went from a $13,500 car to a $2500 car so we made an agreement that i would come back and get the car for $2,500 when the title came back in his name. I would later find out that given the car's needs, i DID overpay.
I bought this plastidipped beater for $1800 to get myself around in the meantime. It had an LSD and a upgraded stereo so it was a lot of fun to drive for a month. I ended up selling it for $2500. A nice little flip.
The seller of the black ETA called a few weeks later and we did business. Unfortunately we had a hard time getting it started again. We put in a new battery and headed to O'Reilly's who diagnosed a bad alternator (Dang!). We ordered a new alternator (seller absorbed the cost) and left the E30 in the parking lot until the part arrived. We went back up the next weekend and changed the alternator in the dark of night. Finally, she was running well enough to drive her back to my old man's garage to get started on the engine reconditioning.
On the way back home:
Finally, time to put some lipstick on this pig and blow the sickly gunk out her sinuses.
The build has begun.
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