E30 BMW 1987 Manual 325e, 4 door, 2.93 LSD
I got this as a project car but I haven’t been able to keep up with it. I’ve made a lot of headway and it is drivable, but it won’t pass MD inspection for a daily driver. I currently have it tagged historic. Vehicle appears to have been originally champagne, but was painted black by a previous owner. Someone decided to add duct tape as racing stripes. The interior carpeting has been completely removed, and the original seats have been replaced with black vinyl e30 seats from a 2 door. I’ve dropped the asking price to $1000.
Here's the Good
- The biggest thing is the cylinder head. It’s been replaced with a fully refurbished head that I bought from a place out in Oregon. We cleaned the engine block when we swapped out the heads, and the gaskets are all new. All new belts (timing and accessory) were put on at the same time. I have receipts for all the parts I bought if you are interested.
- All of the Coolant hoses are brand new, in addition to a new thermostat
- New brake pads and rotors
- New distributor cap
- New CSB on the drive shaft and guibo
- replaced the transmission fluid
- It has a limited slip differential that came stock with the car (2.93). The fluid has been replaced at some point in the last year.
- We replaced all the shift bushings, there was originally some play in the shifter that this helped alleviate
- It has a brand new muffler, but will most likely need a catalytic convertor
- new battery, just bought it last week
- The seats, front and back, are all "new" to the vehicle. It’s got black leather vinyl seats in the front and back.
Other known issues
- Rust Holes. There are some rust holes on the bottom of the chassis/flooring of the interior. It looks like there was a leak in the sun roof at some point (It has a layer of some goop on it) and that resulted in water sitting on the floor. This also is the reason why we tore out all of the carpeting, the water just destroyed it.
- Air Conditioning - It has it, I have no idea if it works
- Manual Sun roof hardware is missing and as mentioned previously the sun roof seal has some sort of goop on it as a seal.
- The Dash has crack in it, and there is a mess of wires where the radio is.
- The heat works but the knob for the temperature control is broken off. The vent controls are partially functional and the fan speed control is working.
- There is a large crack on the windshield and it needs a new one
- The motors for all the windows are functional, though they are slow. I’m not sure if that is typical for an e30. I have switches for all the windows in the consol though 3 out of 4 are installed.
- Locks The automatic locks are functional, but the passenger lock wants to come out of the door when it is used. The lock on the driver’s side sticks a bit. In the end I use the trunk to open the entire car.
- The instrument panel is functional (i.e. tachometer, speedometer) but the odometer is not working. The fuel gauge appears to be functioning, but I question its read outs. The odometer reads 367K miles, but it is not original. I swapped out the original. At the time of the swap the odometer read 167K but it was not functioning.
- The original oil pan had a crack and the first job I did on this car I did was replacing it with one from a parted out e30. I’m aware of any leaks, but the gasket appears to be seeping out from between the oil pan and the engine block. This may or may not need to be fixed.
I got this as a project car but I haven’t been able to keep up with it. I’ve made a lot of headway and it is drivable, but it won’t pass MD inspection for a daily driver. I currently have it tagged historic. Vehicle appears to have been originally champagne, but was painted black by a previous owner. Someone decided to add duct tape as racing stripes. The interior carpeting has been completely removed, and the original seats have been replaced with black vinyl e30 seats from a 2 door. I’ve dropped the asking price to $1000.
Here's the Good
- The biggest thing is the cylinder head. It’s been replaced with a fully refurbished head that I bought from a place out in Oregon. We cleaned the engine block when we swapped out the heads, and the gaskets are all new. All new belts (timing and accessory) were put on at the same time. I have receipts for all the parts I bought if you are interested.
- All of the Coolant hoses are brand new, in addition to a new thermostat
- New brake pads and rotors
- New distributor cap
- New CSB on the drive shaft and guibo
- replaced the transmission fluid
- It has a limited slip differential that came stock with the car (2.93). The fluid has been replaced at some point in the last year.
- We replaced all the shift bushings, there was originally some play in the shifter that this helped alleviate
- It has a brand new muffler, but will most likely need a catalytic convertor
- new battery, just bought it last week
- The seats, front and back, are all "new" to the vehicle. It’s got black leather vinyl seats in the front and back.
Other known issues
- Rust Holes. There are some rust holes on the bottom of the chassis/flooring of the interior. It looks like there was a leak in the sun roof at some point (It has a layer of some goop on it) and that resulted in water sitting on the floor. This also is the reason why we tore out all of the carpeting, the water just destroyed it.
- Air Conditioning - It has it, I have no idea if it works
- Manual Sun roof hardware is missing and as mentioned previously the sun roof seal has some sort of goop on it as a seal.
- The Dash has crack in it, and there is a mess of wires where the radio is.
- The heat works but the knob for the temperature control is broken off. The vent controls are partially functional and the fan speed control is working.
- There is a large crack on the windshield and it needs a new one
- The motors for all the windows are functional, though they are slow. I’m not sure if that is typical for an e30. I have switches for all the windows in the consol though 3 out of 4 are installed.
- Locks The automatic locks are functional, but the passenger lock wants to come out of the door when it is used. The lock on the driver’s side sticks a bit. In the end I use the trunk to open the entire car.
- The instrument panel is functional (i.e. tachometer, speedometer) but the odometer is not working. The fuel gauge appears to be functioning, but I question its read outs. The odometer reads 367K miles, but it is not original. I swapped out the original. At the time of the swap the odometer read 167K but it was not functioning.
- The original oil pan had a crack and the first job I did on this car I did was replacing it with one from a parted out e30. I’m aware of any leaks, but the gasket appears to be seeping out from between the oil pan and the engine block. This may or may not need to be fixed.
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