The Ultimate Restoration

[thealbert]

My cousin that just moved back to PI, just restored an Austin Mini there. The importation laws like you mentioned are difficult. He found one in Japan, and the only way to get it into the Philippines was by cutting the roof off and having it pose as a parts car. Needless to say its' fully restored now, but can't legalize it for the streets! So he can only drive it in his village. lol

There might be a way to him to get the car road legal. It's just a matter of waiting for the right time to enter a voluntary tax payment program that the government issues from time to time. I'm not too sure about the details of it but its essentially a way for the government to raise money. I'm sure your cousins would know about it. At least that way he can get the car out of his village and into the real streets!

[thealbert]

if you and Dennis wanna get a list going of what you guys would want....let me know, and I can prob send you guys out a balikbayan box of stuff from here....including that rear map light which i have sitting at home.

You have one?? How much would you be willing to sell it? I have an address out in the west so you can have it shipped there and I can have someone bring it home for me. PM me your email address and we can work out the details.

[E30_Doc]

Looks great, It started out as a really decent ride, The paint was better than most but it looks amazing now. I miss the Lachssilber though I must say.

I would contribute that you mentioned that a fuel tank should be left as empty as possible, this is not true. The small amount of water that is inside your tank (and everyone elses) will evaporate and condense on the wall and sides of the tank, this is what causes the rust. It is always best to store your car with a full tank of gas.

[thealbert]

Looks great, It started out as a really decent ride, The paint was better than most but it looks amazing now. I miss the Lachssilber though I must say.

I would contribute that you mentioned that a fuel tank should be left as empty as possible, this is not true. The small amount of water that is inside your tank (and everyone elses) will evaporate and condense on the wall and sides of the tank, this is what causes the rust. It is always best to store your car with a full tank of gas.

I never really got the chance to really wax the car well after the restoration. We spent more of our time working on the mechanical work. But now that's all done, I finally had the time to give it a good wax and thus the paint really got the chance to shine.

With regards to the fuel, the catch is that over here in the Philippines, the fuel is so dirty that if you were to store your car with a full tank of gas, a lot of sediment would sit at the bottom on your tank. That's what happened to my tank and that's what caused my car to stall right after the long restoration. The tank sat with constant full tanks for very long periods of time and my fuel filter and lines were clogged with sediment, gunk and dirt when I started using the car again. It's common to find such unwanted gunk in our fuels here as the streets often flood, causing water to seep into gas station tanks. Gas stations hardly ever maintain and clean their tanks and often still sell the fuel that's contaminated in their underground tanks.

I would totally agree though, with clean fuel, it would be best to store your car with a full tank, but I would highly advise against that in the Philippines though! I've had my other cars stall due to dirty gas as well. It's just a fact of life over here. :(

[Wild Ride]

Great Read thanks for posting this up! I am definitely doing that window switch dissambly and clean. The results speak for themselves, well done. So what floor mats are you going with? I think some coco mats would look awesome.

I recently completed a 4 month oem original stock restoration of a US metal bumpered Automatic 87 325is alpine on cardinal. I kept the automatic because of cost reasons and it was a new unit replaced 2 years ago by the previous owner so it was perfect as an auto could get. Given the opportunity even with the originality of the car I would have swapped it in a heartbeat. Which brings me to an interesting point about your interest in keeping the transmission original.

The objective of the restoration was to get the car back to as original as possible. This meant keeping the automatic in the car, since that was what the car came in originally from the factory.

You had taken many liberties with the car in terms of altering it from the original build sheet such as a color change and euro mt1, euroweaves, etc and all were for the better, which I think any enthusiast would agree with your choices. Many of these choices were detailed on page 5. I was surprised you had such a struggle in deciding whether or not to alter the transmission after altering the appearance from the build sheet quite dramatically. After all its how the car was intended to be driven which was your reasoning behind the mt1.

Once again fantastic build thanks for setting the bar a couple notches higher

[shaferbm]

Slick Rick, look at the attention to detail. I'm going to have to ship my e30 to him!

[thealbert]

Great Read thanks for posting this up! I am definitely doing that window switch dissambly and clean. The results speak for themselves, well done. So what floor mats are you going with? I think some coco mats would look awesome.

I recently completed a 4 month oem original stock restoration of a US metal bumpered Automatic 87 325is alpine on cardinal. I kept the automatic because of cost reasons and it was a new unit replaced 2 years ago by the previous owner so it was perfect as an auto could get. Given the opportunity even with the originality of the car I would have swapped it in a heartbeat. Which brings me to an interesting point about your interest in keeping the transmission original.



You had taken many liberties with the car in terms of altering it from the original build sheet such as a color change and euro mt1, euroweaves, etc and all were for the better, which I think any enthusiast would agree with your choices. Many of these choices were detailed on page 5. I was surprised you had such a struggle in deciding whether or not to alter the transmission after altering the appearance from the build sheet quite dramatically. After all its how the car was intended to be driven which was your reasoning behind the mt1.

Once again fantastic build thanks for setting the bar a couple notches higher

I'm going to go for the regular BMW floor mats. I bought set from Tuner Motorsports and had it shipped home. It'll take about a month and a half for it to get home since it's going by boat. So for now, I just need to live with my old ratty floor mats. But they serve their purpose well!

At first when I started the project, I wanted to be as original as possible. But as the restoration work went along and as I got to know more about the E30 (this is my first E30), I started to appreciate the other models and variants for the E30. At that point, that's when I decided to go for the basketweaves, the mtech bumpers, etc. Also one major factor was just the availability of parts. My original IS bumper was just really well past its prime. In fact, it was being held together by chicken-wire! Parts for the E30 in the Philippines are very hard to come by and finding a replacement IS bumper was just darn near impossible. So when a friend of mine was selling his bumper from a parts car, I couldn't pass it up and at that point, it just made more economical sense to just go with that. Furthermore, I started to like the new look of the car more. So at that point on, it became more of a restoration using original BMW parts than a full fledged restoration to original build sheet. Plus the original color of the car is beige.. sorry beige lovers, but I HATE beige! hahahah

With regards to the manual swap, I was actually looking to swap to the manual much sooner but I was having difficulty finding parts and setting aside the funds for it. Keep in mind, over here, the car cost double the price they would in the USA cause of taxes and the parts are pretty much the same too. Eventually I was able to get a kit from a friend that had everything so once that was available, it was just a matter of raising the funds for it and taking the plunge. The complete project took a couple of years mainly due to funding and availability of parts, have to pay the bills after all! :)

[Wild Ride]

Thanks for the detailed reply. All your reasoning makes sense now.

[thealbert]

With the manual tranny swap done, it's the best modification I have ever done on the car! Really worth it and now I wish I had done it sooner!

The car is so much more powerful now, is really much more responsive and really brings a new life to it. It's also a whole lot of fun to drive!! So fun in fact that I'm now finally able to drift the car with much ease!

Over our rain soaked weekend, I took the car to an empty lot for a good shake down. Here are some pictures of it.













Here are some youtube videos. It was very easy to get the tail of the car out due to all the water on the floor. It also helped not shred my tires as well. But even despite the rain, I found it very easy to control the car while in a drift. It really just goes to show how well the E30 is balanced! I also got to try out a drift-spec Nissan Cefeiro while there but my stock E30 just felt so much more easy and fun to toss around!

http://youtu.be/7bUIcb9fIKM

http://youtu.be/5CiCA4gHIt8

It was a real blast and I parked the car on the side to let it cool down. As it was cooling down, this happened!







Something exploded from the engine. At first I though the engine blew but the engine was still running fine after the "explosion". Though just to be safe, I had the car towed.





Now with the car safely back in the shop, we were able to diagnose the problem. Thankfully it was very minor. Due to all the sideways sliding, my air conditioner hose came in contact with my exhaust manifold. The hot exhaust melted the air conditioner hose and caused a huge "explosion" that sent all the freon in the AC system out. Thank fully no major serious damage as all I need to do is replace the AC hose, top up on freon again and make sure the hose is secure so it won't happen again! Nonetheless, well worth the adventure!

[e30edward]

Luckily it wasn't anything too serious.

[thealbert]

Luckily it wasn't anything too serious.

Yeah, quite lucky! Though apparently this is a common drifter problem. Others have also experienced the same problem with their AC hoses being too close to their exhaust system when drifting and typically modifications are done to make sure both parts don't come in contact.

[freeride53]

How did you fare? Is everything okay?

[thealbert]

How did you fare? Is everything okay?

Yup! It's all good. The car's AC hose just burst after it got heated up too much from the exhaust. Apparently it's a real common drifting problem. The car's running well now after replacing the hose and it's as if nothing happened. :D

[Simon S]

ha. reminds me of when I was a kid..

..and thought that when an engine "blew" - then the whole front clip of the car would explode in fire with the hood flying off..

[thealbert]

My E30 325is hits the first Philippines Revival DTM Race! Wasn't willing to let the car go wild too much on the track but it was nice to see my newly top overhauled engine and new transmission allow the car to keep up with the rest of the modified E30 and 190E pack despite the car being completely stock. I would say this was a good shake down for the car. :)



Here are some shots of my car at the event. :D