Found this mutt on Craigslist, it was parked on the street during a wet spring in Vancouver, WA. The previous owner wanted to restore it but life took over and you know how that story ends. It was barely recognizable and full of water from the previous four weeks of rain. I thought I saw something beneath the oxidized paint and rolls of blackout tape. ( Tape?, yeah the PO to the PO used tape to black out everything. ) It was a sad sight. My friends and family thought I was crazy to spend $800 on this project. 1987 325is, but where's the front lip? It's in the back seat of course, one too many curb hits.
I drove it home the day I bought it and it was interesting... and kind of scary. There were noises and vibrations from every direction, I never went more than 35 MPH and only bottomed out the front right strut twice. Found out later the damper was full of water.
Got the mongrel in the garage and started the inspection and was pretty pleased with my purchase. All original body parts with VIN numbers and no rust to be found. Fast forward while I replace all the normal wear parts and fluids.
The timing belt was interesting, I found the tensioner at the limit of it's travel and the belt still had enough slack to slap the cover. Did someone really go in and adjust the tensioner? During the replacement I elected to replace the seals on the front end. When removing the intermediate shaft pulley I tried using the old timing belt as a strap wrench to hold the pulley while I removed the bolt. The belt broke off in my hand. Replace the timing belt when in doubt.
It's drive-able, now let's get the front lip mounted.
I found enough scraps of the original plastic mounts to re-create one of them. Using some 3/4 x 1/8 stock from Lowe's I bent the mounts to the shape of the plastic. The bending jig is the two bolts driven into the bench.
Lets make three of them and the side mounts.
Mounted on the car, the nice thing about using aluminum is that you can make windage adjustments as necessary.
That's done let's move to the paint: ox-i-dized. No problem I have some cutting compound. Still have some black adhesive on the front lip.
We're getting there but what's up with the crappy black paint on the weaves?
Better
Front lip needs work,
Awe..Yeah!!!
I drove it home the day I bought it and it was interesting... and kind of scary. There were noises and vibrations from every direction, I never went more than 35 MPH and only bottomed out the front right strut twice. Found out later the damper was full of water.
Got the mongrel in the garage and started the inspection and was pretty pleased with my purchase. All original body parts with VIN numbers and no rust to be found. Fast forward while I replace all the normal wear parts and fluids.
The timing belt was interesting, I found the tensioner at the limit of it's travel and the belt still had enough slack to slap the cover. Did someone really go in and adjust the tensioner? During the replacement I elected to replace the seals on the front end. When removing the intermediate shaft pulley I tried using the old timing belt as a strap wrench to hold the pulley while I removed the bolt. The belt broke off in my hand. Replace the timing belt when in doubt.
It's drive-able, now let's get the front lip mounted.
I found enough scraps of the original plastic mounts to re-create one of them. Using some 3/4 x 1/8 stock from Lowe's I bent the mounts to the shape of the plastic. The bending jig is the two bolts driven into the bench.
Lets make three of them and the side mounts.
Mounted on the car, the nice thing about using aluminum is that you can make windage adjustments as necessary.
That's done let's move to the paint: ox-i-dized. No problem I have some cutting compound. Still have some black adhesive on the front lip.
We're getting there but what's up with the crappy black paint on the weaves?
Better
Front lip needs work,Awe..Yeah!!!
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