1989 Alpine II 325i Coupe

[will61]

:bow:

SWEEEET, I wish they all could be California cars.

BTW: the first 2 pics look like commercials

[coldweatherblue]

update:

awesome year of being back in an e30!! car has been very reliable (knock on wood) and always taken me where I need to be.. so in the last year I've replaced:

timing belt, water pump, tensioner, etc
suspension (vogtland/shocks/struts)
oil pan (that one hurt..)
coolant hoses
radiator, thermostat
alternator
stereo + 4 speakers
fixed high beam short, new bulbs, cleaned headlights
inspection II (fuel/air/oil filters, trans fluid, cap/rotor/wires/plugs etc)
new brake pads/rotors/fluid
c191 (that SOB plug..)

as she stands in the hospital garage, waiting for the drive home after a 12 hour night shift:



new tires/wheels coming soon.. :)

[tak7]

Nice looking car.
From an older post, Alpine is single stage paint, no clear.

[coldweatherblue]

new wheels: esm 002 15x7 15x8 staggered w/ 205/55r15 all around:



happy with the wheels.



love my new key!

[nick123]

White e30s look fucking sexy in sunny weather like Cali has. But in the cold dark northeast winters it looks like poop:(

[coldweatherblue]

obligatory shitty cell phone instagram sunny so cal pic:


my car has never seen a cold northeast winter's day..

imo lighter colors like cirrusblau, silver, AW, etc look good in the even light of an overcast day.

thinking about doing the red tail thing.. not sure if i'll like it more or if I just feel like doing something to my car. decisions..

[coldweatherblue]

update

done a few things lately..

valve cover gasket

sanded/dyed/conditioned/polished front sport seats

replaced all my injectors with rebuilt ones from MEPEH: old/new comparison below:


replaced all water temp sensors and some other random stuff.

about a month ago noticed a cloud of white smoke on start up which completely went away after 5 seconds or so.. was kinda worried it was valve guides, rings, or HG. anyway it got worse, my oil consumption got worse, etc.. then I pulled the air filter and noticed it was soaked in oil. replaced the filter and the smoking completely went away, etc.

did a compression test and all cylinders were between ~163-175 which I'll take on a 265k M20.

so did a smoke test myself and noticed smoke pouring from intake side of oil return tube.

read the forum and apparently this causes blowby in the intake as well.. awesome so hopefully it's not my bottom end..

got this package yesterday:



new special order genuine BMW oil return tube, washer, o-rings. plus all the associate intake gaskets, etc.

installed it all this AM. honestly wasn't bad, took about 3 hours but a lot of that was cleaning surfaces, etc. really straight forward if you have u-joint extensions, a long 3/8 extension, and zip tie the spring.

on inspection the o-ring on the intake side was completely missing, and the bottom assembly was missing the washing, with a non-BMW o-ring which was cracked and generally crappy looking.

installed it all, no more CEL, no more sounding like a cammed engine. curious to see what my MPG will be, right now I get 17/21 (city driving mostly, I live on a mountain so lots of elevation changes.)

[Link]

Very nice car, keep up the good work. I like how much time you spend on maintenance.

[coldweatherblue]

did my timing belt/valve adjustment today so up for a bump..

daily driver, owned it 4 years, never left me stranded. ~320k miles original paint/engine, still brings me a smile driving to work.

[coldweatherblue]

Bump

As I was driving to work early November 2017 during a thunderstorm, a drain clogged due to the autumn leaves. This caused ~12 inches of water to rise over the road following a hairpin corner, which I hit in 2nd gear at about 3k RPM, sucking water into the engine. The timing belt was sheared, the starter fried, and the head-gasket blown.

Amazingly, no valves were bent and the car ran afterward but obviously had a blown HG so I had the M20 "refreshed"; new rings, rod-bearings, valve job, head resurfaced, etc.

Kind of sucked cause I took it to a shop over the holidays and the car wasn't done til late January, so overall I was riding a motorcycle for almost 3 months of winter as primary transport.. fun but cold.

Got the car back and did a few things myself; brake pads/rotors/lines, PS hoses, fixed a battery box rust spot on the valance, new trans/diff fluids, bunch of other little stuff.

Also got the sssquid stage 1 chip

[IMG]IMG_3650 by , on Flickr[/IMG]

and an m-rain shift boot set from Matt-B to match the new dash cover (finally cracked to the point where protecting it was more important than the OEM look..)

[IMG]DSCF0150 (2) by , on Flickr[/IMG]

Cleaned up the engine bay.

[IMG]DSCF0147 by , on Flickr[/IMG]

Took some pics.

[IMG]DSCF0124 by , on Flickr[/IMG]

E30 in Evening Light by Charles Meyer, on Flickr

[mike.bmw]

Beautiful car! Sorry to hear about the water induction, but I'm glad it's up and running again.

[2mAn]

Daily Driver E30s are awesome! Its money well spent when you stick to OEM stuff... Im trying really hard not to get wild on this one as I want to DD it.

When did you leave CA for TN? Backgrounds look amazing

[coldweatherblue]

Yeah there were a few times riding to work in freezing weather I was tempted to go look at new cars, but honestly the E30 is perfect for commuting around here and has been dead reliable when not used as a submarine. plus my wife's car can do the heavy lifting haha

When did you leave CA for TN? Backgrounds look amazing

I actually left CA a few months after I got the car; graduated and came back to TN for residency. Definitely had a great time out there though, my E30 is like a souvenir from my 4 yrs out there. That and the surfboard that mostly sits around collecting dust now haha.

[coldweatherblue]

lately..

[coldweatherblue]

Adventures in bodywork:

My buddy needed a valance and mine was a little dinged, nothing major but it bothered me so got a new one from BMW (better price than anything online fwiw) and some AW 218 paint from scratch wizard and had some fun over the past few weeks.

First time taking a panel off; it needed some tlc to fit right but came out ok from 10 ft for a rattle can job. I justify being cheap cause the original paint is 30 years and nearly 400k miles old and if you look close it's not concourse but from a distance will shine if kept clean which is the goal of the car as my daily driver. If I decide to spend $4k on a paint job I'd rather just do it all at once anyway so no point in paying a body shop to spray a single piece.. justification for DIY learning..

I need a slim front lip if anyone knows where to get one. Have looked on ebay/google/etc, difficult to find. The car came with an IS lip and the first time I drove it home to my apt in San Bernardino almost 8 years ago the lip was destroyed on a culvert so ptsd would rather just have the bare minimum to cover to fog light mounts in black.