I finally found a (mostly) running E30!

[Oats]

After about a year of looking for an E30 that fits my criteria (coupe, manual, late model, local, cheapish, running), I picked up this lovely little 318is last week!













Most important things it needs(as far as I know): fuel tank(brownish fuel, so am I correct in assuming it's rusted?), muffler, struts, oil filter housing gasket/o-ring, slave cylinder(clutch went out on the way home; had to fill brake fluid & found a small puddle of it under the car the next day), rust repair(under the tail light, battery tray, small hole at the bottom of driver's side fender, under driver's side rear window).

Eventually I will replace most(if not all) hoses, gaskets, bushings, as well as the mess under the intake. Suspension bits as well.

Cosmetic stuff will come last of course, but I do plan on keeping it fairly stock with a few tasteful mods. I want to keep it clean and simple(ugh that sounds so boring typing it out).

This is very much a learning process, as I don't have much experience working on cars, but fortunately I've got a few friends willing to lend a hand(and tools/garage space), Chilton and Bentley manuals, and of course the immense knowledge base on r3v.

I'm going to have a million questions, but I'm certain 99% of them have already been answered somewhere on here.

I guess this can be considered my project thread? Please feel free to leave me any comments/concerns/criticisms/questions!

Also mods, feel free to move this to The Project Forum if need be.

[Dakotademon7]

Nice. Looks to be in good condition.

[ANDRÜ]

Those seats look real nice

[Oats]

I can't get the car running better until I get another gas tank, so in the meantime I've just been cleaning and trying to find all of the rust so I can put a stop to that nonsense. Any advice on the rust?

Pulled the carpet to clean it and check the floor pans for rust... definitely getting this steam cleaned and probably dying it a bit darker later on.


Fortunately, it's mostly surface rust with a couple areas that are slightly worse and no holes.










My assistant helping chip off some of the crusty wet tar. I'm not sure why the carpet was wet, but I'm going to remove all of the tar, sand down the rust and coat everything with POR-15 or something similar to prohibit rust.



Pretty sure this stuff isn't doing me a lot of good anyway if it's crumbling to dust.


The driver's side tar is still mostly good, but I don't want to risk more moisture getting trapped in it so it'll be coming out as well.



Passenger side mostly complete! Will a heat gun work to remove the remaining goo? Not worried about the paint in here.




The worst of it



Any idea where all of this came from? The sunroof seems to be sealing just fine, and the doors aren't rusting.


Decent bit of rust on the rocker panel here... The car hadn't been moved in a while before I got it, so I don't think this is related to the moisture inside.




The rails for the seats are fairly rusty as well, so I'm going to grind them down to metal and repaint, as well as lubricating the moving bits.




The trunk isn't quite as well off as the interior I'm afraid. Would it be easier to weld in some small pieces and seal them, or just cut out bits from a donor car if I can find one?


A PO tried to caulk it? That's pretty neat



Water and gunk in the turn lens...


...and a bulb?


The passenger side isn't nearly as bad, but still needs to be addressed before it becomes a problem.




The lip for the trunk gasket is gross as well :(


Started to grind down to bare metal to see how big my problem is... I don't think it's the worst ever, but still annoys the crap out of me.




Painted headlight bezels? I know I'm gonna get some hate for this but I think they add a nice pop to the front without being too garish :D I'm also thinking about lightly smoking the lights as well, which would make them stand out more(in a good way).



Before:


I thought this was a cool shot while painting the bezels... Too creepy?


After, with repainted grill... I used Duplicolor trim paint on the grill and appliance paint on the bezels... The can says ULTRA WHITE, which is close enough for now. It looks good from 5 feet, which is fine with me until I can get the rest of the car sorted and come back to cosmetics.













Obligatory(this is the first and last time I will be standing on my car)

[Swanny]

Good work! Pretty sure you need to make that wacky headlight picture your sig.


As for the sound deadening/tar people have used diesel with good results and well as a few other stripping agents. Theres a few threads about it to check out. POR is great as long as you prep it correctly. Just follow their instructions to a T and you'll be golden.

Keep doin what your doin amd enjoy that thang.

[Swanny]

Also the last photo is this:

[Oats]

I haven't had much time to do a lot with the car, but I did get a few small things done as well as buying a gas tank and better seat rails.


Cleaning up the seats... Really happy with the overall condition of these. Is there anything I can do to repair the small tears, or prevent them from getting worse?


Sprayed every cleaner we had on the carpet, then took it to the car wash for a good scrub before dye...


After! It looks a ton better, but there are still a lot of stains. Really hoping the huge tear won't be noticeable with the carpet put back in and new floor mats installed.


Which brand of dye should I use on the carpet? VHT seems to be the way to go, but I can get dupli-color right down the street. I'm going to use charcoal grey, though the thought of a less common color did cross my mind.

Testing out some lightweight racing seats:


I took off the seat rails to try and clean them up, but they're just the worst. The newer ones aren't 100%, but they're vastly better than the crusty ones that were on before. While I had the rails off, I wanted to clean up whatever I could, even if nobody will ever look at it ever. This bar, for instance:


I took it to a table mounted grinder with a wire brush attachment, then sprayed rustoleum clear enamel on it to keep it looking great and prevent it from rusting again.



I also took everything out of the trunk to see how bad everything is... The battery tray could be worse, so I'm thinking I may try the POR-15 and fiberglass method I saw somewhere on here, unless I can find a body shop that will take care of it for cheap.


I'm using the spare well to test the undercoating before I spray the floor pans. I sanded down a bit of rust that was in here, cleaned it up and applied two coats of primer. Once it warms up again I'll test out the undercoating.


The new(er) seat rails. Most of the debris on them is just dirt and old grease... They've cleaned up quite nicely, and I'll have a pic in my next update.



While I save up to get everything I need for driveshaft/exhaust/fuel system maintainence, I'm hoping to at least get the carpet dyed and put the interior back together so it'll feel like a complete car again and not a rolling greenhouse.

[mitchlikesbikes]

i used aerosol goof off and a wire cup to finish off my tar. worked really well but the paint didn't like it much. it took the paint off, but only the parts where the tar was to begin with so not too bad. left the primer/rustproof coating alone too which is good. only like 4 or 5 bucks a can at walmart.

car looks nice, props for doing rust repair right


oh and by the way, since the car was sitting for a long time before you bought it the gas itself might just be bad, not the tank. maybe try to drain the tank as is, then flush it with a little gas and see if it cleans up before you go too crazy with ripping the tank out.

[pb34]

Good Luck!

Ah, I considered going out to see this one. Very interesting to see more of it, and can't wait to see what you do with it!

[Oats]

I'll check on the gas sometime this weekend when I have a bit more time. If it's just bad gas that would be fantastic.

Will rustoleum primer be good enough for the floor pans, or should I spring for the POR-15?



In other news: CARPET! I still want to put a third can on it for consistency, but I think it looks 1000x better than what I started with.

Before:


During:



After!





More to come after this weekend!

[efficient]

did you cut the carpet underneath the heater core/dash?

[FL318is]

Congrats! Good progress. I used VHT charcoal and it still looks good after 5 years. Get the rust under control soon.

I bought my 318is in Chester and brought it back to Florida where it started life.

[Oats]

did you cut the carpet underneath the heater core/dash?

I did, unfortunately. I was sloppy behind the gas pedal, so I'm going to have to cover it or something :-|

Congrats! Good progress. I used VHT charcoal and it still looks good after 5 years. Get the rust under control soon.

I bought my 318is in Chester and brought it back to Florida where it started life.

Thanks! I was a bit worried the duplicolor wouldn't work out, but i'm actually very impressed with it so far.

I'm going to take care of as much of the rust as I can on my own, then I guess save a few pennies to have a body shop do the rest.



After covering everything important, I sprayed a coat(or two? I can't remember) of rustoleum primer.






While that was drying, I cleaned up the battery terminal connectors... I tend to find things that stick out like a sore thumb and take care of those instead of doing things in a more proper order.

Before(didn't take an after pic for some reason)



No photos of the undercoating(lazy), but I did two coats.

Carpet going back in



Clean seat rails!



Seats installed, part of the center console installed, trying to shine everything up with Turtle Wax F21. Eventually I'll buy 303 Protectant, but I had the F21 already and it works fairly well. I used the Vaseline trick on the faded seat belt buckles and they turned out great! Really like this pic of the car coming back together :)



The airbag wheel will soon be replaced with a sport wheel, and eventually something nicer.



WE GOT THE CAR RUNNING! The culprit is a crumbling intake boot, and not the fuel system as I first thought. Our temporary solution is a massive amount of electrical tape wrapped around most of the boot(no pic currently, sorry!).

To celebrate, we went to the car wash to spray off the damn pollen and get the undercarriage cleaned up. The pollen will be back tomorrow, but at least it shouldn't be as much of a pain now.



Not happy about being covered in plant spooge:








More to come soon!

[Cosmic Serpent]

My My you have been doing some work, glad shes up and running and you bought her instead of me :P

[JonTheHero22]

Great work Oats, and I'm loving all the picture updates. You're making real headway with this car. I can't wait to see the final product