Bringing my dad's car back to its former glory and beyond

[dadsbmw]

Originally posted this in my regional forum but it's coming along to the point that I feel like it should get its own dedicated build thread...

(Nov 2, 2014)
My dad purchased his 1990 Sterling Silver Metallic 325i back around 1992 and claims it was the first car he'd ever purchased that he ended up getting everything he wanted. I spent a ton of time in that car with him on road trips, learning how to drive in it when I was 16, etc. Basically many memories and lots of love.

My dad passed away this summer, and when he I inherited the BMW. It now has 370,000 miles on the odometer but has been very well maintained and had the engine replaced around 260,000.

My automotive experience is centered mostly around 2nd generation Ford Probe GT's (which Im sure I will get no love for ;)) and I plan to use my e30 as my lightly modified daily driver. It is bone stock at this point but will receive some light exterior modification and suspension work, but will mainly just be getting a lot of maintenance.

Anyways, Im long winded, obviously. On to the pictures.






Just purchased parts to repaint lower valence, replace fogs and add yellow laminex covers, replace front turn signals with smoked clears, replace front side reflectors with smoked clears, and install the missing lower grille.

[dadsbmw]

(May 11, 2015)
So I've been doing some work and wanted to update and figured I might as well just do it in this thread.

Started off by trying to get the front valence cleaned up as it was chipped to death and the fog lights were absolutely destroyed. Purchased some color matched spray paint, ebay fogs, yellow lamin-x covers, and the valence lower grill insert as it was missing. Also took the liberty to black out the side markers and turn signals with some night shades and remove the front license plate. Turned out pretty damn good if I do say so myself!

A reminder of the damage on the front end



Front license plate removed and turn signals blacked out... looking better



Valence being painted



All put back together minus the lower grill insert. Still need mounting hardware for that... anyone know how its mounted and what I need to buy?



And with the lamin-x covers installed. I was unsure when I ordered them but now that they're installed I absolutely love them!



Gratuitous (and extremely dirty) shot of the weekend driver as it sits in the garage getting the Megasquirt wired up



Next I moved on to the tint. This stuff has to be at least 20 years old, purple, and bubbling up. Initially planned to get it redone, but now thinking I may stay tintless for a more classic look.
Before:



After:



Next project... The black paint on the rockers is nasty, as will happen. I decided that in lieu of just painting them back to black, I would try them out body color and see how I feel about them. I think body color is the right choice!



Still have to do the rear and the drivers side as well, as I've been busy with another project...



Im fairly sure that most of the suspension is original, meaning 380,000 miles old! I know the drivers rear spring was replaced about a year ago as it broke in half, and Im thinking they may have replaced both sides with stock springs, but Im pretty sure thats about it. It's been suggested that since this will be a daily driver that I go with H&R sports with koni shocks, which is basically what I had been planning on doing. However a few weeks ago I bought some H&R OE Sports off craigslist for a very good price, and figured it couldn't hurt to test fit them and see how they look/perform. Looking at pictures online I didn't really like that the front sits much higher than the rear, so I also opted for e90 front drop hats as well. This weekend I got around to installing. Compare to the picture above to see the drop.



I think the drivers side is a bit lower in front that the passenger side though... loving the look



Gratuitous pic


I'm very happy with the results and plan to stay at this height for some time... at least as long as I'm DDing the car.

[dadsbmw]

(Today)
Got new wheels. I made a slightly better lead in to this post but it got erased.

They are Emortal 16x8 et25 RS (knockoff's). There are a few reasons why I chose these wheels in particular...

The first is that the spokes seem to be slightly thicker and have less curvature than a lot of RS styles, be they replica or genuine. The Second is that a lot of the replicas have a center cap that is secured with an alley key, which looks completely out of place. These have a center nut that screws into the wheel to hold the face of the center cap in place.



The last reason is the lack of concavity in the face of the wheels. When I went to the shop to buy them I noticed that a lot of the other versions all had slight to extreme concavity that looks strange at an angle... these are basically completely flat.



On to the installed pics...












And lastly a question. The wheels came with center cap emblems and I bought some emblems from the dealership as well. I definitely like the idea of the BMW caps best, but upon comparing them I actually quite like the coloring of the Emortal caps... Opinions?

[CENTURION]

Wonderful E30 my man. and sorry for your loss. it's good to see your doing things right with your father's car. I'm not a fan of yellow fog lights, but that's me. maybe smoked if anything but not yellow. that says "jdm" in my humble opinion sir.
I suggest putting the bmw emblems on the wheels. makes it look more original. again, my opinion.
subscribed!

[Zacm829]

Car looks great for having that many miles, your father obviously cared for it. I'm sure you will be keeping it around for a long time! I personally like the bmw centercaps, breaks up the all silver look.

Keep up the progress.

[Zreberlcoe]

What a cool story and even more awesome car! This hits kind of close with me because my dads IX was the car I grew up with, worked on, and learned how to drive on. Very cool, keep the updates coming.

[barbierij]

I'm sorry for your loss. My dad's 89iX brought us together loving these E30s. He drives it whenever he can. Your car looks amazing and I love the passion you put into it.

Sent from SPACE using Tapatalk 2

[dadsbmw]

Thanks for all the compliments guys. I'll be putting on the BMW emblems later today...

[getouth]

Worthy!! Keep us posted!!

[GDA]

Great progress and story. It is all the better knowing you are enjoying the car just like your father did over the course of many, many years of ownership.

[rcsoundn1]

do the MW caps, breaks it up in a good way

[animal]

cool story - nice car.

Def BMW caps.

[AllydNYC]

Great story and nice car!

[jhaurimn]

Glad to see you are cleaning her up. I think the bmw logo would look weird on those center caps, personally.

As far as the grommets to hold on that front air grille thing, you want this part #- 51711927439

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showparts?id=1113-USA-06-1990-E30-BMW-325i&diagId=51_0721

I cant remember how many you need, I think you might need 3. Realoem doesnt list the number needed.

Good luck :)

[dadsbmw]

Couple small updates:

Got the required hardware to install the lower valence grille insert (for all of like 50 cents) and installed it...
Before:



After:



Although for the most part the interior is in good shape, the tops of the rear seat backs have seen better days and had several rips in them that were painfully obvious when looking through the rear window.



I found someone on craigslist selling grey "leather" rear seats so I picked them up. The car has grey cloth interior, but my dad has consistently had sheep skin seat covers on the front seats since the day he purchased it. Although theyre not my style, I plan on keeping them on for at least the forseeable future. So the fringe benefit of this is that although the rear seats technically don't match, you'd never know.

New "leather"


They actually look really good installed and match the rest of the interior really well, but they do also point out how sun bleached my rear parcel shelf is.

And yeah, that is a brown shift knob in a grey and black interior... it shall be replaced at some point in the future. Not a huge priority.