Rescued E30

[SixerFixer]

Hi Everyone,

I bought a fairly neglected 87 325is 2 years ago, with the intent of doing a low-budget restoration. After a lot of blood, sweat, and cursing, I feel as though I saved the car :)

Before:



After:




The car was repainted (by me!), treated to euro bumpers and a replica MTech 1 airdam (from ClassicEuroParts... very high quality!), fresh powdercoat on the wheels, new tires, refreshed front suspension, new catback exhaust, new drivers seat bolster upholstery, and a host of other replacement parts. After driving it for a few days, I discovered a pretty bad clunk in the rear, so I ordered new trailing arm and subframe bushings, and new rear shock mounts. I also am having a little bit of trouble with a tick from the motor (valve adjustment and a bunch of new gaskets won't resolve it), which I asked about in the M20 technical forum. Unfortunately, E30s are ridiculously rare where I am, so finding used parts has proven to be difficult. I still need to find some front fender liners and all the trunk carpeting, so the car is far from done!

[KIRIEIW]

Wow beautifully turn around bringing this car back, love what you've done with it so far!

[Cabriolet]

wow. that's way too fast. i need deets on the build.
beautiful car OP.

[Karolis]

You're a good painter too :)

[plmichal]

Bravo! That's the way to do it.

[shadowbethesda]

Envious... Great looking car. The tick you are hearing from the motor could be normal valvetrain/injector noise or could be a rocker on it's way out. It could also be worn cams depending on your mileage.

[IceWhite]

Great transformation dude. Well done on the paint job.

[SixerFixer]

Thanks for the kind words guys! It's a Zinnoberrot/black leather sports interior, 5-speed car, with 170k km on the odometer. The paint itself has a number of flaws in it, but looks pretty well perfect from even just 1-2 feet away. The trunk lid unfortunately has a couple of dents along the edges that I just couldn't get rid of, so I am on the hunt for a replacement panel. I intend on keeping the car relatively stock (even with the ride height), because how often do you see a clean, stock E30?

The car was originally bought from a towing company auction, and needed a crapton of work done. The paint was awful, panels were missing, and the body was banged up in a number of places. To make matters worse, the interior was horrible: badly stained carpets, missing panels, questionable wiring, torn seat bolsters. The driveline and suspension were relatively ok, but the motor needed some love. I was forced to delete A/C, power steering, and cruise control because the systems were all trashed; of the three, I would love to be able to put cruise back in, but I would need to find a decent parts car first (unlikely where I live). In the past 2 years since I started this resto, here's a list of what has been done to the best of my memory:

Exterior:
- Replaced drivers door, fender, and hood
- Removed and welded in a new radiator support
- Cut out and welded in a couple new tabs for the tail lights to bolt into
- Stripped & Painted rolling shell
- Repainted rocker panels
- Undercoated wheel wells
- Swapped cracked dashboard with one that was in much better shape
- Replaced front windshield
- Replaced front/rear windshield trim
- Replaced washer nozzles and fluid hose
- Installed euro bumpers
- Installed euro rear plate filler
- Painted/installed MTech 1 front airdam (courtesy of ClassicEuroParts)
- Deleted fog lights (early euro delete panels)
- Swapped front tow hook with a black nylon motorsport tow strap
- Replaced horns with Hella sharp tone horns
- Replaced, sanded, and polished both tail lights
- Swapped out sealed beam headlights for euro non-smiley ellipsoids and high beams
- Replaced beat-up chrome door mouldings with late-model black pieces (the rear quarter panel pieces had to be modified to fit the early wheel arches)
- Painted side mirrors in trim black
- Powdercoated wheels in OEM-style silver
- Replaced 14" tires with Falken Sincera 195/65/14

Interior:
- Replaced 3 of the 4 drivers seat bolster covers with new leather ones
- Installed new seat recline pistons on the drivers seat
- Shampooed carpets
- Installed a set of used E34 floor mats I had kicking around
- Repaired and SEM painted an almost crack-free dash that had damage in a corner from being dropped in storage
- Replaced drivers kick-panel
- Replaced shift boot and e-brake boot with leather pieces from eBay
- Replaced shift knob with a kamei golfball shifter from a good friend of mine's old Mk2 GTI
- Replaced e-brake center console piece (turns out these are only ~$35 brand new)
- Repaired central locking system
- Replaced OBC backlight with an LED panel I made
- Replaced batteries in SI board
- Installed E30 Innovative Goods Shift Light kit in cluster
- Installed Alpina-style stripe on tachometer
- Replaced door seals with better used ones
- Swapped out passenger-side window motor
- Installed period-correct Alpine cassette deck
- Rebuilt antenna motor with new antenna mast
- Removed sound deadening from trunk
- Replaced blower motor

Engine & Driveline:
- Installed new spark plugs
- Did a valve adjustment
- New oil/air/fuel filters
- Put in some fresh 20w50 oil
- Flushed cooling system (put in the OEM blue coolant)
- Swapped coolant level sensor
- Hot-tanked intake manifold, and replaced manifold gaskets
- Replaced exhaust manifold gaskets
- Replaced cap & rotor
- Replaced thermostat and thermostat housing
- Replaced timing belt and water pump
- Replaced exhaust
- Changed diff and transmission fluids
- Replaced fan clutch and fan shroud

Suspension & Steering:
- New engine and transmission mounts
- All new bushings and ball joints in front end
- New tie rods and boots
- Deleted power steering (courtesy of Condor Speed Shop)
- New subframe bushings
- New trailing arm bushings
- New rear shock mounts
- Replaced front and rear brake discs and pads

And somehow the car still isn't quite done. shadowbethesda was right on the nose with his worn cam/rocker comment. A couple of the rockers on the intake side are fairly worn down, as well as the cam lobes for those rockers. Looks like I'll be doing the head gasket very soon, to rebuild the top end of the motor. Additionally, I need to do a brake fluid flush, but I can't because one of my caliper bleed nipples was sheared off. :( As I mentioned earlier, finding parts cars locally here in Winnipeg is damn near impossible, so I'm struggling to get my hands on a complete set of trunk carpets, as well as some front fender liners (parts that I can't justify buying new). If a parts car does turn up, I can guarantee that cruise control will be reinstalled. The car also has a pesky 'brake lining' light that just won't go away, so there's a short somewhere in the system.

This isn't the first BMW project I've taken on, but it's definitely been the most work-heavy. My other car is a euro '88 635CSi:




I'll keep updating this thread as I get more work done :)

[Schnitzer318is]

Woah. Very nice work... and nice shark too.

Rescued... hah... more like resurrected!

[Midweste30]

Incredible work. Absolutely love seeing stuff like this. Brought that car back from the grave, I commend you good sir. Good luck!!! Keep up the great work.

[Czur1991]

Super cool to see someone put time and effort into a car and get a great result!

[SixerFixer]

Just a small update. I had the week off work so I spent a considerable amount of time cleaning/organizing my garage, and felt inspired to do some more work on the E30. I'm going to avoid driving the car until I deal with the worn camshaft and rockers (likely going to happen over the winter), so I decided to address a couple other random little things to keep myself busy. I replaced the transmission mounts with new ones, tightened up the ground nuts on the back of the instrument cluster, and swapped the BMW centrecaps on my basketweaves for new BBS caps! Still not sure if I'm 100% sold on them, so I'll keep my roundel caps just in case I change my mind. ;)

[SixerFixer]

Took the E30 and the E24 to a car show on the weekend! The E30 will get some head work over the winter, and should be plated by the spring!

[litu]

OMG that e30 is sooo awesome, that premodel shape and that color :)

[LateFan]

Rescued I'll say! Nice work!