The New Car 92' Black/Black Vert'

[WestCoastEta]

Nice work! That car is a really sweet find, and the detailing job looks fantastic

[KIRIEIW]

Got a few small things done today. I got the car smog'd yesterday and it passed with great numbers! Today I got my New Lemforder shock mount's installed, along with KONI adjustable's (for the rear). WOW these are awesome, no more squeaking noises over bumps! The old mounts where toast. I also started diagnosing the electric top, and it's impossible to do with out a wiring diagram. Lucky I was able to find one online but I'll need to tackle that another time.

I also swapped out the 13 button for a good used one because the screen in the car had LCD bleed. At the same time I took the light board apart and soldered LED's using this DIY: http://www.iprimus.ca/~trauttf/temp/OBC/OBC-LED.htm

Came out awesome, highly recommend trying this before spending money on a new one if your a DIY kinda person. I used yellow LED's and the illuminating color is perfect once installed in the 13 Button as you can see in the pics bellow.

[KIRIEIW]

Well I got a couple things done today, very small things though. I got a new idle control valve "rubber holder" thing at the dealer a couple days ago and installed it, it was under $4! I also replaced my rear roundel, and lastly swapped license plates around. The front license plate was in much better shape, a lot less sun faded so I decided to use the front license plate as the new rear. I have only one regret on with my white e30, I was stupid and surrendered my original 80's California plates to the state to get the new "cursive" lettering. Jeez if only I could re assign them to the car, I still have them in a box at home but the law won't allow you to re assign them! Oh well, at least this car still has them.

As you can see with the roundel replacement, I decided to drill a hole because I didn't want to risk slipping with a screw driver and scratching the paint. I did try a few other techniques such as pulling it out with string, but the string snapped so that wasn't going to work. No paint scratching and it pulled right out with ease with my new Snap On pick!

[KIRIEIW]

I also went for a drive today to snap some pic's. It's my Birthday today and don't really have anything going on so figured why not. Up next for the car is to remove the exhaust manifolds, glass bead them clean from carbon, paint them with high temp paint, and replace the manifold gaskets of course. Oh ya, I also got my center caps on the car with brand new roundels earlier this week. The last pic you can see the bolster I replaced on the driver's seat, the match is perfect. Really glad I waited for a used/ worn bolster to match the patina of the rest of the interior.

[Das Delfin]

I know what you mean about the plates. I still have the sesquicentennial plate from my first car but wish I'd kept one of the block lettering plates from a car I scrapped. My neighbor has a fox body mustang convertible with CA sunset plates... and I live in CT now! I'm possibly moving back to CA and looking into the new black/yellow reproduction plates

[UlrichFennec]

Gosh, with how clean your paint and the rest of your vert is, I better start taking notes! Nice work all around! I love seeing attention to detail and passion like this.

[KIRIEIW]

Got a small job done during the week today, really hard to squeeze time in during the week but this was only a 15 minute job. I recently got a basically brand new set of Bosch spark plug wires a few weeks back and decided to install them today. Such a easy job its not even really worth posting but here it is anyways. Also, yes I have the uber rare distributor cap cover installed.

[KIRIEIW]

Got some new parts today. I bought a new Antenna mast a couple weeks ago for the car but turns out the electric motor in the hirschmann unit actually failed. I decided rather then buying a new hirschmann antenna, that I'd convert the car to a manual set up like all current BMW convertibles have (actually from e36 onward). I had an extra Z3/318ti antenna base laying around, so all I needed was the grommet and antenna. In the end I ended up purchasing them at the dealership, and to my surprise the antenna's Made in Germany!

[KIRIEIW]

Installed!

[senna94]

Looks really clean man!

[robrez]

Coming along great!

Got a small job done during the week today, really hard to squeeze time in during the week but this was only a 15 minute job. I recently got a basically brand new set of Bosch spark plug wires a few weeks back and decided to install them today. Such a easy job its not even really worth posting but here it is anyways. Also, yes I have the uber rare distributor cap cover installed.

May you please to enlighten me on this

[CorvallisBMW]

Looking great!

[KIRIEIW]

Coming along great!



May you please to enlighten me on this

I was just kinda messing around, but I do have to say almost all e30's I see on Craigslist, or the local junk yards have them missing! I was lucky my car came with one, but there still available from BMW regardless.

Part #15 here!

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showparts?id=1113-USA-11-1990-E30-BMW-325i&diagId=12_0120#12111710553

Looking great!

Thanks! This Black convertible's proving to be a great daily. The question is, will it make the 1000 mile journey to Bimmerfest this year? I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.

[KIRIEIW]

Today was a busy day. The driver's door window would get caught when you would open the door, it's a very common and annoying problem with convertibles. Actually when I bought the car the owner had the drivers window rolled down a bit so it wouldn't happen when I looked at the car. Well when I check out car's, I check out everything including rolling down windows to make sure they work so he couldn't pass that one off on me. From the looks of it, it's been happening for years because the aluminum is now exposed slightly rather then being black.

Anyways, the passenger side would do it also so I just changed the angle of the rear window's a few degrees and all is well now. It's a fairly simple job, and I suggest anyone to try it who's suffering from the same problem.

[KIRIEIW]

Now the more exciting part (for me anyways :D). My convertible top now works! Well kinda, I converted it to a fully manual set up. I got lucky and the local wreckers had a 88' convertible with a manual top so I robbed all the parts from it that I needed to fix my top. I did a TON of diagnosing why the electric top didn't work (which isn't in the build thread) and it came down to 2 possible thing's that where wrong. First of all, the original switch was faulty, but I stuck a new one in and it still wouldn't work. SO, It's either a bad "dead point micro switch", which ground's the switch located in the HVAC panel, the main switch you click to put the top down/up), or the control unit in the trunks faulty. The motors would spin when I gave them 12V so to the brave soul who may want to convert this car to a automatic top one day, that's what I know. If anyone's interested I can post the wiring diagram for the electric top, I'm lucky BMW gave them to me.. couldn't find it anywhere on the web.