Canadian 318is

[mike.bmw]

Looks much better! I may have to try this on mine.

[Powling]

Was able to set aside some time today to refresh the set of euro grilles I picked up a couple weeks back. I used the 50/50 mix of mineral spirits and boiled linseed oil which turned out to work great.

I also need to replace the grille foam. Anyone know a good, cheap replacement? Or is it best to just reorder OEM foam?

Before.



Before (top), after cleaning with rubbing alcohol. After 50/50 mix applied and excess rubbed off (bottom).



And installed.

[Powling]

Picked up some more parts this past week. Had a friend 'donate' an Mtech 1 wheel to me for nothing. Needs a bit of love, I'm planning on doing a full rewrap but still a great score!



Also picked up an E36 rack to swap. It also needs love (mostly cleaning) but for the price I couldn't pass it up.



...and on a side note, picked up a new daily driver. Needed more space for hauling the dogs and couldn't pass up on the better fuel economy considering I commute 160km each day for work.

[Powling]

New parts day!

[Split_S]

Man e30s are sooo much nicer arent they??

Great catch on the iS!

[Powling]

No big updates to post lately due to work and other life stuff keeping me busy.

We got snow up here a few days ago so now the roads have salt on them so the 318 is in the garage for the winter. Now I can commit to more in depth work since it will be off the road until April.

For now I'll just be stock piling parts until after the new year and hopefully start getting more into it come January time.

In the meantime here are some pics from the last drive of the season before I put it away.

[1986_325e_Canada]

Nice paint restoration!

[CanadianDirty30]

Beautiful purchase man! Always good to see another Canadian 318is owner on here. Cant wait to see what you do with her in the future.

[Powling]

It was awesome to finally see your 318is in person! I hope you don't mind that we couldn't keep our hands off of your car. ;) If you're up for some serious detailing / paint correction when I get my new car, let me know!

Sounds good! I'll have to take you up on that offer for sure.

[Roadrunner]

It was awesome to finally see your 318is in person! I hope you don't mind that we couldn't keep our hands off of your car. ;) If you're up for some serious detailing / paint correction when I get my new car, let me know!

[Powling]

And did you just sneak in that you're planning an engine swap or did I miss something earlier? Details? :)

Haha thats the plan for next winter. Looking into an M50/M52 at the moment but that might change before the time comes.

As for this winter, I'm focusing on tightening up the suspension and drivetrain so I can enjoy the car as it is next summer before the swap.

In the meantime...out with the old and in with the new. CAtuned hooked it up and shipped me out a ZHP knob to replace the old broken knob from the previous owner.

[Roadrunner]

And finally a friend of mine got married this past weekend and he asked me to bring the 318 so he could get a photo with it...he really wants one but obviously has other (financial) priorities to take care of, haha!

He must be a really good friend if you let him sit on your car! :shock: It's cool that he wanted your E30 to be part of their wedding, though. ;)

And did you just sneak in that you're planning an engine swap or did I miss something earlier? Details? :)

I'd love to see some before / after photos of it if you have them! I'd love to restore the paint rather than respray, but to be honest there are more dings, scratches, nicks, and paint chips than I would be happy with, so I'll likely do a respray next winter when the engine is out for the swap (or at least thats the plan).

[Powling]

I was able to get a few small things done this past week when little parts orders came in here and there from UPS.

First up was to swap out the dirty air filter for a fresh one.


Then I swapped out the blank oil cooler opening cover for the vented one that a buddy of mine had laying around his shop.



Same buddy had a new orange signal light cover that wasn't cracked so I swapped that out too.



I also swapped out two of the BMW wheel cap logos that were well beyond due for replacement. The other two were fine so I only changed these two. New one on the left looks nice and glossy!


Finally bit the bullet and ordered new lip clips from Pelican. Couldn't find them ANYWHERE within Canada so needless to say, the shipping cost was a bit to swallow but I'm just happy to have the lip on. Might do a Garagistic 'is' lip spoiler at some point too.



And finally a friend of mine got married this past weekend and he asked me to bring the 318 so he could get a photo with it...he really wants one but obviously has other (financial) priorities to take care of, haha!

[Powling]

This should give you an idea of the extent of the transformation:





I have a lot of pictures of the car I'll post someday in a thread. I still miss that car.

Thats wild! Would love to hear about the process / see a write up on this.

[Shock(/\)ave]

You might still be able to avoid repainting your car even if you're really unhappy with the current condition of your paint: I would get the dents removed through paintless dent repair, then restore the paint as above, then have some touch up paint mixed so it perfectly matches the car. With single stage non-metallic paint you can very easily build up paint over any chips or scratches in several thin layers, then expertly wet sand the raised areas flush with the surrounding paint. If done correctly, the repair would be near invisible. (This technique of chip and scratch repair is still possible with metallic paint, but it's much more difficult to do correctly.)