New owner, BMW 325iX Touring

[D.Martijn]

Yesterday I decided to spray paint my wiper arms black again as they got quite faded and had a lot of stone chips on them.
I don't know why but I had a hard time painting these things. The paint wasn't drying that good. I stripped them back to metal and painted them at home instead of the workshop and it seemed to be a bit better.





While fitting the front wiper arms, I gave the engine a look over and noticed something laying on the left chassis rail. turns out it was my little flashlight I lost a few months ago when I was doing all of the rust repairs. I'm glad I got it back though
Can you spot it? :)


This morning I gave the E30 a wash and gave the black trim pieces a much deserved coat of revival. We then went of to Brussels where there was a meet at the Cinquantenaire park. There were quite a bit of BMWs, E30s, 6 series, 02 touring and even a turbo!
Cars lined up, my brother went with our Golf mk1 and a friend of ours with his Golf mk2 syncro




When we were heading home my brother took this picture.


Before we went to the meet, I filled the E30 all the way up as I wanted to calculate the consumption again as it has been a while I monitored it. Turns out I used 13.6l of petrol for 160kms (highway, city and some spirited driving). So that's 8,6l/100km or 27,3mpgs. Not bad if you ask me.

[D.Martijn]

As of lately I've had trouble with my brakes squealing again..
I took them all apart, cleaned all surfaces. coated the guide pins with a fresh coat of silicon grease (I had put copper grease on the guide pins, maybe that's why?) and put fresh copper grease on the back and sides of the brake pads.

While I was working on my brakes, I left the ignition switch on, turns out when I was ready to head back home my car wouldn't start.. Luckily my dad was home and came to the workshop with some starter cables.. :p

While waiting on him I also changed the drivers side speaker panel for another one I bought from a scrapyard. The previous owner had cut a section of the panel where the hood release cable it.

[D.Martijn]

i love this thread. just read it from start to finish and you have done such a good job, always wanted a 325ix

ps thanks for fixing the photos

Thanks, appreciate your comment.

Yeah, it took quite some time to get them all fixed :)

[blinkx]

i love this thread. just read it from start to finish and you have done such a good job, always wanted a 325ix

ps thanks for fixing the photos

[D.Martijn]

I've noticed that whenever it's hot and I do a ton of braking my front brakes tend to squeal when lightly braking or driving very slowly. The brake pads and rotor are still in good condition so I decided to check the condition of the guide pins.
The drivers side still looked good after cleaning the old grease off. The passenger side, not so much. One of the rubber boots was torn and caused the pin to be rusted.


Luckily, when I replaced my uncles front brakes I kept his old hardware. So I swapped one guide pin and rubber boot and was all set. :)

[D.Martijn]

Not really an update but since the Photobucket fiasco all of my pictures were not loading anymore. I since then downloaded them all an transferred them to a Flickr account and changed every single link. Glad this build thread is done. Still have a few more to go on some other forums.

[D.Martijn]

Today there was an BMW oldtimer event though is was mostly E30s :p
As far as I can tell I was the only ix, there were a few tourings though.



Parked next to this Z1, had never seen one before. Definitely a cool car.

[squidmaster]

Beautiful!

Sent from my Robin using Tapatalk

[D.Martijn]

I also got the ix cleaned up, I started with vacuuming the interior and cleaning the remaining dust of off the dash and interior trim pieces.
Then my brother and I gave it a wash, I was thinking of getting it claybarred but the paint was still very smooth. While I was using the revival on the black trim he started waxing.

Turned out great if I say so myself.

[D.Martijn]

^^ There were two different types of sunroof cranks, with very subtle differences between the two. The spinny knob part being one of them.

I didn't know that there were 2 types of handles. Thanks for clearing that up. As far as I know only this on is available on ebay?

[MR E30 325is]

^^ There were two different types of sunroof cranks, with very subtle differences between the two. The spinny knob part being one of them.

[D.Martijn]

Got a new aftermarket handle for the sunroof as my old one suddenly broke off when I was fixing the rust on the touring. Being that a genuine BMW handle is somewhere around 120€ I went for the cheap ebay one :p

It arrived just in time as Sunday we're going to an event with a drive out so now I can use my sunroof again when it get hot.


Fitted. I did notice the little black nob is a bit different than the original one, it's made out some sort of rubber and a has different shape.

[D.Martijn]

Thanks Squidmaster! Feels great to have it back.

[squidmaster]

Looking good! The tails are much improved

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[D.Martijn]

It already stopped smoking after a couple of drives, looks like it all burned up.
After giving it a much deserved wash as it was very dusty wee took it out for it's first drive and it runs just as great as before!

When I first started up the engine I noticed the valve train being a little loud so yesterday evening my I adjusted the gaps and it's much better now.
My brother also polished the rear tail lights as they were starting to get a little dull.


It's not as clear on picture but here you can see the difference.


I also got my Allrad gruppe sticker on the car :)