Diamantschwarz Forever: An E30 Love Story. Re-shell & Restomod

[freeride53]

M42 cars are just the best commuters/DD's. I love my 318is to pieces and just can't bring myself to sell it. I know I'd be crushed if something happened to it, so I know it must have been tough to see the old shell go. The circumstance of the new car is pretty awesome though!
Question for you. What are you using to space the non-airbag wheel out? I'm pretty tall (looks like you are too), so when I have the seat positioned to where I'm happy with the pedals the wheel is quite a bit further away than I'd like. I remember the airbag wheel being just about perfect in the short time I had it on there.

Thanks for the kind words. Yes, 'twas shitty, but I think I'm over.

I basically added an extra stock spacer (same kind you already have 1 of) to push it out a little extra bit. It's nice, I'm happy with it.

[freeride53]

Not much to report here, just a few little bits.

First, I swapped back in the stock ECU (without chip) to see if that was giving me the issues with idle/start-up/bogging/dying/check engine/code. Turned out that it wasn't the ECU/chip, so it's back to under the intake manifold. Hoping to diagnose that next next weekend if possible when the car gets some other attention.

I hastily did the stomp test with a buddy but after reviewing the legend of codes, I don't think it's correct, and maybe I got it confused with something else. Wish I had more sleep/time away from work so I could be more methodical with this shit. Frustrating.

Then the homie Sam (sam_) on here was awesome enough to bring my Euroweaves down from my grandma's house in the Bay Area. Installed 3 of those as 1 of them had a little grooved carved out from the rear valence metal in the wreck. Ordering 2 new S-drives to throw on the rear and keep the 5th good one as a spare on my 5th Euroweave.

Driving on a set of straight 15's with nice tires feels sooo good. Never going back to 17's.



The new DS rear bumper I got came with euro trim. I had my LF euro trim piece that survived the wrecked so I put that on the front. Kinda ratty, but for the lolz. I have a brand new set of euro trim that I'll put on the car after paint. And new front bumper first.





Then I drove it to work yesterday. Was weird. I hadn't driven to work since my accident in my old E30 on September 6th. I took the 60 instead of the 10 because fuck the 10.

[Petebee]

Check your fuel pump. I had a 91 318i (same color btw) and it started running shitty, bogging and throwing codes. New fuel pump was all she needed.

Good luck...like the weaves and direction of your car.

Sent from my SM-T560NU using Tapatalk

[2mAn]

The new DS rear bumper I got came with euro trim. I had my LF euro trim piece that survived the wrecked so I put that on the front. Kinda ratty, but for the lolz. I have a brand new set of euro trim that I'll put on the car after paint. And new front bumper first.

Your car officially has a good side lol glad to see it's back to a good state. We missed you yesterday

[freeride53]

Your car officially has a good side lol glad to see it's back to a good state. We missed you yesterday

Even less ... I think it only has a good corner lol.

Presidents Weekend is coming up. Let's all play E30.

[2mAn]

Even less ... I think it only has a good corner lol.

Presidents Weekend is coming up. Let's all play E30.

I'll be at Willow Springs on the 18th

[sam_]

Presidents Weekend is coming up. Let's all play E30.

si!

[freeride53]

Well, today was probably - no definitely - the most productive weekday I've had.

Somehow finished this huge-ass client presentation around lunchtime, so darted out the door and took the early train home for a long "lunch break". On the list of things bothering me was my car's exhaust. The original muffler was noticeably trashed both visibly (with a bashed exhaust tip), and functionally (rattly sounding, and exhaust vapor was escaping out my rear left wheel ). I also had (what I thought was) a decent spare muffler from my old car. So I placed my entire cat-back exhaust on my roof (like a kook) and drove to a local shop in my local barrio, that was rated very highly on Yelp in Pomona.

With the muffler out, you can pretty easily see the lil' dent on my rear valence. I'm going to need to find a good local PDR guy who can pull this (as well as my passenger rocker) out and make it look new again.



Here's a shot of new shell's original muffler, next to the Magnaflow off my old shell.



Here, you can see the cracking and disintegration on the back of both mufflers. Well so much for reusing my old Magnaflow.



And now...not pictured.. took the exhaust guys several tries to get the exit pipe exactly how I wanted. The first was two pieces, then the final product was a clean one-piece, nicely curve angled exit that sat just right in the valence cut-out.



And there we are. Loving the sound and non-rice look. Thinking about painting the tip black in OEM fashion.



Bonus pic: my old Magnaflow from the wrecked shell. Note the chunk of Interstate 10 inside.

[2mAn]

Well, today was probably - no definitely - the most productive weekday I've had.

no sound clips! :hitler:

also, that one good side keeps getting better!

[mike.bmw]

I dig the mudflaps (not joking). Also, I spy center caps for the euroweaves! :)

[freeride53]

no sound clips!
also, that one good side keeps getting better!

How about a real life sound clip? ;D And thanks. I'm a one-corner wonder.

I dig the mudflaps (not joking). Also, I spy center caps for the euroweaves! :)

Are you sure you don't shovel mud flaps? ;D Thanks. They probably won't go back on the car after body & paint is done.

When I got home last weekend, my mom handed me a bag holding the center caps before she threw them away. Got there in the nick of time.

[MR 325]

Tip came out nice. Looks like your tire is backwards?!

[dereliiict]

Thanks. They probably won't go back on the car after body & paint is done.

Please let me know if you get rid of them. Dependent upon hardware and the removal, I would be pretty to very interested.

[ak-]

Much better than the magnaflow tip you showed me.

Please let me know if you get rid of them. Dependent upon hardware and the removal, I would be pretty to very interested.

I forgot to PM you back, but brother decided to keep them

[freeride53]

Tip came out nice. Looks like your tire is backwards?!

Thanks Matt, and good eye! As Simon noted (lol), I was showing off the driver side of the car, because I had a bottle cap spare on the passenger rear corner - one of the 4 euroweaves had a damaged tire from the wreck on the old shell. I placed the (slightly untrue) bottle cap spare on the passenger rear to minimize vibration temporarily. Yesterday, took delivery of the new pair of S-drives to mount on the rear of the car.

Much better than the magnaflow tip you showed me.

Dropped that ish off at FedEx last night to be returned for a refund. :p

This weekend (WHILE EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING WITH A SHORT IN THE FUSE 23 CIRCUIT THAT I COULD NOT CHASE DOWN), was slightly productive. As noted above, 2 of the Euroweave tires (1 more than the other) were damaged in the wreck. So I purchased 2 new S-Drives from Tire Rack and had those installed yesterday afternoon. So so nice to have four nice tires on four nicely balanced 15" wheels. So over 17's. Never again.



And to whore out the car's "other side" little more for Simon :grin:



Note how the passenger rear Euroweave is way cleaner than the others. The other three were refinished by the wheels' P.O. and he polished the lips. From sitting in my grandma's backyard up in the Bay Area for 4 months, the lips on the other three wheels are extremely dirty. I started clay barring one of them and it was seeming to work. So I'll continue with that later this week.



Also, another productive / nice thing from the weekend, Z3 E36 shifter from my old shell installed with new bracket/bushing thing. All nice and shorty and notchy and stuff again. Love it.




And that's it for the positive updates. Ready to tear some hair out over a short in my Fuse 23 circuit that I *failed* to diagnose even after:

- pulling rear license plate lights
- pulling passenger tail light
- pulling front bumper and unplugging passenger front park light
- unplugging passenger front city light (tapped to US side market wire)
- pulling and disconnecting the instrument cluster
- pulling the center console / rear ash tray
- unplugging the rear defroster

Background: last week (or two weeks ago) Fuse 23 blew. So I replaced it and it was fine until 3 days ago when I was driving on a roughly paved street and something got knocked loose or pinched. The fuse was popping continuously since then, except for yesterday afteroon when I THOUGHT I had solved the issue until the fuse popped again 2 mins later.

More background: I had recently (in the past month) fiddled with the rear license plate light bulbs, replaced them with LEDs. First poor quality, then swapped them for better quality ones that didn't flicker. Also, back in December, some buddies and I replaced the front valence, which necessitated touching the harness for the passenger front parking light. After reinstalling the front bumper then, I recall that passenger front parking light not working mysteriously for a few days, then self-correcting somehow.

Anyhow, I'm stuck right now and trying to figure out where the fock this short is. Anyone encounter a shorted out Fuse 23 circuit before?

Sina