The Latest & Greatest: 1994 (E30) 316i Daytona Violet Design Edition Touring

[Roadrunner]

This color combo and interior is beautiful. I can't wait to see this build progress.

Great update on your touring! I bet that drive was amazing

Thanks for the nice comments, guys! I can't wait until the weather improves so I can work on it and drive it more.

I found a few more issues to look into. The emergency brake doesn't seem to be working (I'm pretty sure the car shouldn't start rolling down a hill with the e-brake up - good thing I was in the car when that happened ;-) ). I also need to figure out how to reset the airbag warning light which came on after the battery was disconnected.

[D.Martijn]

The e-brake should be relatively easy, I've just recently replace all the hardware on my uncles iX. As it's hard to rotate the wheel to feel for any friction (because AWD), I adjusted the handbrake shoes without the rotor mounted. I then put the rotor on the hub and spun it and felt if there was any friction.

Doing this several times, adjusting, putting rotor on and feeling for friction.. I got to a point where I could feel the e brake shoes touching the rotor, I then backed the adjustment a few clips back and checked with the e-brake engaged, works great! :)


Not sure about the airbag light, we also removed the battery but it didn't come on..?

[Roadrunner]

The e-brake should be relatively easy, I've just recently replace all the hardware on my uncles iX. As it's hard to rotate the wheel to feel for any friction (because AWD), I adjusted the handbrake shoes without the rotor mounted. I then put the rotor on the hub and spun it and felt if there was any friction.

Doing this several times, adjusting, putting rotor on and feeling for friction.. I got to a point where I could feel the e brake shoes touching the rotor, I then backed the adjustment a few clips back and checked with the e-brake engaged, works great! :)

Thanks so much for the info! It's encouraging to hear that it's a relatively easy fix. :)

Not sure about the airbag light, we also removed the battery but it didn't come on..?

Good to know. That was the explanation I was given when the touring was delivered, but now I think it's more likely due to the faulty sensors in the front seatbelt(s) which I'll be replacing. I guess I'll find out soon!

[Grime]

Okay, not gonna lie, I wasn't stoked to here you were selling your old Touring, but this made my day! Makes me want to go to the BMW show you were telling me about in August, just to check this car out. I thought my Touring was clean, but yours is on a whole other level.

I was curious if there is a part number on the shark fin antenna? It looks a lot nicer than the one I have on my car. I might try and track one down :devil:

[Roadrunner]

Okay, not gonna lie, I wasn't stoked to here you were selling your old Touring, but this made my day! Makes me want to go to the BMW show you were telling me about in August, just to check this car out. I thought my Touring was clean, but yours is on a whole other level.

Wow, thanks man! I was sad about selling my old touring, but like I said, I wouldn't have sold it without a very good reason.

You should definitely come to Tedfest (the classic BMW show) in August! I'd love to see your touring. It would be well worth the trip from Montreal in my opinion - so many amazing cars to see!

How are things going with your touring? I haven't seen your project thread yet! :razz:

I was curious if there is a part number on the shark fin antenna? It looks a lot nicer than the one I have on my car. I might try and track one down :devil:

I thought that the shark fin antenna on my car was stock at first since it's painted Daytona Violet and matches so well, but I can't find the part number anywhere. Anyone else know? Shockwave looked it up and found ones that look pretty much identical to the one on my car (here and here), so if you want to get the same look, you could get a VW Golf shark fin antenna and paint it body colour. (Side note: I wonder if that's why I get such bad radio reception in the touring? )

[Grime]

Just a stroke of bad luck I guess. The day I got it registered the TPS died, and by the time I diagnosed and fixed it, the winter had started. Shortly after that, I noticed the oil was mixing in my coolant, and coolant in my oil, so now I need to flush the system and install a new headgasket. I still love my car and would have bought it knowing this would happen but it sucks that I only got to drive it once last fall. I'll start a thread once I do interesting thing s to my car. There are pictures on my Instagram of it at least.

I did a bit of research too, and found the shark fin on eBay as a VW product. If you're saying your signal is bad, I'll probably just stick with mine as it works fine.

If I can get work off, I'll probably make the trip to Tedfest. Seems like a more interesting show compared to all the stancy show car shows we have here.

[Roadrunner]

Just a stroke of bad luck I guess. The day I got it registered the TPS died, and by the time I diagnosed and fixed it, the winter had started. Shortly after that, I noticed the oil was mixing in my coolant, and coolant in my oil, so now I need to flush the system and install a new headgasket. I still love my car and would have bought it knowing this would happen but it sucks that I only got to drive it once last fall.

Damn, that sucks. :( Hopefully spring will arrive at some point so you can drive it and enjoy it!

I'll start a thread once I do interesting thing s to my car. There are pictures on my Instagram of it at least.

That didn't stop me, haha... ;)

I did a bit of research too, and found the shark fin on eBay as a VW product. If you're saying your signal is bad, I'll probably just stick with mine as it works fine.

I haven't really looked into it yet to be fair, so it might not be the shark fin's fault at all. I'll have to investigate when I get a chance.

If I can get work off, I'll probably make the trip to Tedfest. Seems like a more interesting show compared to all the stancy show car shows we have here.

That would be awesome! :mrgreen:


We had some time off for Spring Break this week - finally, some time to work on the cars! Unfortunately, it's not looking very Springy here yet...



I cleaned the touring's grilles and kidney grille, and removed what was left of the ruined adhesive foam with Goo Gone and a makeshift scraper made from the bottom of a yogurt container. Applying 303 Aerospace worked so well to restore the plastic that I didn't even need to respray them black like I was planning. Reinstalled:



Got my new 1 Series all weather floor mats, which happen to fit perfectly in E30s. :)



We headed to the scrap yard to scavenge for parts. On the way there, I discovered the hard way that we need to clean out the sunroof drain on the E28 when ice water from melted snow rained down on me from the closed sunroof.

I pulled some wire that I'll need for a future project in the touring from an E30 in the yard, and attempted to get the rear license plate bracket off of an E46 (thanks to a member on r3v in this thread for the idea). One of the screws was so rusted that the head was stripped, though, so I'll have to try again next time.

[Roadrunner]

New seat belts are in! :up:



Just to make things more interesting, the honeybees from our apiary were on their first flights of the year, and several of them decided to check out the inside of my new car for the first time while I was working on it. :shock: One of the girls inspecting the wheels:



It's been too cold to fully wash and detail the touring since I got it, so the spray-wash will have to do for now. Here it is freshly showered: ;D



The seats are covered in blankets for the time being - still need to order a good fabric spray with UV protection.



Shockwave took some more pictures of the touring on our way home. Enjoy! :)

[D.Martijn]

For the bad reception of the antenna, you might want to check the backside of the radio if the plug is still connected. When I did this, I discovered a nail sticking in the hole of the radio. Turns out there is a adapter cable from BMW, it makes connecting the antenna to the (original) radio possible since both use different types of plugs..

Part 5: http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/show...70#65121388950


Great pictures of your Touring! The more I look at it, the more I'm falling in love with the color :)

[Roadrunner]

For the bad reception of the antenna, you might want to check the backside of the radio if the plug is still connected. When I did this, I discovered a nail sticking in the hole of the radio. Turns out there is a adapter cable from BMW, it makes connecting the antenna to the (original) radio possible since both use different types of plugs..

Part 5: http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/show...70#65121388950

Thanks! :) I really appreciate all of the info. Adding this to my to-do list.

Great pictures of your Touring! The more I look at it, the more I'm falling in love with the color :)

I'm a big fan of the colour too. ;) I think it's cool how much it changes in different lighting conditions.

We visited Shockwave's E36 M3 which is the same colour (and same model year) as my touring while we were working on his E30 M3 yesterday:





I'll have to wait until he gets it back on the road for the season so we can get some pictures of them together. He still thinks the Daytona Violet looks better on his car than mine. We'll see about that...

[Roadrunner]

Getting excited about the meet & cruise coming up on Saturday! For anyone in the Toronto area, check out the details here: http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/show....php?p=4768231

We ran our cruise route this weekend and made a couple of changes to avoid unpaved or extremely bumpy roads. It's going to be fun, can't wait! :grin: Gave the touring a bath before heading home:

[Shock(/\)ave]

Having now had some extended seat time in this car, I'm happy to report that it's in the same condition mechanically as the interior is in cosmetically, easily tighter than either of my ~100,000 km 318ises.

This car really makes me want to get my E30 M3 back on the road.

[Roadrunner]

As someone has been pointing out to me repeatedly, this thread is long overdue for an update! ;) In my defense, I've been busy working on these:



And these:



... as well as a few of our friend's cars, so I've been busy doing lots of car stuff!

Now, where was I?

Well, when I left off in this thread, something had to be done about the paint on the touring's rear spoiler which was peeling and flaking off. We ordered a new one (glad I was able to get it before the part becomes NLA), but I'm still unable to find any info on how to remove the old one and how the rear spoiler is actually attached. I heard that it's difficult to do without breaking the glass, so I opted to refinish my existing spoiler and will keep the replacement one to install sometime in the future.

The rear spoiler sanded down:



...Painted:



...Done! :)



Can you spot what was missing from my engine bay?



Luckily we happened to have a spare elephant trunk lying around! :up:



I used 303 fabric guard - which seems to be exactly what I'd been looking for to protect the touring's fabric from UV damage - on the cloth seats and door cards.



I've also been covering the seats with blankets to try to protect them from the sun and wearing, but need a better solution for seat covers since the fabric still seems to wear very easily. :(



The touring's paint was in need of some serious attention. Under the lights, you can see the scratches and swirls that were in the paint before we worked on it:





The car already felt much better after I washed and clayed it - the paint must have picked up a lot of contaminants in its travels.

Taped up and ready to be polished:





Compounding and polishing my car...



...With some help from my lovely assistant, Shockwave:



A few coats of wax:



...And the finished result!



(Of course, it did not stop raining for days after we finished detailing it. )



I didn't take out all of the scratches and imperfections by any means as I didn't want to risk burning through the paint, but it's looking a lot shinier and the paint feels much smoother than before.

We ordered a new trunk seal for the hatch. It was a bit too big and had to be trimmed to fit, but fits perfectly now. The biggest pain was prying out the old one that was dried out and shrunken.



When I got the car, the passenger's side door trim was broken - part of it had ripped off. Before installing the new trim piece that we ordered, I treated the newly exposed spots of surface rust with rust converter / metal prep:



...Painted the drip rail with POR-15 (which will be hidden under the new trim piece):



...And replaced the missing clips:



New trim piece installed! :)





I still have to source a timing belt for the touring, which our parts guy told me is NLA from the dealer (guess that means I *have* to do an engine swap now, haha). The car was well maintained by the PO, but I can't tell from the German service records when the timing belt is due to be changed.

We're also taking the touring to get some minor paint work and paintless dent repair done next week. Can't wait to see it when it's done! :)

[Julien]

tl/dr.. congrats!
If you haven't already noticed it the timing belt intervals on m40b18s is very short, something like 40-50k KMs. It is an interference motor, so keep it changed. IIRC these motors love to eat camshafts, so keep an eye out for that too. Even though it was underpowered, I liked my m40 powered 318iC!

[D.Martijn]

Great update! I love the color, looks great after you polished it.
I was wondering, the left seal on my touring hatch isn't seated properly, I tried pushing it in but it's not budging. Any idea how this seal can be reinstalled?