Euro 316i and unknown BMW history!

[Andrew325is]

Those wheels look great.

[2mAn]

Buy a tach, have it shipped to me and I will deliver it for you haha

[pipeuy]

Finally some good progress.

Got the wheels back from the body shop. They were painted in Bmw 144 (Felgensilber).





Then they were mounted with Toyo Tm1 (there weren’t too many options in 205/55/15)



Swapped steering wheels with the Italvolanti, driving position was much improved with the steering wheel being closer to the seat.



A friend, Gonza, helped me adjust both doors and bumpers.



And finally Gonza polished the entire car and we applied AMMO Reflex to give it some protection and improve the overall finish.

[notanawdix80]

Muy buen proyecto Pipe!

[pipeuy]

Finally the headliner is complete and the OEM carpet was cleaned as thoroughly as possible. Should be able to reassemble it in a couple of weeks since I'm in a little vacation.

[parkerbink]

Great work & story. Thanks.

[pipeuy]

Following the complete paint job I had to restore some of the black plastics. Once I found a DIY here on R3V so I used that method.

https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=313368

Before.













And after. (Side moldings also were restored, which turned out really nice, but not pictured)














Next something had to be done with the fog lights, they are OEM so I tried to keep them instead of buying new ones.
A few months ago I bought a set of new glasses (not OEM of course) but the had a pretty good fit and finish so I went ahead and swapped them.



After. (Not quite the same grey paint but it shouldn’t be noticeable once they’re installed in the car)



And a side to side.




Finally the car is out of the bodyshop and currently is at the upholstery shop getting a new black headliner.
Some pictures of the completed sunroof tray swap.









Lastly, the car, for the first time in 7 months, out the body shop. It needs a final polish and probably re-aligning the doors and trunk but I’m really happy with how it turned out.

[pipeuy]

Very Cool! Never knew about the assembly process either, interesting!..

Im travelling to Uruguay in February/ March, not sure how much free time I will have but we will be in Montevideo. Doing some Business School trip thing

Thanks! Let me know when you're coming and we can meet and perhaps have some Uruguayan asado (similar to a barbecue but MUCH BETTER). Hopefully the E30 will be done by that time and we'll be probably working on manual swapping the E34.

[2mAn]

Very Cool! Never knew about the assembly process either, interesting!..

Im travelling to Uruguay in February/ March, not sure how much free time I will have but we will be in Montevideo. Doing some Business School trip thing

[pipeuy]

A few weeks ago it was time to test the sunroof and to my surprise, after getting a new used sunroof panel, the sunroof panel was rubbing against the roof skin. After assembling it a couple of times it was clear that the sunroof tray or cassette was repaired badly by a previous owner and it was sloping upwards in the final part.




(A window was made to investigate possible solutions)

Together with the bodyshop some ideas were tossed around:
Fixing the original sunroof tray (risk of not working out or having rust issued down the line)
Swapping the roof skin for a slick top one (couldn’t find one and they’re NLA)
Swapping in a new sunroof tray (NLA)

And finally, getting a good used roof and removing the good tray to be swapped to my car.





The E30 without the sunroof tray.





Sunroof tray removed from the donor roof.



Now in the car.



And finally, testing the sunroof.



Luckily the bodyshop did a fantastic job and everything lines up and works perfectly. There're still a couple things left to do with the roof but they're mostly cosmetic.

Next step is getting some of the panels repainted and hopefully done in a couple of weeks.

[pipeuy]

Looks like a good car to start with. FYI, your English is actually quite good. Wouldn't have guessed you aren't a native speaker.

Thanks!

Interesting story, I wouldn't have guessed they were being disassembled prior to delivery anywhere in the world.

They weren't disassembled prior to delivery, they were assembled here in Uruguay for the first time. Many parts were manufactured here (glass, upholstery, floor carpet, etc). It's quite crazy once you think about it, a big car manufacturer allowing a random guy in Uruguay to build their cars. Bmw used to send their quality control guys regularly to make sure they were up to standards but of course there were key differences.

[jpod999]

Interesting story, I wouldn't have guessed they were being disassembled prior to delivery anywhere in the world.

[rturbo 930]

Looks like a good car to start with. FYI, your English is actually quite good. Wouldn't have guessed you aren't a native speaker.

[pipeuy]

Awesome progress man, thanks for the share! Interesting info about how they had to be assembled by hand in Uruguay, even crazier that the colors aren't exact spec to BMW colors.

Thanks!

Great story about e30s in Uruguay, I had no idea! How is the 80s/90s euro car scene there in general, are parts pretty easy to find?

Thanks! It's quite interesting and not a lot of people outside Uruguay know about it. I'll try to find and post the pictures of the factory where they (Camur S.A) assembled them.

In those years not many models were imported to Uruguay so there isn't a crazy amount of "rare" or even interesting cars from that age. Bmw, Mercedes Benz and VW parts are readily available since those were very popular back in the day. The most popular cars from the 80s and 90s are Bmw 3 series, Escorts MK2 and VW Gol.

[Julien]

Great story about e30s in Uruguay, I had no idea! How is the 80s/90s euro car scene there in general, are parts pretty easy to find?