Euro 316i and unknown BMW history!

[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?

[KIRIEIW]

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.

[pipeuy]

Hey all,

I’ve been on this site for a number of years but I never got to post about any of my cars. So far I’m on my fourth E30, every single one of them has been a late model coupe but with a few different engines.

As a side story, I’m from Uruguay (SORRY FOR MY BAD ENGLISH!) and on the 70s through the 90s the Uruguayan BMW importer was able to assemble some BMW models here in Uruguay. The cars were bought from Germany as “Kits”, meaning the engine came assembled but everything else came in parts (even the body!), and they were built here in Uruguay. This was a maneuver to lower the cars prices by lowering how much tax they had to pay since they had a certain percentage of Uruguayan labour. Some of the models that were assembled here are: Isettas, 700, 2002, 1600-2, 520 E12, 320 E21, 520i and 524 E28, 320i (2 and 4 door) 325i E30 (only 2 door) 324 (4 door) and 320i 325i E36. Every car that was assembled here is an Euro spec car and doesn’t have a VIN, so it’s an easy tell tell.

Having said that, most of the cars that were build here have more rust issues than the imported ones, so you’ll see a trend in my cars.

First one was a 1988 316i which had a M10b18 engine with L-Jetronic in Zinnoberrot. Had this one for about 2 years.





Next, I bought a 1989 325i in something similar to Diamond Schwartz. This had a couple of rust spots having been assembled here but I needed a 6 cylinder car. Also had this one for about 2 years.







Next, a friend offered his 1989 325i in something similar to Zinnoberrot (cars here weren’t painted exactly by BMW color codes). This only lasted an year a half since a friend of mine insisted on buying it.













Finally, a couple months ago I found a really clean and straight 1990 316i in Alpine White 2 with the mighty M40b16 engine.. Luckily it’s a manual which might come into play in the future. It was originally sold in Switzerland and later imported to Uruguay.
Future plans for it are to swap a S54 or M52B28 into it, upgrade the brakes using RX-7 front calipers and swapping the rear drums to discs and going to refresh the suspension with new rubber and H&R Sport springs with Koni adjustable shocks. Keep in mind this build will be quite slow since I’m a student and we have crazy taxes in Uruguay making cars and parts very expensive.

The day I received it.







After cleaning it for 4 hours..














Not even a month after I bought I tore most of it apart so it can go to the bodyshop. The sunroof cassette hid a couple of rust spots and some minor spots on the floor but most of the car is in very good shape.


























Left it at the bodyshop!




These are going in the car later on.



Going to try to achieve something like this.





5 Euroweaves (thanks to Sskoda!)




The bodyshop tackled the sunroof cassette first.





Then the floor.



After that a very minor fender bender.







They are trying to use the least amount of filler they possibly can.





And finally the latest pictures.