1991 318i in Brilliantrot

[taiwanesekid05]

Awesome turn out! Im in San Jose area, I have practically the same car as you. Picked mine up last year from someone in SoCal. Who did your bodywork and respray for you? Curious on how much that cost you. I really wanna get mine resprayed. It's so beautiful when new.

A family friend's shop in Rancho Cordova did it. They mostly do bodywork on auction cars and flip em fixing the E30 was kind of a special project. I can't quite remember how much it cost, but it was definitely on the cheap side.

these have to be totally illegal.... but I want.

I tried to order those "driving while awesome" stickers but they are sold out right now.

Can you PM the info about the plates? or post it here

pm me the info to or post it here. Super interested in the plates.

Definitely not going to argue the legality of these plates... haha but I do like em. I will admit, there are some nitpicky flaws such as the yellow color being off and "The Golden State" font isn't quite right. Beyond that, I do like these plates. I got them on eBay under the seller "license_plates_shop". The person seems to make a bunch of custom plates beyond just the Golden State ones.

[taiwanesekid05]

A bit of an update.

Went to Munich for a trip and took some time to check out the BMW Museum.



The museum was filled with a bunch of BMW history and took me about 2 or so hours to check out all the stuff. Definitely worth the 10 euro entry cost.




I also moseyed on over the BMW Welt and rented an M6 for a bit of a stint on the Autobahn. Even with my short, one hour rental, I'm now able truly understand the meaning of "autobahn tested".




While walking around Munich, I also spotted this camoe'd 3 series. I assume it's the new M3 since it's the only 3 series that seems like it would still need to be camoe'd.




I also took a trip up to Regensburg since, after looking at my E30's VIN, found out that it was built in the BMW factory there. While I was up there, I did a factory tour of the Regensburg plant.



I also took the opportunity to take my E30's original hood badge back to the factory :)





Back in the states, I decided to do something about the rear bumper trim. It appears that at some point, a bunch of the clips were broken off. So after a long drive, the bumper trim would start popping off. Not a huge problem, but it was annoying having to always push it back in.




So instead of buying a whole new trim piece, what I decided to do was 3D print some pieces of the trim and weld the plastic together to try and recreate the clip. It seems to be holding the trim piece in for now so I think this may have fixed the issue.









Also, since I'm not a huge fan of having one of the Euroweave's caps pop off and roll away and me being down $100 to replace them, I've mostly run without them. The problem with this is I hated how you could see the axle nuts/covers. So after buying about half a dozen different generic wheel caps, I finally found one that snapped in tightly. I bought some BMW stickers to slap on top of them and called it a day. Pretty decent fix I'd say. I've also cut out a little gap in the caps in case I want to pop them off and put in the original wheel caps.






I've also begun work on the sport seats so there will be an update about that soon...

[htseng]

I’ve only bought two sets of caps for the same reason without a solution. Which ones did you get?


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[freeride53]

Awesome! I’m bummed I didn’t have time to visit the Regensburg plant while I was in Bavaria, though BMW Welt was pretty cool to see.

[e30RS]

Awesome BMW museum pics! Thanks for the info on the license plate sticker through triple A, I had no idea. Love the car!

[MrAdam]

great work - - good call only painting what was necessary - Love the OEM look - sweet ride!

[taiwanesekid05]

I’ve only bought two sets of caps for the same reason without a solution. Which ones did you get?


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I bought these ones off of AliExpress:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/KOM-4pcs-64mm-wheel-center-hub-cap-universal-calota-tampa-centro-roda-car-wheel-rim-cover/32863641297.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4dgCkHu0

Below are the pictures in that link in case it goes down at some point.


I removed the metal ring that holds the clips since I found that even without the ring, it held in pretty well.



And here's the dimensions of the cap. I found that the inner diameter of the wheel was about 59mm and this cap was the only one that fit snugly enough in that hole.

[taiwanesekid05]

Finally got around to spending some of my tax return. Didn't take any pictures of the new parts, but I picked up a new power steering reservoir as well as feed and return lines as there was a noticeable leak coming from it. I also picked up a E46 ZHP steering rack from Rack Doctor.

Brought the car over to North Bay Bavarian to get all the parts installed (as well as to get the fenders rolled after a buddy of mine pulled out some of the fender while drifting at full lock...). Judging by the number of 2002s and E30s sitting around the shop, I figured it was a good shop to go to.



They got everything installed in 2 days and I picked up the car shortly after they were done. I took it for a quick spin around the neighborhood and all I can say is I'm a fan of the ZHP rack. The main thing I wanted to fix with the ZHP rack was I wanted to reduce the lock to lock and the ZHP rack does that and does it well. The turn in feels much sharper now and doesn't feel like I'm driving a bus. On the highway, I wouldn't say it's twitchy. And with the power steering, the steering is nicely weighted. Overall, I'm very happy with the E46 ZHP rack.

[mike.bmw]

Did they have to notch the firewall to install the rack?

[taiwanesekid05]

Did they have to notch the firewall to install the rack?

Not really sure. The shop didn't mention they did, but from what I've read, when doing a rack swap into an airbag equipped E30, it needs to be notched.

[mike.bmw]

Not really sure. The shop didn't mention they did, but from what I've read, when doing a rack swap into an airbag equipped E30, it needs to be notched.

Ok, thanks. I'm trying to figure out if that's still necessary for airbag cars. Per GRM, FCP Euro sells a Z3 rack swap kit for E30s. I haven't found the kit on FCP's website, but it includes some spacers and other items. Wondering if using the spacers no longer requires the firewall to be notched.

If you happen to find out whether or not your shop notched the firewall, please share!

[taiwanesekid05]

Ok, thanks. I'm trying to figure out if that's still necessary for airbag cars. Per GRM, FCP Euro sells a Z3 rack swap kit for E30s. I haven't found the kit on FCP's website, but it includes some spacers and other items. Wondering if using the spacers no longer requires the firewall to be notched.

If you happen to find out whether or not your shop notched the firewall, please share!

I emailed them and they said that they did notch the firewall and that "the early cars you have to modify the steering knuckle and the late cars you have to notch the firewall."

I did provide the shop with the steering rack spacers from Garagistic as well. So it appears that the firewall needs to be notched, even with the spacer.