A well travelled e30 - Cali to London. 84 coupe

[luckybk]

What a killer story! Congrats on the new house!

[benwalsh91]

2020 is the year!

Well 2020 definitely wasn’t the year!

[2mAn]

Well 2020 definitely wasn’t the year!

You were HOME the entire YEAR!! ... thats on you mate

[benwalsh91]

You were HOME the entire YEAR!! ... thats on you mate

haha yeah but i lost my job, so i was at home but was struggling to pay for said home.

But thankfully i am now back into a good job and the world is looking better for me and nicholl so time to get ourselves back to being comfortable and then i can start collecting car parts to get some progress done, i have been getting some big bits done, maybe i will update you with some photos or maybe i will make you wait.

i have the garage all set up and how i want it for now, i have got a rotisserie for the car to go on, over the next few weeks i am going to find the time to get mounts fabbed up for the rotisserie, if anyone has any suggestions i will appreciate, i was considering using the existing bumper shock mounts to mount the rotisserie to?

[moatilliatta]

Glad you made it though were able to keep the house and the E30! Definitely can't wait for progress and whats next.

[benwalsh91]

So, where was i on the story.

We moved into our house back in February 2020.

and then the world went to shit in March/April 2020...

As i previously mentioned i lost my job not too long after and money was tight to say the least.

I done what i could to keep myself busy and ocupied whilst working another job but on minimum wage, i had to work as many hours as possible to just to make it on my bills, unfortunately no funds left over for e30 stuff but once again it took a backburner as there was more important things to be dealing with.

i got into the garage and had some cleaning to do and painting of the back wall prior to the e30 turning up.

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

and trying to figure out a plan for the layout of things, working on a budget as this is my first garage and my first place i had to start from scratch on tools and, well, everything.

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and the e30 finally got delivered

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

i painted half of the back wall and hung the plates up, i previously mentioned i was getting a plate from every state that i had visited on our trip, and they are up in order of how we visited them. great times.

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

and the current set up of how the workshop side of the garage now looks.

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

[benwalsh91]

given that the garage is rather tight i wanted to get some dollies to put the car on so i could easily move it around the garage.

i didnt want to spend over £100 on them so i decided to just make my own (back when lumber was cheap)

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

and weirdly this is the only finished photo i have of them in use.

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

i then rotated the old girl into the centre and proceeded with stripping it down.

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

and started playing around with the camera a little more.

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

[benwalsh91]

the lockdown lightened up a little over here and although things where tight we managed to get a little saved up so we went to italy for a week around my birthday.

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damn, im a lucky guy.

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upon our arrival back to the uk we decided our family was missing something, so i would like to welcome the newest member of the Walsh family, Lilah, our border collie puppy.

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i also decided to create a youtube channel, but i wouldnt recommend watching it, its boring and i am very bad at it.

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and the strip down continues

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

things got sketchy

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how many steps do you need to take backwards before you can start moving forward?

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

[2mAn]

Your garage looks a lot better than mine, I should really do something about it...

Whats the channel? Some of us also have boring YouTube channels, it is a nice contrast to the exciting ones with all the clickbait.

Keep the progress going, all too often a car gets torn down quickly and then takes forever to build back up. Id recommend getting a whiteboard for the garage to make a list and stare at when you're chillin in there

[benwalsh91]

Your garage looks a lot better than mine, I should really do something about it...

Whats the channel? Some of us also have boring YouTube channels, it is a nice contrast to the exciting ones with all the clickbait.

Keep the progress going, all too often a car gets torn down quickly and then takes forever to build back up. Id recommend getting a whiteboard for the garage to make a list and stare at when you're chillin in there

haha alrigtht, the channel is just benwalsh91 should hopefully find me. but its not very good but i am trying to be more confident with it.

https://youtu.be/6d257PoL2LM

let me know if the link works

yeah ive got an armchair in there now and i have been considering getting a whiteboard, i have plan in my head on how i am attacking everything and have broken it down into sections. there is some sort of method to my madness.

[benwalsh91]

So, BMW contacted me as they wanted to run a story on me about my trip, i got 10 page feature in the straight six magazine, was pretty damn cool!!

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once the car was stripped i put it back on the dollies and pushed it back over in the corner waiting for the next stage.

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

i have also since purchased a new daily driver.

enter e46 320 diesel. coupe, black and factory sport. 6 speed manual and black heated leather interior. the car is returning over 40mpg and i am pretty happy with it for now.

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

[benwalsh91]

i noticed that my front subframe had a snapped arb mounting plate.

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so i welded in a new one along with a full reinforcement kit.

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i have a kit to do the rear too, this is my first go with a welder and its not the prettiest but its honest work, i then coated it all in etch primer as it was going to sit for a bit before everything went to powdercoat.

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two year old us fuel that was sitting in the fuel tank of the e30

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when i was pouring this out the fuel tank my neighbour decided to take this moment to come over and have a chat to me (whilst he was smoking)

Now that the car is pretty much fully stripped down the next job is to get it onto the rotisserie, i am in the process of figuring out mounting it to the car itself, i am thinking of using the bumper mounting points.

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

and here i have the tools to strip the underside down to metal and then i can put on the primer, black schultz and then paint. and we can start making the e30 great again.

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oh, also, have this.

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

Untitled by ben walsh, on Flickr

[benwalsh91]

this brings the story up to date!!

[mike.bmw]

AWESOME updates! I was just wondering about this car a few weeks ago and BAM - thread updated! :-)

[QuiqueUy]

what wheels are those? really like them !