Two New to me E30s 325ES and 325?

[logicalx]

I have been shuffling some cars around today, First I traded an old 535i for an 87 325? with 149k and bought a 86 325es with 117k right afterwards. The 86 325es has some BBS 15" weaves and lowering springs of some type. It looks to have seen its fair share of abuse but I haven found nothing too severe as of yet. The 87 325?.... When the guy told be about this one I expected to find a typical 87 325e but it ended up being a little bit different when I got there. The car is a face lift model with sport leather, sport steering wheel, 3:73LSD and basically everything else found on an "IS" . The only thing different from an "IS" was the lack of the trunk lip spoiler. It has a sticker from what looks like some type of exporter under the rear drivers tail light. Also I haven't seen too many 87 Face lift models, I checked the production date and it was a late in the year 87 model so that may explain the face lift portion. The Bronzit car is nearly rust free and has an overall straight body so I hope it will turn into a good project car. I bought the 325es for the wheels, springs, and short shifter for the most part. My brain has been hurting with all the new things to play around with. I threw on some old chrome TSW's that I had lying around which aren't really my thing but they look better than the over sized mismatched white walls that was on it to start with. I plan on swapping the weaves to it as soon as I can figure out a way to get the wheel locks off. I am going to give the thing a good pressure washing tomorrow and hopefully get the thing cleaned up a bit.

[Apex381]

Those 15 inch weaves are a sweet find!

[JasonC]

The bronzit "87" is clearly an 88 with a 85 and back front valance and front bumper trim.

[E30 Wagen]

Perhaps the bronzit is a super eta? The bumpers look messed up, but the big give-away should be the presence of a 6k rpm tach.

[logicalx]

The guy with the red car didn't really know anything about the wheels that were on it. He just thought they were the plain factory wheels that came on the car. I actually called him back after looking at the car see if he would trade me the wheels off of it but he offered the whole car for half his asking price so I decided to get it. I have a suspicion that the bronzit car may have had 14 weaves on it as well but the guy may have swapped them with the wheels from an old 318 that he had, not to mention that somebody "stole" the catalytic converter off the car. The front end has suffered a little damage and it looks like they replaced it with whatever they could find. I'm going to pull all of that off and try to get it looking somewhat normal. Luckily I have basically everything that it needs excluding the correct valance. I have parted out many E30s so I have shelves full of stuff ready to replace anything it needs. There is no damage on the actual car so it shouldn't be too hard to correct. I am going to try to get the weaves off today but its going to take a little creativity to find a a way to get the wheel locks off.

When I saw it I was positive that it was an 88 and the guy just didn't know the difference but the title does say 87 and all the vins match up. I'm guessing that maybe the car was mis-titled at some point in its life to make it an 87.

[nosignal]

Is that red one from up in NY somewhere? I was going to pick it up but just couldn't find time to make the 12 hour round trip...if so you got a sweet deal!

[logicalx]

The 325es came from a place called Spencer WV, its about 40 miles from where I live. Overall I may have 350.00 in each car after the math is done. I have been looking for a good project car so I decided to get them both home and see what I had to work with. I fixed the door hinge on the bronzit car today which helped it out a lot, the previous repair job made the car look like it was bent in half. I really hope I can bring this car back to life a bit. It has its share of "old timer repairs" for lack of a better term. Things like screws where there shouldn't be screws, truck bedliner coating on the dash, hard wired radio, and a small bolt where the door hinge pin should have been amongst other things. One of the dumbest I found was the fact that the floor mat was actually glued to the floor with clear silicone, the worst part being the carpet was in good shape to start with. The silicone stuck to it is much worse than a little bit of dirt in my opinion. I plan on pulling all the front bumper stuff today to see what I have to work with on the front end. After a pressure washing and matching wheels the car looks much more like a car than it did to begin with.

[E30_fiend]

Sweet find bro.

I wish I could come up on something like that.

I'm in the market now so we'll see if I can find something like that!! Haha


E30Fiend

[logicalx]

It's a rarity that I find cars with interesting parts in my area. I have been checking out the 325es a little bit more and found that it looks to have Ireland engineering springs in the front, bilsteins shocks and struts, and a short shifter. I am in the process of working on the front end of the bronzit car and seeing what I can do with it. The previous owner had repaired the car with parts from an 84 or 85 318 and really didn't do a very good job. The only real damage that I need to fix is a smashed bumper shock mount. I heated it up and bent it out as close as possible but still need to do some work on it. I'm going to fix it the way it should have been done once I can find a correct valance for the car. I have lined up a plastic bumper for the rear but still need to find one for the front. If anybody has any experience with repairing the bumper shock mount I would love to hear some tips. I may cut the very end of the rail from another car and weld on, or maybe fabricate the part if possible. I'm working on some more pics at the moment.