Hey everyone, first time poster here. Been reading up and following threads for a while, very appreciative of all the knowledge shared here.
My buddy in CA called me in the late spring of this year and said he had a line on a car I might be interested in. I had a '67 1600-2 until very recently, and was looking to get into an e30 or an e28, something a bit more modern that I could take on longer trips, but was still light and handled well. I also don't mind getting my hands dirty. The backstory is that my friend's boss bought this 325i in '94 in AZ from the original owner, drove it regularly for years (it has 235k on the odo), let it go to his ex wife in the divorce, and she gave it back to him a few years ago because she was no longer using it. He has a bunch of cars, so it had just been sitting for years, and apparently there was some less than amazing work done by the ex's new guy. My buddy's boss started up and moved it around occasionally, but that's about it. Last reg sticker on the CA plates is from 2014. Tires date to 2013.
My friend sent some pics and I was like holy &#@! No rust! And it runs! He sent over several more pics and we did a facetime walkaround video and I was sold. Granted, it is an automatic, but in the midwest, if you see something this old with no rust, doing a 5-speed swap is a walk in the park compared to what our native e30s look like, if you even see them at all. I had it shipped from the Oakland area to Chicago and the car arrived in early July, but I had a few other projects on deck, so progress was slow, but still steady.
As far as I knew, the timing belt was from 2011 when the top end was redone, so I took care of that and the tensioner, water pump, t-stat, hoses, drive belts, etc. Also did basic tune-up stuff, plugs, cap, rotor, air filter, fuel filter.
Once I could finally drive her (yeah, all this stuff and had only driven her about 2 miles from where the shipper wanted to meet), I was hooked. I had been in a few e30s years ago, but never drove one. I get it now.
There were a few problems that caught my attention right away, though. The brakes were not good, weak and pulling hard to the left under braking, and the steering wasn't re-centering after making a turn. Yay.
Enough rambling for now, though. Here are a couple of pics.
My buddy in CA called me in the late spring of this year and said he had a line on a car I might be interested in. I had a '67 1600-2 until very recently, and was looking to get into an e30 or an e28, something a bit more modern that I could take on longer trips, but was still light and handled well. I also don't mind getting my hands dirty. The backstory is that my friend's boss bought this 325i in '94 in AZ from the original owner, drove it regularly for years (it has 235k on the odo), let it go to his ex wife in the divorce, and she gave it back to him a few years ago because she was no longer using it. He has a bunch of cars, so it had just been sitting for years, and apparently there was some less than amazing work done by the ex's new guy. My buddy's boss started up and moved it around occasionally, but that's about it. Last reg sticker on the CA plates is from 2014. Tires date to 2013.
My friend sent some pics and I was like holy &#@! No rust! And it runs! He sent over several more pics and we did a facetime walkaround video and I was sold. Granted, it is an automatic, but in the midwest, if you see something this old with no rust, doing a 5-speed swap is a walk in the park compared to what our native e30s look like, if you even see them at all. I had it shipped from the Oakland area to Chicago and the car arrived in early July, but I had a few other projects on deck, so progress was slow, but still steady.
As far as I knew, the timing belt was from 2011 when the top end was redone, so I took care of that and the tensioner, water pump, t-stat, hoses, drive belts, etc. Also did basic tune-up stuff, plugs, cap, rotor, air filter, fuel filter.
Once I could finally drive her (yeah, all this stuff and had only driven her about 2 miles from where the shipper wanted to meet), I was hooked. I had been in a few e30s years ago, but never drove one. I get it now.
There were a few problems that caught my attention right away, though. The brakes were not good, weak and pulling hard to the left under braking, and the steering wasn't re-centering after making a turn. Yay.
Enough rambling for now, though. Here are a couple of pics.
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