Roxy, the not project project 318is!

[Holland]

Well, time to finally make a thread for this one. I bought this back on New Year's day 2026. Car is a 1991 318is that has been on and off this forum throughout the years. Car used to go by Roxy so we will keep that name. She's a 318is NON slicktop, meaning hole in the roof so nothing sacred. Car has a history on here, and has even gone through the Guten treatment probably 15 or more years ago, I know the thread is on here somewhere. Bought the car from a friend of an OG on here, who definitely knows more history on the car than I do. It was not cheap but what E30 is anymore. Car is definitely a driver as far as condition, she has many blemishes, but Since I started here in 08 the dream has always been a late model on BBS and MHW lights, this car has pretty much everything I want on it out of the box so no need to do crazy mods, just little quality of life things to make it a better car. I'll update the thread as go but will start with the intro and update what I have done on it up to this point.



These are from the day I brought the car home. E46 M3 is my daily and the other car is the 85 318i that is in the middle of an S50 swap and non running project that will eventually get progress again. Before I bought the car, I was chatting with my friend about how funny it would be if I bought the car because I would have two Diamond Schwarz E30 coupes, one late and one early. That's how I met your mother kids... lol. Oddly I've always wanted a late model and was looking to replace the M3 with something else before I bought this, another E30 is something I wanted but was not on my radar.

[Holland]

First thing I did after buying the car was get a new key, and replace the black kidney grilles. I know that's a contested take on here, but black kidney's do indeed suck. bUt THere'S nO ChOME On ThE cAr!!! Well the headlights would tell you otherwise and I would rather my car not look like a Mk2 VW...



Much better... And that's when I learned how much the front right corner met some form of impact at some point. The valance is tweaked enough that that grille took entirely too much time to fit correctly and I ended up breaking one of the tabs on a brand new OE kidney... Wha should have been a 5 minute job became a few hours of tweaking.



Still, much better.

[DEV0 E30]

Heck yes. I already told you but this car went to the best home it possibly could have.

[Il Duce]

Looks great! Love the dual diamantschwarz garage. I'm with you on the chrome kidneys - funny because the first 2 things I did when I bought my 318is was buy a light up key from the dealer, and replace the black kidneys for chrome ones.

[Holland]

Next order of business was fixing the gauge cluster. Odo gears were broken, and technically TMU, but I ended up doing a guesstimate when I registered the car and updated the odometer accordingly.



Cluster was redone at some point, needles got painted the wrong shade of red, impossible to see them during the day. Much too dark of a shade. I ended up hand painting them with Testors fluorescent orange, preferred orange needles anyway. Did a little sand to make them smooth. ALSO, turning 10k miles by hand took years off my life I feel like. Odo broke at 145k.


Some prefer the chrome rings, too tacky for me. Prefer the all satin look with orange needles, so went with it. No ragrets. Odo works perfect now too. Did not take photos, but replaced the broken gears and left the pain in the ass pressed in gear since it was not broken. Will fix if it does break but not risking damage trying to replace it. I did get a new cluster glass from CA Tuned, and it is nice, but ultimately they are all a little warped so putting it in was not a un endeavor. Getting the trip odo to play nice and not catch or not spin was probably the hardest and most time consuming part of all of this, make sure everything lines up perfectly.


Bonus pic of Doggo thinking she is going for a ride, she climbed right in. Her name is Anya, she's 35lbs of pure crackhead Australian Shepherd.
Seats were custom covered by Ninestitch at some point before I bought the car.



Pic of the cluster before I bought it. Cluster needles are way too hard to see and wrong shade of red. Notice how hard it is to see the euro clock hands, they were red too. I also corrected those to orange.

[Holland]

Looks great! Love the dual diamantschwarz garage. I'm with you on the chrome kidneys - funny because the first 2 things I did when I bought my 318is was buy a light up key from the dealer, and replace the black kidneys for chrome ones.

Thanks! I have a light up key on the 85, just went for the standard key but nice to have a not worn key. fresh Chrome kidneys totally transform the car, it's not even funny.

[Holland]

Heck yes. I already told you but this car went to the best home it possibly could have.

Funnily enough, you know way more history on this car than I do so feel free to correct me if I get something wrong. I'm basically dong investigative archaeology as I own the car.

[Holland]

Little Life update since I am posting retrospectively. I had a stoke back in late February at the old age of 37. Do not recommend. I am recovering slowly but surely, very lucky the only thing that really got messed up was my sense of balance. I fight wooziness and light headedness daily, sometimes nausea, but all things considered lucky I am not paralyzed or bed ridded. Needless to say not only am I not working, but working on the car has been a very slow endeavor. Some things I did after the cluster was not only drive the car, but changed little interior bits like these lovely boots and steering wheel horn button from 7speed shop. Boots were originally going in the 85 but I want to do something a little different with it and these work perfect here. Always disliked the OEM rubber e-brake boots anyway. At this point this was before the stroke and I was takin the car to work on occasion. Posts will end up being a little out of chronological order.



For those who do not know, Pocari Sweat is a Japanese electrolyte drink akin to Gatorade except way more delicious. So now I themed the car a little and made my inner weeb happy. Something a little more charming than just a Nardi horn button.

Also also, temp gauge does not budge unless you give the dash a good tap, reman SI board might be in the cars future, SI board lights up but is pretty dim, and not always on.



I cannot for the life of me remember what the name of the fabric is right now, but one of my favorite patterns even if not period correct.



For funsies, the 85 has H&R race and the 91 has H&R sports if you want a height comparison.

[2mAn]

Dang, a stroke in your 30s!... take care of yourself... I had Shingles at 43 which also sucked!

[Holland]

Dang, a stroke in your 30s!... take care of yourself... I had Shingles at 43 which also sucked!

Bummer! Hopefully all is well now. This was not on my 2026 bingo card and we found out my wife was like 5 weeks pregnant after my stroke so life has been super interesting now.

[Holland]

The biggest thing on this car so far was to get the AC running. It technically did when I got the car but had a little mishap when aligning the hood better. Car only had the R134a adapters on it and when the hood came down the hinge caught under it. I go to open the hood back up with resistance and when I pull? HIss... Yep tore the fitting and put a hole in the line. I ended up buying a new OEM R134a line that puts the port at a much safer location. Someone's solution to this was originally to not fully bolt the hood support arm in so it would clear the adapter. Well I was not about to just change the line and recharge, so AC rebuild time. I live in the Phoenix area and with summers hitting 120, and having a prior stroke, windows down only was not an option. I sold the M3 so aside from the wife's car this is my only running car and the plan is to let her drive it on occasion too, so AC is a must here.

I should have took more pictures, but did not at the time. Bought everything AC solutions had for an M42 car, so everything was new except for the compressor lines and the compressor itself...





They forgot the Spal fan in the original shipment but I ended up getting that too. Keep in ming at this point it is April going into May, it's getting hot, and I am very limited due to my health with how much physical work I can do. I am mostly stuck at home currently and while I can drive, I cannot go far before my neck or head decide they are not happy. Needless to say, what would take someone a few days has taken me a couple months. I did follow the thread on here for rebuilding the AC and I do recommend it. AC solutions have writeups as well. Once again however, this was an adventure I am going into self taught, and once again, working on cars means choose your own adventure!

[Holland]

Here begins the AC saga. Here's the culprit in question and the new AC line:



First fix to clear the hood, space the hinge so it does not contact. Someone had backed the nut off since it was a locking nut and not use a spacer or washer so the hinge would clear. At this point line is cooked, so it needed to be replaced. I was not about to replace it with the same line so...



Turns out on the later R134 model cars they offered this little beauty. Fitting is already R134a and it relocates it out of the way of the hood hinge.



Fixed the hinge mounting as well since it is now a non issue. Ignore the new hardware on the new drier, took this for reference. At this point it was time to tackle the rest of the system. I started at the nose of the car and managed to get the condenser and fan out by separating them and backing the radiator out and leaving the front end on the car aside from the grilles.



Cutting this to get the fitting loose was very much necessary. I had to re-use the line going to it and this thing was junk at this point anyhow. Foreshadowing here, but nobody ever touched what is now an original 35 year old system and this car was from the east coast. As someone from the southwest, rusty and corroded hardware sucks and is not the norm here. Condenser fan was cut out as well. Installed the new Spal stuffs, fan is wired to the factory resistor.



Took the grille off just now to get this shot, lol. I am not good at documenting my adventures.

[Holland]

Now that we got the condenser done, I decided to remove and clean the compressor lines. This is where the ole one bolt away from a 5 minute job turning into a 5 hour job, except it was actually a couple of days.



Coil was in the way directly, and this step allen bolt was very stuck and was already stripping... After many attempts and extractors, tapering the shoulders of the bolt with a file and dremel and a rounded bolt extractor I managed to break this beezy loose. So new hardware is in order.



Gave the lines a clean with AC flush and a rattle can resto since the finish was fubar. The amount of gross brown was rather questionable so at this point, what was an original intention to clean and reuse the compressor turned into looking for a new and or reman compressor...



THIS! Is not the correct compressor for this car. The correct compressor for this car is not made anymore, but the compressor on this car is so cooked that I cannot reuse it anymore. Through some light E-sleuthing I found that this is also a Denso 10PA17C by design, but for a different car. You see an incorrect compressor. I see a new clutch, new coil, and new compressor body I can use in my car. Swap the pulley and bearing and have a new compressor. Connector is the same, shape is the same, mounts look the same, line manifold looks the same. Should be a slam dunk right?





This is the clutch and pulley off the original, fished straight out of the Atlantic. Game plan is to press the bearing outof the new and old pulleys, add the new bearing to the old pulley after a rattle can resto, reinstall, and we are gucci. This did not end up happening quite like that...

[Holland]

To condense the story a bit, I ended up having to get a new bearing since I do not have the correct tools (a press) to extract the bearing from the new compressor (BFH and 22mm socket) which destroyed the bearing seal. What I do have is a harbor freight special wheel bearing kit which was amazing for install, so the new bearing went in well. I go to start re-assembly and I learn real quick that although the mounts appear identical, not only are they wider than the original (no problem) the spacing on them is just slightly different (problem). I already made sure the bearings and shaft were all the same, and they were, so no issues there. Okay, so simple. Design is slightly different, but if I re-use the original casing, I can still have 3 useable mounts and have a new compressor.



Took a minute to get some aluminum paint since actually leaving the house is now a challenge, but turned out good after some hammer masking. Looking at the rear case there is only one mount, as the bottom mount is actually part of the middle casing. The aftermarket compressor has the mounts on the case end top and bottom. 3/4 mounts is good enough for me except... After I get it together turns out that the line manifold is actually too wide for the one from the car, despite looking identical online. Why would you make it look the same but actually make it different, almost like it was made for a different car.



This is foreshadowing. I get the thing together and now at the finish line the top part now won't fit. Fine, I'll just use the case from my old one and swap the guts over, I already took the original compressor apart anyhow.





These are the guts of the original compressor. My workbench and garage are a disaster because I work in chaos. Turns out this thing is a 5 shot revolver with 10 bores and 10 half bearings riding on what I describe as something like an eccentric shaft (not the real technical term) caked in a rusty pag oil bukkake. The amount of worn material inside the casing of this thing is alarming. No way I want to reuse these if possible, last thing I need are contaminants in the new system. All the bearings seem fine but not risking it.

[Holland]

At this point, I am now doing my own reman compressor. I need to use the casing from my original compressor, the bores are very much worse for wear but options aren't options at this point. This compressor has 4 case pieces. The two middle parts are made as one piece with the bores. These guys have scoring. So I'm here thinking I can use the old one with the integrated manifold and use the new one for the other half since the bores are fresh and new. Well... after I take this entire thing apart because this is an aftermarket rendition of Denso's finest, they had to copy the homework but change them enough so the locating dowels only on the middle sections, not the ends, are different. I cannot use any part of the case on the new compressor.





Away I go to clean the case. So many nooks and crannies this thing took ages to clean up. Final clean with AC flush and I also took a fine scotchbrite to ghetto hone the aluminum bores. The pistons on this thing do not have rings or anything of the sort, just a tight fit which is something that I will grow to despise later.



You can see the bore score, worse than cold climate 997, this is after my little hone job, still a little tarnish but miles better



This is the manifold mount in question, there are bores in this casing and the one this one mates to. There are a couple grooves so I am worried this thing will make any kind of compression. Zero options at this point except to carry on. Sunk cost fallacy is more than real at this point, and who does this anyway?