1991 318i sedan project - Saving a sedan!

[freeride53]

this car is pretty win.

[s_ribs]

Oh, and a fun little side project I've been working on:


Gotta do what you can do in an apartment!

[s_ribs]

Mini update before I head off to class...

I was fairly set on selling this car a month ago. But after putting some time into it I'm set on keeping it.

A few weeks ago I replaced the open 4.10 with a 3.73 LSD - much improved driving manners for a DD. Not sure it's really best all around though, but it is staying and I do prefer it for my needs.

Teaser pic:


Just placed another big order to a few different places. Will finally have all the clips etc. to put all the trim back on soon!

At this point I've put almost 5k miles on the car and it's been pretty good. Slowly sorting out small details week by week now that the weather is getting nicer.

Biggest improvement was replacing the completely blown rear shocks. Curt and I test drove it after and had never experienced rear shocks making such a dramatic improvement.

Oops, better get this fixed asap!



One of those days when you're glad to be a car guy. Haven't felt, heard, or had anything to clue me in to this - just happened to be glancing around and noticed the crack. Spare sub frame is off being reinforced right now and will go in later this week.

New gaskets are on the way as well.

POS Alpine deck is now replaced:


Replaced it with a Kenwood KDC-X794 from crutchfield. Just put it in last night so I have no major input on it yet. I will say that it looks fantastic though and the controls seem MUCH improved in the Kenwood line (I hated them with a passion previously).

Upcoming project:



Never been happy with how these speakers sounded, especially with how much everyone raves about them. Learned that this location is particularly terrible on E30's so I will be moving them to the door panels soon. Even sealing them with the sound deadening did very little to improve them.

Other stereo bits, pulled the sub a few weeks ago and I'm back and forth on what to do with it. At this point I plan on building up the main speakers and going from there. I was quite pleased at how much better things sounded after adding the factory rear speakers back in. Especially after turning up the power to the PG components.

[harv]

Where can I see pictures of your 2002?

John

[Jesse30]

i need a garage to tear into my 318i like this in.. :(

awesome thread

[s_ribs]

Yup, I dig it! Btw, I need your expertise on converting the one self-adjusting adjuster to a standard one. Or how to make it manually adjustable - whatever.

[Van Westervelt]

Mmmmmm, I like the way that spray came out. I want to see how it holds up, and then I have an idear. :)

[s_ribs]

Ok one more. I took the basket weave wheels off my '84 and redid them in gold. Since the Falken's were 195/60-14 I needed to get the proper sidewall ratio and went with some 205/60-14 BFG's. Definitely love these new tires.





Half cleaned...



Inner barrel painted, cleaned, dirty...:





Spokes in gold:



Finished inner/outer:

[s_ribs]

Wow, sorry guys. I completely forgot about this thread. School's busy this term but I'll see if I can fit in some picture uploading soon.

In the mean time, I finally started on refinishing my Euro headlights! I think I needed to not even think about cars for a while after I got this car on the road - I'm ready to do a little work finally.

Tear down:








Smoking the low beams:





Frenching the lenses:



I used a satin black high temp paint, and Krylon yellow stained glass spray paint on the INNER lens. The hope is that by making the inside of the lense yellow it will be a better, more permanent solution than simply adding yellow lamin-x. Besides, it looks like it came from the factory this way! Hope it holds up ok.

And yes, I intentionally left the city light portion unpainted. I always try to do things slightly different and I haven't seen any Euro lights done like this. Plus, this car is already stupid dark - even with gold wheels now - so can't have too much black.

[Simon S]

Don't know how I missed this thread.
You've brought that car a long way !

Can't get over how clean that transmission came out.. wow.
Kudos.

[Van Westervelt]

He is dailying it now! lol

[e30maniac]

still waiting:(

[Schnitzer318is]

Waiting for pics...

[808AWD325xi]

Awesome thread Ribs...wish I had found it sooner.

Did you finish it? Is it back on the road?

[s_ribs]

Stumbling fixed! The battery was very low on charge last night and I had to jump start the car. After charging all morning I decided to try driving it again. Fixed! It's amazing what a bad battery will do to your car. Engine runs very strong and I'm quite pleased with it. Now I have to get the valance and bumpers on so I can 'legally' drive it past my neighborhood.