noe30's 89 325i build

[noE30]

clean ass paint

look into meg's for wax though, they have some amazing stuff for black paint

Thanks, It really does need a paint job though. I've got oxidation on the roof, peeling clear coat, tons of chips and scratches, and the trunk has a shity repaint on it you can see where they tried to blend the paint. Hopefully I can get a paint job next year.

[red325]

clean ass paint

look into meg's for wax though, they have some amazing stuff for black paint

[noE30]

For the next few months I just drove the car and enjoyed it. I didn't have any money to really get anything done hence the empty pocket build haha.
One day while in advanced auto parts I noticed a detailing product called The Black Box. It is a kit that has wax specifically for black cars, I figured I would try it out. I would definitely recommend this to anyone with a black car, I've waxed my car with normal wax before and it never looked as good as it did with this stuff.

Here you can see some of the oxidation that it removed, the passenger side had been waxed in this photo driver side had not.

And after

[noE30]

After that I took the car to my fathers shop to put it on the lift to take a good look at an oil leak and the underbody.
The underbody looks to be in pretty good if you ignore all the oil and the undercoating that has deteriorated. Next spring/ summer I plan to get all new undercoating sprayed on, rust in the midwest is a killer and I plan to keep this e30 a clean rust free e30 haha.

[noE30]

The interior was a mess. The PO had all kinds of wires running right through the interior. And there were stains in the carpet all over. So I pulled out the seats and gave it a good cleaning. I also pulled out all the speaker wire.
Before





After
(still needed some work but much better than before)


another shot for good measure

[noE30]

Thanks! When I bought the car it had 215k on it. I don't have much for records on it but the car was originally in California. Which is part of the reason it doesn't have any rust. Also the car used to be an auto and the po swapped it to 5spd, the car is also lowered on H&R Sports and Bilstien shocks, and a 4.10 lsd. Other than that it is completely stock.

[Jean]

Not bad! Miles/ records?

"I still regret not buying the AC schnitzer wheels." +1

[noE30]

This will be a build up thread showing my progress with the car.
It will be pretty slow progress considering I'm broke but I just wanted to be able to document it.
First I'll give you a little background on the car.
I bought this car in July 09 from a fellow in Denver, Co. I found the car on craigslist for $5500, I got him down to $4k and drove to Denver to pick it up.

Here are the pics from the listing.
I still regret not buying the AC schnitzer wheels.



After the 800 mile trip back to Iowa, the e30 was finally home!
First thing I did was give it a good wash so I could get a good look at it.