Zen and the Art of e30 Maintenance

[TrentW]

Finally, someone who's even more anal than I am. Awesomeness.

You must bring your car to the Windy City BMWCCA Vintagefest next year.

[Simon S]

Well done and all, but, and pardon my saying, for someone who seems to love period correctness and OEM+ styling, the fabric of the seats (which I know was not your doing) looks very out of place with the rest of your cars perfection. Don't get me wrong, the work you're doing is incredible, but every time I come back to your thread to drool and dream and get jealous, I notice this.

You are astute. The funniest thing about those seats was that I thought they were OE upholstery for the longest time. They never offended me in a way that claimed they were custom.

It did seem uncanny that the driver’s seat didn’t look very worn..
.. and that I never saw the pattern available as a factory option material..
.. and that I never saw another picture of another e30 with that upholstery..
.. and that its rear seatbelt ‘holder pieces’ had been installed up-side-down..

In the late March of ’10, I posted in the r3vlimited rare parts thread asking: “wtf with these seats?” – and someone simply said that they had been recovered – then everything made sense.

For much of the project, my aim was to never molest the car beyond what a purist would/could want to restore it to.

After knowing what it can cost to do a proper re-cover – and after evaluating what was there – I opted to run with what was there. If they had fooled me for so long – then shit, let’s work with them.

This judgement/realization swayed me in a project/objective sense. It gave me courage to pursue customization – so long as a “it-looks-like-something-the-factory-would-have-done”.. or maybe something the factory should have done.

Thing is – no one is ever going to want to restore an e30/m42 car up to concourse condition – because it’s not worth it. What is worth it is to work with one of these cars and carve it into something better.

The trick was to strive for the balance of what’s there and what could be – without breaking the bank doing so. In case of the seats – I actually began de-clutter/harmonization changes elsewhere by working ‘from’ them – not ‘towards’ them – and couldn’t be happier for doing so.

[hi its me alec]

The seats are 100% awesome, don't ever get rid of them :)

[nespo_e30is]

I love every step of the progress and details on this M42... keep it going!

[AndrewG]

Wow, you work on your e30 just like me ;) Where in chicago are you? I'd love to see this thing sometime. If you're looking to get one of those extra maplight mirrors off your hands, just let me know. I might have some other parts you'd be interested in for trade or purchase. I've got to get things into a big pile and then have an e30 garage sale sometime...

Anyways, unless prices shot up drastically since I bought mine, I think I only spent like $30-40 on my wires and connectors for euro lights. I ordered them with CCA discount from the dealer. This older thread I found shows about what they cost me: http://r3vlimited.com/BOARD/showpost...3&postcount=44

[freeride53]

Great.

[OttoBob]

I'm very impressed with your attention to detail. Incredible work! It gives me motivation to do some nice things to both my E30s. Where did you get the cupholder section?

[Ceeker]

That is a really nice build thread. It's a pleasure to see those of us who take pride in workmanship to the degree that is probably better then factory..lol. it's a challenge to assess the budget and work without breaking the bank. I am in the process of partially restoring my 87 vert. but by no means will I be going to such great length. Cudo's to you.
So far with the purchase price and ONLY my parts/no labour I am in close to 5k. 1k for the car. But with resources such as R3v and discount parts places I think one could completely restore their car for under 10k.

half of my cost primarily involves the cost of the roof and brand new oem leather interior.

[Ceeker]

The seats are 100% awesome, don't ever get rid of them :)

I think those seats look very oem and I have to say I was fooled but later did question the pattern as I have never seen it before. Very euro. Keep them, I think it suites the uniqueness of the car...totally awesome!

[muradson]

this inspires me

[Simon S]

HST Tribute:

We had one solid, fair-mileage chassis, seventy-five million hours of internet research, five pallets of shop towels, a growing tool collection, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored detergents, penetrating oils, degreasers, solvents, lubricants.. Also, a quart of filler, a quart of hardener, several cases of beer, an air compressor, and two dozen parts-suppliers. Not that we needed it to get the car running, but once you get locked into a serious restoration project, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the budget.

Thanks again for all the complements guys.
Happy New Year !!

[DmcL]

kudos dude..

thats one serious resto. if i had a garage id probably do a bit more with my E30, no fun working outside. only trouble i think would be that if i did a long resto id probably want to buy another E30 to drive while i was working on the good one lol

[E-Thirty]

HST Tribute:

We had one solid, fair-mileage chassis, seventy-five million hours of internet research, five pallets of shop towels, a growing tool collection, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored detergents, penetrating oils, degreasers, solvents, lubricants.. Also, a quart of filler, a quart of hardener, several cases of beer, an air compressor, and two dozen parts-suppliers. Not that we needed it to get the car running, but once you get locked into a serious restoration project, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the budget.

Thanks again for all the complements guys.
Happy New Year !!

Hahaha, well done. :p

[801coppertop]

The car looks fantastic, i would love to do the whole restoration project to my car. Right now its still the dd so have to stick to small Saturday/Sunday projects. Keep up the good work. BTW was it difficult to do a non airbag conversion? I really want to do it just nervous about pesky Airbag lights etc.

[Peterkaczynski]

omg i came, great work