Charley's 325 Touring

[SpecM]

love what you're doing with it

looks sharp, I wish we got touring down here :(

[Charley]

RRRRRR. I have seen that antenna cover somewhere, in a thread about people restoring a different car that uses the same antenna.


It is somewhere out there, I promise. People have figured it out. Maybe available in chrome? and then they are painting it black? I have seen it somewhere, don't give up.

Really? please try to remember where this detail is driving me crazy

Charley,

I have the antenna complete.

What condition and how much?

love what you're doing with it

looks sharp, I wish we got touring down here :(

We don't have it either... imported from the motherland!

Should be better next year!


Charley

[Charley]

north bound... 2 big boxes high side of 190 lbs left today...:D

Thanks to Levent who found what I was looking for and helped again
by shipping it for me, this arrived this morning (e30 m3 5lug):



Plans for the 5lug are:
-Full GC coils
-Powdercoated struts/caliper/TA
-All this sitting on some 16x8.5 ACT

Unfortunately all this will have to wait till next spring because of money
and winter.

I haven't done much since the last update due to work and bad weather but I should make some good progress this week.

I did make some new reinforcement brackets for the rear sway bar since
the IE ones were welded on the TA of the long gone 318is. Still waiting
for my neighbor to have time to weld the camber/toe kit+these...



Made them with some 2"x2" steel angle I had. I think that the ones I
made are a lot better than the ones IE provides. I'll make another pair
for the 5lug when I have time.

Charley

[ZM Blue Devil]

I really like where this is going, doing it right.

[iwantspeed]

modded e30 m3 assembly's :pimp:

[YetiX]

Why do I want a wagon?? I already have four doors, I don't "need" one more but I "want" one. Badly.


Nice work Charley!

[Charley]

Time for a little update even if not much has been done since the last
one due to work and shitty weather(winter is coming fast around here).

First I replaced both gasket in the back of the 260...Both were shot
and now my transmission tunnel was coated with oil+dirt over 1/4" in
some places before I scraped it away...

Other parts to be installed or reinstalled... The main output flange seal is
missing on the pic only because I forgot to order it :roll:. Luckily, the dealer
had one in stock so 18.21$ later I finished my seal replacement.



In the Picture above you can see the "new" transmission drain plug that
replace the old one...much better now, since most of us don't have a
17mm hex key in our tool box, those new plugs make life easier(I still
had to remove the old ones using a 17mm bolt+vice grips). Then there
is the gearshift rod joint. The new one was labeled e34 when I received
it, they don't use the same clip to hold the dowel pin in but other than
that they are the same(even have a preovalized hole. will come back to
this)


I thought that removing the 30mm nut was going to be very difficult since
I don't own a air impact gun only an electric one that sucks. Well a
grinded 30mm impact socket+electric impact(with a 50' extension) did
the trick. I was impressed.

I know the tunnel is still very dirty but there is no way I'm washing this
by hand (my pressure washer to a shit and I don't have money right now
to replace it) while the car is on jack stand...

Today the mail lady came to my house with two packages with my name
on them.

One was my PS delete from Silence. Nice little blocks, I could have done
it myself for much less $ but it would have taken me a lot of time to it
since you would have to design it, source materials/tools for it and the
time to actually fabricate it. Worth it in my opinion.



The second package was from AKG. But I soon as I opened it, there was a
problem... there was no way in hell that this dssr was going to fit my brand
new rod joint. So I was like . Now is it the wrong part? here it
is pictured with the old rod joint (below). Now at first I was like is it one of those
euro parts that dont fit with the us specs parts? But after a quick check
on realoem, there is no difference between euro and us specs for this
part.


Then after a little cursing and pondering I checked my getrag 240 that I
have kepted when I sent my 318is to the crusher. Well guess what? The
rod joint on the 240 is exactly what I need AND the hole were the selector
rod fit is perfectly round(has no play whatsoever with the dssr dowel
pins) even if the trans had 200000km. Now the perfectly round hole part
is important since the brand spanking new unit I originally bought had an
oval hole (shifter play). I was happy that my car part collecting disease
actually helped me for once.



On this picture (above) :
-318is selector rod (orange)
-325i selector rod (black)
-Akg Delrin carrier bushing
-Akg 325? dssr (still don't know if its the right one)
-Silence PS delete
- rod joints from a 260(large offset one) and a 240 one

Thats it for today, I should install this tomorrow if the weather is not
to shitty. Then my ssk will be complete and I will be able to feel how
it feels(e36m3 shift lever, AKG dssr ,ZHP knob and all brand new bushings)

Charley

[Charley]

Got the shifter assembly installed today.





I had to file the part of the bushing that were protruding from the
shift lever in to allow the dssr to fit, not a big deal.

I got everything installed before I realized that the shift lever was
backward :???:. its a pain to flip it around when installed with a dssr
that is machined with tight tolerance.(its backward in both pics)

And after the install I had to get some icing on that ssk. ZHP 5speed.
(I also installed the radio delete plate a while back since I don't
think that this car will have an audio setup before the swap and this
might be in a little while)


And to show you guys how oval the new gear shift rod joint is here is pic
(I'm glad it didn't fit and that I had to use the used getrag 240 one)



I also finally found someone else to do the welding on the subframe and
the trailing arms. The guy that was supposed to do it in the first place
flaked a week ago. One of my neighbor offered to do it for free!:mrgreen: So it
will cost me a few beers and it should be done before next monday(I
won't have time to work on the car till then anyway.)

Charley

[Charley]

So the past two days sucked. Rain+cold weather=nothing done to the e30
But today was great. Only had half of the day to work on the car but I got
a few things done.

First I replaced the rubber gasket around the fuel filler. The new part
is either thicker or the old one was eaten by the fuel over the years


When I deleted the abs, I took the sensors out as well. so I had this hole
to plug somehow. A little searching on realoem I found pn# 07 14 7 140 849 (35mm blind plug)
I had to trim the sound deadening a bit and it was a bitch to install(super
tight) But it fits perfect!




Next I fixed the leaking tail lights. They both leaked but the passenger
side one was bad the battery box had 1-2inch of water in it every time
it rained.

Getting the lights off the the car proved to be harder than I remembered
it was suppose to be. Well I found why they leaked when I found why
they were so hard remove(yes all nuts were removed).


The gasket/lights were siliconed(new verb?) to the car. Yet again an other
stupid thing one of the PO did to the car instead of fixing it the right way.

I wanted to chose the better looking lights I had to reinstall when I
noticed that the tails from the touring were not the same shade than the
ones I had. Now I don't know if its because they are E-code lights or if
they have been modded before. They don't seem to have been sanded.
why are they not shinny?


Well I chose 2 of the dot lights since they were in better shape then
installed new gaskets and cleaned the mating surfaces before I put it
it all back together.


I also have everything to install the rear wiper back.(minus a wiper blade)
Probably won't be done before the winter but will be installed before next
summer. Dark windows + rain made reversing hazardous at times.

Then I put the gas tank back in the car. I'm glad I ordered new hardware.
I'm still missing the fuel filter bracket, so the gas tank is only screwed
with 3 screws and one nut right now. But since its empty I don't care.


I also installed the stainless steel brake lines (used from my old 318is)
Front:

Rear:


Then I sat in the drivers seat to "drive" the car when a neighbor showed
up. I looked dumb to say the least. He was like what the hell are you
doing?

I should have time tomorrow to install the ie 22m rear sway bar before
work.

Charley

[accident]

how much of a pain was it to swap the filler gasket? does the filler have to be removed to do it?

[Charley]

how much of a pain was it to swap the filler gasket? does the filler have to be removed to do it?

Really easy. Just remove the cap the pull the old one out and install
the new one. seriously its like a 2 1/2 minute job. do it

[88SuperETABD]

Love it. Great touring. Good work, keep it up!

[accident]

glad to know it's not a bitch. the antenna gasket on the non-tourings fucking sucks. the new ones are tight so you have to pull the antenna out, pop the gasket in, and then force the shit out of the antenna to get it to go through.

[Julien]

OP: you own a normal shape touring for europe. they take abuse there

Good luck with the resto :pimp:

glad to know it's not a bitch. the antenna gasket on the non-tourings fucking sucks. the new ones are tight so you have to pull the antenna out, pop the gasket in, and then force the shit out of the antenna to get it to go through.

or use lube

[Massive Lee]

Great job Charley. Thanks for taking the time to document the restoration.

Lee