I am making this thread to cover the progress of my E30.
Intro
I inherited my 1991 325i 2 door Alpinweiss from my mother who bought the car new off of the lot from the BMW of San Francisco. Although it is my first car I have no intentions of ever selling it, I'm in love with the shape and the driving characteristics the E30 has to offer.
Although it only had about 89,000 miles when I first received it, the body, and suspension had seen better days, however the engine is in supreme condition contrary to the engine bay picture shown below. After reading many tutorials and buying the Bentley Manual and 101 Performance Projects for your BMW books, I began to realize how easy it was to replace parts and become the weekend mechanical that I see myself become in the future. So I have started replacing many of the parts that need replacing and fixing small problems while still bringing some of the more technical projects to my local repair shop. I will be posting updates, hopefully frequently, and welcome feedback on anything.
I plan to go with a simple but effective look, I am using kamotor's car as inspiration. I eventually will pick up another E30 for track/rally beater events. I want this car to last as long as possible, since I've been driven in it since birth.
Pictures:
Sorry about the blurry engine bay, will get a better picture.
Ugly Gaps, soon to be fixed
Accompanied in the garage with a 1985 Porsche 911
Bump in the rump
Now nice and straight
Some bends in the rocker
Straightened out, and dirt weight reduction
Front Valence was a bit tweaked
Now much better
Filling in pin-holes, road rash, ect. with some glaze
Then primed
Big tweak with the front valence under the "kidney" grill
Fixing it with some elbow grease, and a nail gun, you can see how much of it was filled with bondo
Better, but still in need of tweaking
More progress
Had to take the front valence off to get a better angle
Now just need to straighten it a little more then bondo
I think an update is appropriate.This week I will be wet sanding the entire car in preparation for the re-spray scheduled for next Thursday. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking:
Also have the mud guards mounted, been a great help in keeping the clean car from mud, a little low in the back though.
Nearly there, will be able to get it perfect when wet sanding.
Huge improvement from before.
Also have a helmet that I have been preparing to re-spray the same color of as the car. The Euro-spec headlights also need a rebuild, may also smoke the highs, depending on how much extra time I have this week.
Going to be working on the bumpers and trim tonight and tomorrow, since it is predicted to snow tomorrow, and a cramped garage is a little hard to do a guide coat. I will also start to be masking off the windows for the guide coat.
Thanks for reading, will update the original post and make another post in this thread as it progresses.
Intro
I inherited my 1991 325i 2 door Alpinweiss from my mother who bought the car new off of the lot from the BMW of San Francisco. Although it is my first car I have no intentions of ever selling it, I'm in love with the shape and the driving characteristics the E30 has to offer.
Although it only had about 89,000 miles when I first received it, the body, and suspension had seen better days, however the engine is in supreme condition contrary to the engine bay picture shown below. After reading many tutorials and buying the Bentley Manual and 101 Performance Projects for your BMW books, I began to realize how easy it was to replace parts and become the weekend mechanical that I see myself become in the future. So I have started replacing many of the parts that need replacing and fixing small problems while still bringing some of the more technical projects to my local repair shop. I will be posting updates, hopefully frequently, and welcome feedback on anything.
I plan to go with a simple but effective look, I am using kamotor's car as inspiration. I eventually will pick up another E30 for track/rally beater events. I want this car to last as long as possible, since I've been driven in it since birth.
Pictures:
Sorry about the blurry engine bay, will get a better picture.
Ugly Gaps, soon to be fixed
Accompanied in the garage with a 1985 Porsche 911
Bump in the rump
Now nice and straight
Some bends in the rocker
Straightened out, and dirt weight reduction
Front Valence was a bit tweaked
Now much better
Filling in pin-holes, road rash, ect. with some glaze
Then primed
Big tweak with the front valence under the "kidney" grill
Fixing it with some elbow grease, and a nail gun, you can see how much of it was filled with bondo
Better, but still in need of tweaking
More progress
Had to take the front valence off to get a better angle
Now just need to straighten it a little more then bondo
I think an update is appropriate.This week I will be wet sanding the entire car in preparation for the re-spray scheduled for next Thursday. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking:
Also have the mud guards mounted, been a great help in keeping the clean car from mud, a little low in the back though.
Nearly there, will be able to get it perfect when wet sanding.
Huge improvement from before.
Also have a helmet that I have been preparing to re-spray the same color of as the car. The Euro-spec headlights also need a rebuild, may also smoke the highs, depending on how much extra time I have this week.
Going to be working on the bumpers and trim tonight and tomorrow, since it is predicted to snow tomorrow, and a cramped garage is a little hard to do a guide coat. I will also start to be masking off the windows for the guide coat.
Thanks for reading, will update the original post and make another post in this thread as it progresses.
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