My 87 eta project – a flood car’s second chance

[n0m4d]

In July I picked up what was supposed to be an 87 eta that just needed a couple weekends of wrenching and tuning and maybe some paint to be a decent daily driver. I built an e30 for LeMons a couple years ago and have since accumulated a pile of parts and know-how so it seemed to make sense. At that time all I knew was it came from Hawaii (was rust free), it’s inspection sticker was 4 years old and it had a horrible re-paint job.

As I began working on it I discovered it was clearly a food victim and the PO drove it like a Camry, just oil, fuel and necessary repairs. Someone even replaced the fuel filter with a straight piece of fuel line. Carfax reported it being registered in Florida. Because it wasn’t rotten and the engine had good compression I decided to just give it a mechanical overhaul and catch it up on preventative maintenance.

So, here is my list of things I have done:

Engine:

• Fresh oil and filter
• Air filter
• Timing belt & tensioner
• Water pump
• Upper cam seal
• Thermostat
• Valve cover seal and plugs
• Spark plugs, wires, cap and rotor
• Coolant hoses
• Fresh coolant
• AC, Alternator and PS drive belts
• Replaced all fuses
• New external fuel pump and filter, and hard lines

Steering and Suspension:

• Front control arms, endlinks, and tie rods
• Rear endlinks
• Rear shock mounts
• PS fluid flush

Driveline:

• Complete shifter linkage rebuild, z3 1.9 lever and delrin bushings
• Transmission mounts
• Transmission oil change
• 3.25 LS diff, painted, resealed and filled with fresh fluid
• Driveshaft guibo and center bearing

Brakes:

• All new brakes, rotors and parking brake shoes
• All new rear brakelines from the tee back
• All new soft lines

Things I’m still working on (because I am having problems with them):

• Steering joint with IE poly guibo
• Flushing brake lines/calipers with new fluid
• In-tank fuel pump

I’m not going to start getting into exhaust or cosmetics until the car feels mechanically sound. My first question, are there any glaring omissions from the list above?

[Pantless Spency]

picsssss

[n0m4d]

Here are some pics of Gretta: It' a pretty mediocre eta at the moment but once it's driving ok I'll start on the exterior and interior.

[FunfGan]

Here are some pics of Gretta: It' a pretty mediocre eta at the moment but once it's driving ok I'll start on the exterior and interior.

Curses you stole my cars name


Good luck with the project though!

[Pantless Spency]

rear ski pass and head rests, nice back seat!
she looks good, hope to see this progress nicely :)

[n0m4d]

Here are some pics of "Bluey", the other e30 I have hanging around. I have been lurking around here for some time gathering info for that build. This is a great site.

[TimKninja]

I love the color.'even if it's non BMW. what's so bad about the paint? Looks like a good deal.

Is that a hitch on the rear bumper? That's scary. My rear bumper rotted off and I found it on the ground one morning . -_- I wouldn't trust it to tow shit.

[n0m4d]

The paint photographs way better than it looks in real life. The car was originally gold and the paint looks like it was done on a hot humid buggy day in the sun. Overspray on everything, the bumpers, wheels, engine, dashboard, windows, etc. I have a couple of dents and dings that need attention as well. Generally planning on a similar color with tucked & painted bumpers/surrounds. I have a IS apron, Sable skirts and an IS spoiler that I am planning on using. I'm still trying to find a rear apron.

I also have to pull our some dents in the rear where a po didnt line up the hitch right. The hitch is real scary, there is a piece of flat metal sandwiched under the ball and there was some strap metal bolted from the bottom of the bumper to the spare tire well. It has a bunch of stress cracks so I'm just tossing it and swapping with another.

[n0m4d]

Last weekend I finally got the car back on its wheels and drove it for the first time since July. Locating a drive shaft was one of the holdups but I ended up getting a whole parts car and luckily the drive shaft wasn't too bad. It was tight but a little notchy so I soaked the joint in ATF for a week and its smooth now.

After driving it for about a week I spent today working on freeing up the sticky throttle cable and patching an exhaust leak.

I also Seafoamed the car this afternoon. HOLY CRAP what a difference. I need an alignment and then its heading out to get some of the more difficult bodywork started before I prep it for paint.

Here are some progress pics:

[n0m4d]

I haven't updated for a while because I have been stuck between work and home improvement projects but I am going again.

I sent the car out to get some of the more challenging bodywork done. They fixed a dent in the license plate area, one in the rear corner, some rust near the passenger rear wheel and shaved the antenna hole.



I then started removing the door cards and found that the doors are full of mildew. I trashed the plastic door liners and cleaned the door insides with scrubbing bubbles. It was quite nasty.




Last weekend I removed the trim and bumpers in preparation for bodywork. The PO really did an awful job painting, overspray on everything. Also, removing the gutter trim sucked.


(The garage is a bit of a disaster until the bldg inspector inspects the new heater.)


I have some interesting plans for the car so I will try to post here as I work on it. Basically a complete exterior and interior rehab including a chrome euro bumper conversion (chop chop on the shipping Shane Snyder ;)).

[n0m4d]

Here is a quick progress pic. I spent about 4 hours Sunday and 2 last night filling, priming and sanding. A good part was spent removing the texture (is it called shultz?) from the driver side rocker panel with a wire wheel on a grinder. I plan on pretty much removing that stuff wherever I come across it and putting a set of oem mud flaps on to protect everything. It's going slow but I'm learning as I go so I'm taking my time.

[n0m4d]

Basically done with the driver's side.

[Schnitzer318is]

Nice project... subbing.

[JA1991]

Also subscribed. I just bought my first E30 about two weeks ago, trying to get her running good also. You give me hope haha. I have to daily drive mine so it's a little bit harder to do some stuff.

[n0m4d]

Peck away at it. Mine was suffering from neglect when I got it but there is so much information on here almost any repair can be done yourself, most in a day if you have a helper.