The Red Cabrio Barn Find Project

[OnMy2ndE30]

Holy palm tree reflection Batman!!!! That car looks wet. I wish my paint looked HALF that good. I want to finish my cabrio so badly now. Mine is as yours, but the po replaced the factory TAN top with a black top and I hate the heat the black top generates in South Texas in the summertime.

[delatlanta1281]

Great job! Hope to see it at vintage.

[jeffnhiscars]

Holy palm tree reflection Batman!!!! That car looks wet. I wish my paint looked HALF that good. I want to finish my cabrio so badly now. Mine is as yours, but the po replaced the factory TAN top with a black top and I hate the heat the black top generates in South Texas in the summertime.

I prefer the black to tan top but I do understand your heat concern but thgen if I can get the AC to work like it does in my AWII Cabrio (37 degrees at the vents) then the top color wont matter :-)

Great job! Hope to see it at vintage.

The plan is to be there

[Norwegian]

Way cool!!!

[jeffnhiscars]

Way cool!!!

and it had a broken TB when I bought it so wasnt very different than the Zinno Cabrio you are looking at...right down to the tan top

[somnater]

Great stuff! I just bought a '87 325ic yesterday. I'm a total novice but I'm looking forward to learning the ins and outs of a E30. Two questions-- any recommendations for getting a good baseline knowledge. My fist project is going to be a new timing belt, water pump, and go through the cooling system (new thermostat, hoses, etc.)

Second question, this really shows my lack of knowledge, what's the best way to figure out what the car is worth. I read posts like yours and others and have visions of taking my car back to showroom condition. But don't know if there's enough value in the car to justify the time and money that should go into it.

[jeffnhiscars]

Great stuff! I just bought a '87 325ic yesterday. I'm a total novice but I'm looking forward to learning the ins and outs of a E30. Two questions-- any recommendations for getting a good baseline knowledge. My fist project is going to be a new timing belt, water pump, and go through the cooling system (new thermostat, hoses, etc.)

Second question, this really shows my lack of knowledge, what's the best way to figure out what the car is worth. I read posts like yours and others and have visions of taking my car back to showroom condition. But don't know if there's enough value in the car to justify the time and money that should go into it.

Thanks and welcome to the e30 world. Besides buying a Bentley manual you will get a better response to your questions in the M20 subforum and perhaps General rather than in a build thread. GL

[jeffnhiscars]

Mission Creep is a Bitch

Some of you will know that I am obsessive about e36 rack upgrades. If you have driven on a swapped car you will understand how unacceptable an e30 rack is in a DD.

I've done 2 swaps in the last 14 months on the 84 318i and the 89 AWII Cabrio and after picking this one up I knew another swap was coming so I grabbed a used rack from PaP last fall. It turned out the use rack in the AWII Cab had a leak at the pinion seal where the knuckle attaches which I thought was strange, but the dye I added to the reservoir confirmed that diagnosis. I made a deal with Rich at Rack Dr to rebuild that rack plus the spare figuring my days of installing used racks were done.

Sooo..Ive had this rack sitting in the box since January and since the front subframe had a bunch of surface corrosion I figured I'd drop it to see how that approach to a rack swap worked.



Here's the state of things




Clearly not a lot good to say about whats going on under there so I created slag heap #1

[frankenbeemer]

Yay! Updates!

[jeffnhiscars]

You will notice (above) that the nuts was removed from the inner ball joints BEFORE I dropped the subframe. Nothing worse than the look on your face if you tried that on the ground and the damn ball joint spun...then what lol

So here is the exploded view


rotors and calipers were just nasty


CA's were not much better & Im sure you noticed the ratted out CAB in the post above


and of course I had to change the trans filter as much for maintenance purposes as to clean up this nasty pan


So there you have the tear down...phase 1

[jeffnhiscars]

Yay! Updates!

LOL..Frank you aint seen nothin yet. Pull up a chair and grab some popcorn cause THIS is going to get interesting ;-)

[frankenbeemer]

LOl, I'm prepping myself to get my 88 4dr running (many of it's parts are on the rust bucket 2 dr) and I was just thinking I needed some inspiration from you.... and whooomp....

[jeffnhiscars]

Frank this is for you, Amigo :)

Now that we are out with the old, here is some of whats going back in.


Keep in mind it all started with the e36 rack obsession. Now my tie rods weren't great and I do prefer the e36 assemblies, in part because they are heftier, in part because they are actually cheaper than e30's and of course, who can resist the cool factor

You will notice I did opt for the e36 offset CABs after really paying attention to the AWII Cabrio which has exactly the same parts already installed. The only parts there that are not Lemforder or genuine BMW are the Repair Shop RSM's & reinforcing plates & the Febi rear stabilizer links.

Clearly the old rotors were beyond their better days and the brake job receipt that was in glove box when I bought the car was from a gas station and it just said "brake pads $30". Not good. The hose rubber didnt look too bad but the ferrules were badly corroded and looked to be the originals so the hoses got on the list. This left just the calipers and absent torn boots you really can't tell whats going on inside so you just do it. It turns out all the internals were clean but the commitment to rebuild them was made.


So thats the "new"....well much of it. Yes, Frank there IS more ;)

[jeffnhiscars]

These cleaned up rather nicely and will be refurbed today


and this is how the car was sitting last night. I thought the headlights made for good lighting

[jeffnhiscars]

I took the advice I got in another thread and did the WYAIT upgrade to the subframe. I got the pieces from AKG delivered for $30 and had Eurowise here Charlotte weld them in for $50. The guy did really nice work and I can definitely recommend them. It turned out very well IMO


Next was the knuckle mod. The last 2 I did I drilled the rivets out. This time I put the new bench grinder to work (OK it's a bbq grinder) and in less than 10 minutes I had this


Note where you have to grind the edges of the upper joint so it can bend to the slightly greater angle of the e36 pinion.


After driving the rivets out with a punch the breakaway bushing popped out easily



and the finished knuckle. I did have to fiddle to get it assembled as the bolts wont just slide in due to tight clearances unless you do everything in exactly the right order and even tightening it was a biotch since the allen head keys do not go very far in to the bolt heads again due to yoke interference. Please dont ask me in what order I assembled it..I have no clue