1990 325is - Restoring the Smiles

[benyen soljax]

Hello. I've been in love with E30s for about 8 years when a college buddy of mine first showed me his 91 318is with Ronal LS wheels in B-Rot. Due to coincidence, I now find myself with a lot more money and about as little time, so I bought a B-rot 325is from Texas.

This thread is to keep track of the progress. I don't expect anyone to read this, but if you are reading, maybe you should go outside and play hide n seek or something...

As she sat in Texas:




As it arrived to my house:












Tucked away, sheltered from the elements that have claimed many other E30s which have lived more challenging lives in the north:

[benyen soljax]

As you can see, there is quite the absence of rust on the car, but there is plenty of work to do:



Yuck.

[craiggroves91]

So did that front end damage happen in transport?!

Looks like a good start! toss that autotragic!!

[Cletonius]

Nice! Your car looks great, shouldn't be too bad bending the valence back

[benyen soljax]

Nice! Your car looks great, shouldn't be too bad bending the valence back

It's going to be so easy...I'm going to sit on my couch while the shipper's insurance pays the BMW dealership to bend it back and paint it!

What is harder to see is that the radiator support mount is bent up, the oil cooler is all busted, and one of the fog lights is jacked. There was a winch at the top of the trailer that shipped it up from Texas...right where the big hump is on the valence. The shipper said there was no way he could have caused that damage...seems legit, as the first pic in the thread was from the seller from earlier in the day (also a member on here).

[benyen soljax]

So did that front end damage happen in transport?!

Looks like a good start! toss that autotragic!!

I'm glad you mentioned that...the Fedex, UPS, and USPS visit me every day. They're like stray cats when you set out a morsel of food.







Came in today, next stop is the machine shop.

[benyen soljax]

First completed projects...


Before:



After:



Before:
A key to start the car and this other thing to take up all the space in my pocket.



After:
Much better.


Oh and then all this mess, this must have added about 12.375 hp back around 1995.


My favorite part of aftermarket alarm systems is the starter kill. It's like sunshine in the morning.

[Mastrcruse]

Subbed man. Looking forward to what it turns into. Glad you ripped that damn alarm out.

[benyen soljax]

Quick update. Insurance is sorted, no money out of my pocket and a new valance, radiator support, oil cooler, and passenger side fog light. Here's some pictures from the day I brought it back from the shop:








With the daily in the background...




So shortly after these photos were taken, the car went into the garage and put up on the highest notch that my jackstands will go. I pulled off the wheels and the exhaust on Sunday, so operation ditch the auto has officially begun.

Oh, and I got another little gift in the mail on Monday. We will see if I can mock something up and show you guys shortly.

Thanks for looking.

[Mastrcruse]

Huge difference man! The faded old valance really killed the look of the car. Looks great now.

[ak-]

Nice color and good looking car!

[benyen soljax]

Short update but I was like a kid on Christmas...

[benyen soljax]

March 2, 2013

Last week I made some progress removing the automatic. Step one was to remove the exhaust. I'm sure as everyone knows, removing exhaust bolts that are 23 years old is the easiest thing in the world. I am lucky in a sense though, because this car is from Texas, and rust is not a thing it knows very well.

After using a 2ft extension and U-joint on the end of my breaker bar, and scared that that loud popping noise meant that I broke off the studs inside the manifold, the nuts started coming loose, one at a time. After all the nuts were off, all that remained was to unhook the rubber mounts at the back and wiggle the entire system out from underneath the car. That went pretty smoothly after I removed the clamps holding on the front sway bar and rotated that down a little bit.

After I managed to get the entire exhaust out in one piece, I removed the heatshields before calling it a night.

About a week later, I worked on the Driveshaft-Diff nuts at the rear. It's too slim to get a socket in there, so I tried using my box-ends to no avail. I thought the 17mm was too big and the nut must be 16mm, but when I bought a 16mm, it was too small. I guess it is 17mm. Now I just need to acquire some pipe to assist in the wrenching, which I will hopefully pick up today.

What I am not looking forward to is getting to the transmission mount bolts. Is this even possible without tilting the engine up?

[E30stan]

once the driveshaft is removed, undo the tranny mount off the chassis and let the trans hang down, it hangs like 5 inches lower and lets you get to the trans bolts easier

[JinormusJ]

When I saw you ditch that nasty wheel for the MTech, the first thought that came to my mind was "I approve of this build thread". Glad the car got fixed all up. Really liking the progress so far.

Stop fishing or compliments, this build is totally interesting