My Free E21 Build

[Balleristic31]

I will be following this thread with great anticipation. I love e21s, and that one looks like a great candidate for restoration.

Thank you! I will try to keep working and updating as often as possible. I want to get this thing road worthy ASAP

Good luck let me know if you need help with anything....

Appreciate it!!

One of the few things I haven't pulled apart in my e21 build (which sat for 6 years) is the tank. I'm scared it's going to look like yours. Anyhow, your starting point doesn't look all that bad, so good luck. I have a fairly small build thread here if you want to check it out....

I have followed your build since the beginning and I'm impressed with all that you have done! Don't be afraid at all of dropping the tank. By myself it took me max 20 minutes start to finish with the rear of the car on jackstands. Thanks for the luck and inspiration!

really diggin all the E21 content showing up on R3v! should be a fun car once its running since you dont have to give a fuck about it just r3v the little M10 up everywere you go.

That is exactly my plan :D

go to home depot and get a few gallons on muriatic acid. it will eat the rust to nothing and in just a few minutes. rinse with water and then acetone and then use the gas tank liner called red-kote. oreillys carries it locally here. cheaper than anything else. i switched to a single tank unit with screen on my e30. if interested i can get part number for a cheaper option and more reliable.

if you use red kote, then you need to let it dry to no smell. heat does nothing to speed it up imo. i used a fan pointed in the pump hole. that seemed to get it good. it took a few days to dry. i suggest cutting it with acetone to help spread it easier and dry time a lot better.

Awesome. Thank you for the advice ill be headed to home depot tomorrow morning! Will report back how it goes!



And thanks to all those giving their concern/advice/fear on the spider issue. I pressure washed the underside before it was pushed into the garage, and currently the car is in the driveway so I think (hope) ill be ok. Honestly when im under the car I just wear gloves and pray nothing is crawling into my ear or my arm. Some would say it adds to the thrill of the experience!!

[serdar255]

This is exciting me

Good luck with the build!

oh and your e30 looks awful

:D

[dirty30]

Just went through this on an 83 E21 at the shop, those E21 tanks are a breeze to pull. That braided line that goes to the tops of both tanks and into that white Y connector is just a vent line. We replaced all that crap when we reinstalled our tanks.

[Balleristic31]

Small Update:

My girlfriend and I came up with a solution to solve the egg problem :D

[Steven]

I don't understand what the helmet is for?

[jhaurimn]

Spiders..... Nope.

Black widows.... Fucking Nope.

[Swanny]

More pics of gf



And just keep a coat hanger handy to pock those lil buggers

[Balleristic31]

I don't understand what the helmet is for?

Clearly fire/baby spider protection

[blue plates]

Those look like they hatched already

[Balleristic31]

Those look like they hatched already

Honestly I think they did, a long time ago. We just wanted to have a little fun with dramatic effect.


So before I tried meaneg's method of de-rusting the tanks with the acid, I figured id give the many bottles of vinegar I bought a try. I'm pleased to report that the vinegar, with a little pressure washing afterwards, did a perfectly acceptable job of removing the rust. Very pleasing results were had.
My bucket of rocks and rusty vinegar

And you all remember the before

and now the after



Only got one side of the tank done so far but I'm stoked to see them come clean.

[efficient]

Damn not bad. My e30 had a rusty tank and I just bought a new one. I was thinking of doing this but didn't have the patience or time.

[irish44j]

nice. I just opened my e30 tank up today (pumps making noise, thought maybe there was some rust in the line) and was pretty pleased to see no rust in there. I may attack the e21 tanks this weekend if the weather stays decent. Hopefully vinegar will do the trick since I'm not a fan of playing with acid, lol.

[meanEG]

Looks real good. I am surprised it did so good. If it rusts a little, you can still get the red-kote.

[E30_Pare]

I assume you'd be replacing the fuel lines?

[Balleristic31]

A little advice for anyone doing this:

1. The vinegar and rocks only got about 30% of the rust out of the tank, the rest was really the pressure washer doing its thing.
2. Make sure to DRY THE TANK COMPLETELY before anything else because I experienced a good amount of flash rust due to residual moisture in the tank. I used a heat gun to really dry the tanks the 2nd time around


Also, I don't think I will be coating the inside of the tank because honestly on this car I could care less. Once I get gas in there hopefully the rust won't return. If it does, ill just go pull a new tank from the yards.

I will be replacing all the rubber lines but not any of the hard lines. Too much work. Ill run some injector cleaner through it and have a couple spare fuel filters to swap in after running it for awhile