Hey ya'll. I'm new-ish here. Been reading threads over the summer and a few months checking out what you guys have been up to. I have always liked BMWs, so I decided at the beginning of the summer that'd I'd look for the ever-popular E30 to start a project with. I found one fairly close, drove there with a friend, and bought it the same day. It was pretty rough at first, but I was pretty tired of not doing anything hands on like this. I've had 4 years of Automotive Technology degree-ness and nothing really came of it during my time in school. I learned a ton of theory, and I'm great at diagnosing problems and I can tell you exactly how a 4L60E(my school is in the middle of domesticville, Kansas) works and Simpson gear sets and all that jazz, but that's just no fun most of the time. So long story short, I'm going to try my hand at some fun new mechanics.
My plans are fairly general. I wrastled briefly with a few ideas such as: LS swap, complete restoration, BMW V8, selling the car and starting with something different, a home-made 5.3 and T56 combo, and a turbo. IN that order, actually. I decided (like many of you) that the most cost-effective and interesting method is in fact a tuuuuurrbboooooo. But don't get all excited yet. I'm not quite at the financial standing to invest in a kit just yet. First I'm getting some much needed work out of the way while I save.
Okay, on to the pictures and such. 1988 325i, odometer stopped working, so it's got somewhere between 160k and 180k on it. Everything was kept original as far as I can tell so far. The PO had some issues with it that I wasn't too worried about, but over-all he did not take care of the car.
Here's the car as I got it. The top was literally torn apart. As a result of that and the POs lack of garage space, the interior was a disaster. The only good things left were a surprisingly uncracked dash (must be all the extra moisture it got in the rain...) an original wood shift knob, and a near rust free floor.
The carpet was nasty. In my naivety, I threw it all away. If I had realized finding replacement carpet for a convertible would be so difficult/expensive, I would have thought twice about cleaning/dying it.
So no carpet... BUT virtually rust-free floor pans.
I also trashed the back seat (bad idea). Those are even harder to find.
The car didn't run great, but it had good power. Idle was rough, but inline six motors usually have a bit of a rough idle. It had a really slow throttle response, and occasionally it took a really long time to fire up. Started with some much needed maintenance, as I had no idea when the timing belt was done last, and the car came with refurbished 17lb green top injectors, a new top, and a handful of front suspension parts.
Old top, lots of gorilla tape repairs
New top!
Painted the Intake and Valve Cover
Adjusted valves
Installed new 17lb injectors, here are the old ones as I pulled them out
New timing belt, water pump, distributor cap, and rotor
Pulled the AFM and made some adjustments to the arm, as it was pretty worn on the contact strip. Didn't really help the car, but I guess peace a mind that it's not a problem, though I'm not convinced this is a great way to measure AFR at part-throttle.
Cleaned up the front grills, and sanded off the spray paint that the PO used on the metal bumper
Here's the car after that initial work, not much different, but it's a bit cleaner and the mechanical stuff isn't like a time-bomb anymore
New stuff!
Wheels, they're replicas, but I got a good deal and you gotta start somewhere. They're 16x8 front 16x9 rear
Reupholstered seats, old vs new
New door cards, PO drilled some super lame speakers into the doors...
Brakes, ss lines and some decent pads
Mtech II, not sure if I'll use this, but I traded a set of bottlecaps for them, so all in all a good deal
Up next:
Bought used carpet on eBay, clean, dye, install
Shocks: Literally I can get the front wheels off the ground by bouncing the front up and down. Blown to hell.
Possibly coil overs, new wheels might need a little moar low
My plans are fairly general. I wrastled briefly with a few ideas such as: LS swap, complete restoration, BMW V8, selling the car and starting with something different, a home-made 5.3 and T56 combo, and a turbo. IN that order, actually. I decided (like many of you) that the most cost-effective and interesting method is in fact a tuuuuurrbboooooo. But don't get all excited yet. I'm not quite at the financial standing to invest in a kit just yet. First I'm getting some much needed work out of the way while I save.
Okay, on to the pictures and such. 1988 325i, odometer stopped working, so it's got somewhere between 160k and 180k on it. Everything was kept original as far as I can tell so far. The PO had some issues with it that I wasn't too worried about, but over-all he did not take care of the car.
Here's the car as I got it. The top was literally torn apart. As a result of that and the POs lack of garage space, the interior was a disaster. The only good things left were a surprisingly uncracked dash (must be all the extra moisture it got in the rain...) an original wood shift knob, and a near rust free floor.
The carpet was nasty. In my naivety, I threw it all away. If I had realized finding replacement carpet for a convertible would be so difficult/expensive, I would have thought twice about cleaning/dying it.
So no carpet... BUT virtually rust-free floor pans.
I also trashed the back seat (bad idea). Those are even harder to find.
The car didn't run great, but it had good power. Idle was rough, but inline six motors usually have a bit of a rough idle. It had a really slow throttle response, and occasionally it took a really long time to fire up. Started with some much needed maintenance, as I had no idea when the timing belt was done last, and the car came with refurbished 17lb green top injectors, a new top, and a handful of front suspension parts.
Old top, lots of gorilla tape repairs
New top!
Painted the Intake and Valve Cover
Adjusted valves
Installed new 17lb injectors, here are the old ones as I pulled them out
New timing belt, water pump, distributor cap, and rotor
Pulled the AFM and made some adjustments to the arm, as it was pretty worn on the contact strip. Didn't really help the car, but I guess peace a mind that it's not a problem, though I'm not convinced this is a great way to measure AFR at part-throttle.
Cleaned up the front grills, and sanded off the spray paint that the PO used on the metal bumper
Here's the car after that initial work, not much different, but it's a bit cleaner and the mechanical stuff isn't like a time-bomb anymore
New stuff!
Wheels, they're replicas, but I got a good deal and you gotta start somewhere. They're 16x8 front 16x9 rear
Reupholstered seats, old vs new
New door cards, PO drilled some super lame speakers into the doors...
Brakes, ss lines and some decent pads
Mtech II, not sure if I'll use this, but I traded a set of bottlecaps for them, so all in all a good deal
Up next:
Bought used carpet on eBay, clean, dye, install
Shocks: Literally I can get the front wheels off the ground by bouncing the front up and down. Blown to hell.
Possibly coil overs, new wheels might need a little moar low
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