Arthur's 318i e30 Project

[arthurmdk]

Hey guys! I'm completely new to R3V, BUT not exactly as new to the e30 scene. A little about myself: Names Arthur, college student, I'm 20 years old and I've been in love with these cars ever since I was 15. Anyways, I want to keep this short and sweet. I purchased an e30 on November 18, 2013. Finally! After a longgggg time of searching I bought a 1991 BMW 318ic (convertible). :)

Car came up on Craigslist and sat there for a few days. I was way too excited about it and knew it was the one! Did the drive to SF with my dad and picked it up. It drove home! It actually ran. Front end was a bit smashed but still a clean title.;D

After getting home I started to tear it all apart and see what exactly it was that I needed. The whole point of this project is for me to do EVERYTHING or most of the stuff that I’m capable of on my own! Not to pay shops to do it. Car is in rough shape and obviously needs work but it’s a project so slowly ill get to everything. So here are some pictures of it and I will upload more as I go. This is how the car looked when I bought it.


1991 BMW 318i (m42)

139,000 Miles
5 Speed manual
Clean title (never reported accident)
Leather interior with sport seats (heated seats)
Top in ''OK'' shape
Front end damage

Yes the hood is duck taped to the fenders... lol

[arthurmdk]

here are more pictures.

[arthurmdk]

So I tackled the car and started to take the front end apart.
Sorry for the crappy phone pictures..



Here is that it looked like after i removed the whole front end.


Replaced door handle, and just did little things here and there with the interior..


Got a new hood for the car that was straight!




Got Euro Smileys along with a sports steering wheel from a local guy off craig's. (the old steering wheel with airbag is just too ugly..



Replacing all the cracked hoses! So many of them! All garbage. Would not pass smog so i had to get on it.



Coming along Slowly but with lots of confidence and potential. i really want to save this car and make it road worthy again!


Stay Tuned for more updates coming soon! Any ideas on what i should do? comment below guys. I'm still new here and might not know many things. Thanks in advance.

[arthurmdk]

By the way as far as radiator support goes...if anyone was wondering.. It was pushed in and now if you noticed the hood does line up proper in the pictures. All I did was pretty much took 2x4's got on top of the engine bay, Tied the 2x4's to the frame of the radiator support against the frame of the car with some old belts and pulled on it until i matched both sides to look good and proper. Everything lines up now and all gaps seem to be fine... might need just a bit more work with the gaps being alined tho.

[arthurmdk]

Okay so now that I got the front end straightened out and the radiator support in place like it should be.. I started to put things back together..



took her out to get filled up..



so i pretty much just hammered the front valence and straightened the top part as much as i could for now.. ill eventually buy another bumper when i come across a good one but for now this will do.. I did buy the plastic cover part of the bumper.. here it goes..


So here's the Before:


Process:


After:



Okay so i got a Volvo lip temporarily.. put that on.. also started to sand the hood a little and both of the front fenders...


Decided that i need to freshen up the front end a little bit so i washed it and painted the trims and kidneys as well as the volvo lip flat black. Much cleaner look now..



This is it for now:) Stay tuned for more updates:D

[TimKninja]

good job bringing her back to life! I love threads like this !

[arthurmdk]

good job bringing her back to life! I love threads like this !

Thank you boss! lots of work left that i have planned for her:-D Stay tuned!

[MONROe30craZy]

man i need those seats!! .. nice job man

[arthurmdk]

man i need those seats!! .. nice job man

Haha yeah i got lucky with the interior man. Look around on forums or Craigslist and you'll find a set. & thank you very much, means a lot :)

[E30NJ]

Nice, looks MUCH better than when it started

[arthurmdk]

Nice, looks MUCH better than when it started

Thank you brother! Car is getting a bunch of stuff done to it at the moment so lots of changes and updates coming very soon. thanks again:)

[arthurmdk]

Alright so i decided to give the dirty interior some love and simply wash/clean it with water soap and different cleaning supplies I had:)


So i took the seats out of the car... Front seats are pretty much mint and the seat warmers actually work (how nice is that?) got the front seats cleaned up :)



Washed the carpet! It was FILTHY! feels so good to have a CLEAN interior:) not perfect now but definetly much better and even smells clean!





Top down;)


So the rear seat has some cracks on top from the sun and it started to unstich. These seats are hard to find in goo condition so i will have to patch it up for now and i plan to get head rests in the rear as well, that's definitely going to cover up some of the cracks up top.



And that is about it for now as far as updates go:) Much more coming soon! Big plans for the car:D Stay Tuned.

[yodman]

Nice interior for sure!

Mine was a combination of two sets of bad seats to make one set of decent seats.

I like the IC's and definitely want one of my own sometime.

Is it delphin gray? The color of the exterior I mean.

How's the top seal up? No leaks in the rain?

[arthurmdk]

Nice interior for sure!

Mine was a combination of two sets of bad seats to make one set of decent seats.

I like the IC's and definitely want one of my own sometime.

Is it delphin gray? The color of the exterior I mean.

How's the top seal up? No leaks in the rain?

Thank you :) Yea these convertibles are wonderful and seriously such a Blast to drive! The color of the car is actually BMW-Granitsilber-Metalic. The whole car has been re-sprayed at some point in its life and it looks like a terrible re-spray, they did not even color match the original color and the prep work was obviously terrible. As far as the seals go, they seal up great and the top only had one tiny leak and i replaced it wish a better seal i found at pick-n-pull so now it doesn't leak anymore. Thanks again :D

[robrez]

Good save happening here.