Styleprojekt's 1989 "Bronzit Journey"

[Styleprojekt]

Hello R3v and welcome to my second e30 build thread.

I have been around E30's for a couple of years now and this morning my main project, a 1989 Lachssilber 2 door, started for the first time after the S50 swap...so i am pretty pumped on that! While that story can be read here, I figured I would start a new and clean thread for a second 2 door E30 I picked up over the weekend.

One of my very good friends gave me a call Thursday night stating that he knew of a very clean 2 door which just went up for sale due to a broken timing belt. The car is a 2 owner 1989 325i with 153k miles...he used to maintain the vehicle for the 1st owner, but when she sold the car to the second owner, they stopped taking it to him and instead took it to some other mechanic. Apparently there, the second owner was never told that these cars have timing belts which need to be changed, and the belt snapped at the 153k mark

I ended up checking out the car later that night and decided that even with a busted motor, the car was well worth picking up and fixing.
Here are some pictures from Saturday when I first dropped the car off at my place for initial assessment of what I had purchased:









Sunroof works flawlessly




Im not a fan of aftermarket radios but this one works really well


Dash is almost mint


Well we know the wrong oil was used as per this sticker


Lots of original documentation and booklets


Neatly discolored glovebox flashlight


Battery area is not perfect but I have seen worse


Almost all tools are there




Interesting, but kind of neat


Lets pop the hood and see what we have


Basic M20 with a leaking valve cover gasket. Some oil in the engine bay but everything is very neat and clean. Didn't notice any broken clips or weird business going on in the engine bay.


Fuse cover has almost all numbering still intact


Can't tell when the belt was last changed



Receipts from 1989 onwards from BMW


Original purchase price


That's an option to be happy about


And yes, confirmed


First things first will be a quick vacuum and wash. Then I am curious how bad the head is damaged from the snapped belt...more to come
I am not quite sure at this point what I will do with it since I already have my other 2 door...but you can never have too many E30s! I may drive it and store it for a while until I find a very good home for it, or do some OEM+ type mods...we will see once it runs how I feel about it.

Maybe we can turn this into an interactive type of build where feedback is gathered for what the next step/fix/mod is?

[Styleprojekt]

On Sunday I had to study a bunch since finals are just around the corner, but I managed to clean out the car a bit and have a closer look at the condition of the paint. I am fairly pleased and must say that this thing has been babied for most of its life. I cannot see any indication of accidents, any respray or damage to the body. All panels have the original VIN stickers on them and all gaps are fairly even



Bath time


Cleaned up quite nicely


Paint is pretty decent








Next up, assess the timing belt damage

[IzzY_325is]

Great find and buy. Nothing beats a clean coupe.

[E30NJ]

This scarily reminding me of my car. Hope that timing belt sticker doesn't say 2001...

[Styleprojekt]

So I found some time to have a quick look at the motor and figured I would check if, and how many, rockers are broken. Maybe the head is salvageable, maybe not.



Looks like someone decided to go hard on the oil cap




At first glance it looked quite alright


But the rear intake rocker broke




A shame. I will do a compression test next to see if the valve(s) is bent, however I have a spare head that I rather throw on than deal with replacing individual components. At this point I may as well replace the head gasket and all associated gaskets/seals since the opportunity presented itself. The engine has leaked quite a bit of oil all over so I want to make sure any other potential leaking seals are taken care of while I am at it.

[Styleprojekt]

So I got around to clearing out an giving the interior a quick vaccuum. It cleans up quite nicely







I also had a little bit of time here and there to start on the engine.







These are my best friends during projects that drag out over days and weeks...sandwich bags and a Sharpie to tag all the nuts and bolts so I can remember where they go weeks down the road when I am putting everything back together




Here we have some Timing Belt carnage




I got to a good stopping point and figured I would look around a little to see what else the car may need. A lot of the bushings are fairly brittle, and the front control arms also need to be replaced so I am adding that to my "To Buy" list for this thing.



I am going to spend some time cleaning the engine bay next because there has been oil building everywhere for a while. Will post some more progress this weekend

[SweetLew]

Stoked to follow the progress on this, the interior looks mint!

This is Stefan from UBE.

[_kanon]

:up: for quality bronzit content.

[eurolife]

Bronzits are usually beat, but this honestly really clean. Good find man!

Corbin

[jeenyus]

nice find.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

congratulations on that clean bronzit. I am jealous.

bronzit ftw!

[Styleprojekt]

Well and this is the end of this thread already. Car runs and was fixed, and I sold the car off to a good friend of mine who will be posting his own build thread very soon on here. Once it starts ill post the link here.

[Robs0nic]

Daaang, that was fast ;)