Project Lessmeister: 91 318iS Restomod w/ MTech2 and modern drivetrain

[Aikmanson]

The new windshield is 350 or so list. Those door seals are about $300/ea list. Ack!

That new glass makes me so jealous, wow. Keep it up!

[AndrewBird]

Those door seals are $$$.

[Jordan]

OK so time for a little update. I haven't been able to work on the car for almost a week now because I've just been too sick and did not have any energy.

Today I went out and made a decent day of it, although I'm still feeling less than 100%

Test fit of the radiator duct, looks good:


Test fit of the Nissens parallel flow condenser, for R134a use. Fits perfect.


Mounting the hood hinge after it was painted off the car.


Upper door frame seal cleaning, as they were on the right, once cleaned and coated with Gummi Pflege.


Putting the guts back into the passenger door. Door handle, lock, catch, linkages, window guides, regulator and of course the window glass. New inner and outer window wiper trims.



I then did the same on the drivers door.


I decided to tackle the seat belts today. The ones that came with the car were functional, but they were mildew damaged from being stored in the previous owners garage, or perhaps they got rained on. Either way they were gross.



I've always liked the look of the red EVO M3 belts on red e30's. I thought about buying those buy I found they were A. NLA, and B. Ridiculously expensive. I have had some experience repairing seat belts at work, like say taking a locked belt of the correct color and swapping it into a healthy mechanism that had the wrong color belt to make a sellable unit for a customer etc.

I bought 20 yards of red seat belt material online.


The process of re-reeling a e30 seat belt mechanism is pretty simple. It is something I'm going to skim over though because its one of those things you should not mess with unless you know how to do it right, safety and all.




All four belts were done, I'm deciding if I want the 3rd rear belt red or not. I have to bring them buy a local upholsterer shop to have the ends stitched up like factory. I saved the ends of the factory belts for them to match the stitching size and style.

and to finish today off I installed the Z3 stubby antenna in a new grommet.

[Rouvld]

This project is coming along and looking amazing jordan!

[uturn]

I remember seeing that shell on craigslist. Felt bad for it but now amazed at it's resurrection. You're doing an awesome job!

[faujijatt]

Epic

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[0-60 freak]

I am on way to look at it shortly....excited!

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

[Jordan]

Tossed the old hood latch in the bin, and installed the new one.



Hood finally on the car and out of the way.

[TimeMachinE30]

This is a lot of fun to read and I could only imagine how satisfying.

[Aikmanson]

I am on way to look at it shortly....excited!

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

Wouldn't that be perfect, sell the car before its even finished. Glad I could point you in the right direction if it works out.

Jordan, love what you did with the seat belts. I may have to do the same to mine.

[robrez]

Time to stop eye-fucking this thread and say

[xAZxE30x]

wonderful! just wondeful! That Z3 antenna is awesome

[E30stan]

With the paint and engine, it's kinda like an e46 devolving into an e30:) perfect for a middle-aged dude that that wants to feel much younger while being much wiser. lol:)
Graceful handling of the heckler too... Keep up the top notch work and documentation!

[Jordan]

I'm STILL getting over this crap I've got, still hacking and such but I think I'm over the hill. Sucks to have a 4 day weekend for Thanksgiving and not be able to do anything to the car the first 2 days of it.

Regardless I managed to put some hours in today. I dropped the front suspension out of the car as a complete unit, and uh... threw it all in the scrap pile in the back yard. Everything going back in will be new, with the exception of the subframe and strut housings which I have clean donor units ready to go.

After dropping the suspension the first matter of business was to scrub, degrease and undercoat the front wheel wells, then install the main and forward fender liners.

I used SEM 39813 Satin Black Chipguard for this. It has a very light texture load and it sprays out nicely. Emulates the original finish pretty well while providing even color and a protective finish.





Back to those spare strut housings, those were cleaned up previously and refinished with SEM 39143 Trim Black. Reassembled with Koni SA inserts, Ireland Engineering Stage 3 springs, E90 aluminum drophats, and new Sachs upper mounts.




Installed back on the car, with new premium coated rotors.




Last matter of business today would be the steering linkage mockup. I decided on an E46 330i ZHP/ZF712 steering rack for this car as they are plentiful at my work, have a superb steering response With a 13.7:1 non-variable ratio they are the fastest rack readily available. There is a fixed 3 turns lock to lock on this rack, which is a great improvement over the non-M e30's 20.5:1 4 turns lock to lock stock.

One of my goals here was to fabricate a linkage that would not require modification to the firewall for a more amicable angle as is often "required" on steering rack conversions on airbag column cars. I used 2 E46 steering linkages, cut down to just the ujoints and installed opposed on one another. The D shaped core is still inside and the finished product seen here will be tig welded as is. The linkage is able to articulate through full travel/rotation without any binding of the joints, and most importantly... without modification to the firewall or the mounting plate on the firewall.

[nugentnsb]

nice work!