Project Rust-bucket Rallycross Beater!

[Etfren]

Now that I am on my 3rd E30, I guess I better get to a build thread. More of a story on the misadventure of how I ended up with them all, but whatever.

So my first E30 is a beautiful '89 325is. Bought it in Bend in Feb 2014. Previous owner had pulled the motor and trans for whatever reason and had gone through and replaced all the suspension (Eibach springs, Bilstiens, new rack, new control arms, etc.), new brakes, new carpet, new tires, etc. Had enough stuff in new parts to be a good deal for a nice looking car, despite needing a lot of work for a car I knew nothing about.

Loaded it up and hauled it home. Got some compliments along the way from some guy at a light in Gresham, totally made my night and got me excited to finally have my dream car.



Well I got the motor installed after a few month delay while helping the_Imitator with his 318 project. Motor cranks, no spark, no fuel. Found a wire that had somehow melted going to the main power relay. Spent another few months procrastinating and eventually pulled the engine harness, fixed the bad wire and put it back in. Now it doesn't even crank. Shelved it, haven't messed with it much since. I kinda have an idea where to go with it next, but got busy with getting married and other non-BMW projects.



I'm really good a at procrastinating and finding another project when one is going poorly. So I bought a different E30!


Odd story to how and why I acquired this one. Had a wedding to go to in Boise and had a ride there, but no ride back home. Thought about towing one of my trucks over there behind the motor home and then towing the empty trailer back home with me, but that seemed like a waste. So to Craigslist I went!



Found this lovely gem of an '84 318 for a reasonable price and best of all it had working A/C, which was about the only thing I was looking for since it was due to be 102 degrees in Boise that weekend.

As with all my E30's this one didn't make it home without some intervention. Test drive went well, bought it and went to dinner. After dinner, 5 mins down the road the temp spikes, starts spewing coolant and I shut it down. Thinking it was getting hot putzing around in traffic I get it on a side road and cruise it at 40 trying to cool it and it boils over again.

Now it's about 10 at night, we are 2 hours from where we were supposed to be so I pull it on a side road and we camp out for the night in the motor home. I'm trying to figure out if the water pump or fan had pooped out on me (electric fan was ghetto rigged to run constantly at this point) or whats going on. PO said it always ran hot but he read online that was normal for a 318. Tried to book a U-haul trailer and find a parts store that would have BMW stuff in the morning, but wasn't having much luck.

Called the PO in the morning, he dug through the garage and found a spare thermostat and came and helped us change it on the side of the road. Awesome guy, he was really cool about the whole thing.

Anyways, had a fantastic cruise through the mountains near Cascade, ID. I highly recommend it if you are ever in the area. Got the car home and finally got to enjoy driving an E30!



More to come in the next update.

[the imitator]

Killer! Hopefully your progress will be much more swift than mine! lol!

[Richter]

Cool story and nice finds, subscribed!

[Etfren]

Glad some one likes it, so I guess I better get some posted.

So I bought the 84 318 at the end of June 2014 and instantly fell in love with it. It was extremely slow and the M10 didn't feel like it particularly wanted to be revved above 3k rpm, but that was alright with me. I was finally driving an E30!

I immediately started fixing up stuff on it since I wanted everything I could get working to be working properly. Rewired the fans so they were back on the temp switches, removed the ghetto sub box with the blown speakers and fixed/removed a lot of hodge podge wiring that had been done over the years. Got all the exterior lights working and picked up some new plugs and an Interstate battery.

The car had previously been repainted, but very poorly. Poorly masked, badly prepped, but the color was factory and it was a great 20 foot car. I buffed it all out and got it ready to drive up to FD Seattle, and then in typical PNW fashion, it rained.

But that left me with some great water beading shots!







While in Seattle I hung out with a friend of mine who has always wanted a more classic car (he drives a 94 Escort 5-spd hatchback with 250K miles and loves the thing) and he also fell in love with the little E30. He told me when I was ready to sell it, I need to hit him up. I told him it needed a bunch more little things fixed and then I'd feel comfortable selling it to him. He lives in Seattle and has no garage and limited tools, so I'm doing him a favor for sure. :)

[Etfren]

Now may be a good time to throw in a little back ground about myself. I have always been into cars and racing, but never had the budget to buy anything exciting until I was out of college. Prior to owning any E30s, my second car (after a Saturn wagon) was this thing. I bought it knowing it needed a lot of work and planned to teach myself how to work on cars while fixing it up.



It's an Isuzu Vehicross, and after buying it with plans to fix it up while teaching myself how to work on cars, one thing led to another and I got a job at a shop about a year later. Ended up working there for 3 years, learned a ton and now I have all the tools I need for wrenching at home and enough knowledge to know when I'm in over my head. Which is still often.

So, the VX, while it shares most of its drivetrain parts with Troopers, is still a rather unique little thing. Finding parts for it is often times challenging and frustrating, but most stuff is out there somewhere. Compare that with the oem and aftermarket support for something like the E30 and now I am in parts ordering heaven!

Anyway, enough rambling, more pictures! I took the 318 out to the Wilsonville Cars and Coffee meet and it turned out to be a good day for BMW race cars.







Ok, maybe not such a good day for everyone.



A couple hours later though, this was my view. I was tired of the puddle in the driveway so I replaced the oil pan and front crank seal, new belts, plugs, and valve cover.



Drove the car some more and fixed more little things like the wipers and turn signals. I love how most of the electronics in the car just need a little cleaning and everything works perfectly again. Blinkers work randomly? Remove the relay, pull the cover, clean it and everything is great. Wipers wont park? Remove the cowl, pull the cover, clean it and my wipers work perfect on all speeds again. I much prefer fixing parts than just replacing them.

I also appreciate the wonderful write ups on line for simple fixes. Typing in whatever is wrong with the car instantly pulls up a dozen people with similar problems and their solutions.

[Etfren]

So, now its almost Thanksgiving and my friend in Seattle has a new job and enough money to buy the car and is really anxious to buy it. I tell him I need 1-2 more weeks to get the last couple things fixed up and then he can have it.

I really loved the car though, but it was time to move on. So I finally fix the trunk leak and polish up the tail lights and take it out for a final photo shoot. I was so busy fixing and driving the car I never got around to doing this until the day he drove down to pick it up.





I never really cared for the diving boards until I actually owned a DB car. While they still look a bit awkward at times in pictures, they look perfect in person. I was always staring at the car as I walked away after parking it.

In anticipation of the sale, I had been looking frantically for my next DD. I kept looking at FC RX7s and other 70's JDM stuff (Celicas, Datsuns, etc.) 'cause I wanted to try something different, but E30's just kept calling my name. So 3 days after selling the '84, I was looking at my next one. In a sketchy part of Portland, in the dark, in the freezing rain. Not an ideal situation to look at a POS car you probably shouldn't be buying, but that's how it goes sometimes.

Enter Rusty.

[Etfren]

Been busy getting a few more things sorted on the car and getting pics together, now where was I?

Ah yes, buying the car. Bought it from the second owner, she had owned it since 1993 when her dad bought it for her as a graduation present. It spent 20 years in Minnesota and then 3-4 years in Arizona before getting brought to the NW. It sat for a few months since it needed some work, but she had planned to give it to her daughter.

I only drove it to the end of the block and back, the rear door flew open and it was making a lot of bad clunking noises. I probably should have run away, but instead I lowballed them $400 under their asking price and they took it. I figured I'd try and get it running and if all else fails, I could part it and get my money back and some spares for my '89.

So I'm driving home and loving the M42. Runs circles around the M10. About a mile from my house though, the tach stops working, wipers slow down and headlights go dim. Then it sputters to a stop and smells like fuel really bad. Get a ride home, grab the jumpbox and limp it home the rest of the way. Almost made it home under its own power!

So I pull the alternator out and check the voltage regulator.



Yup, wasn't much left. Picked up a new one, cleaned all the grounds and what do you know, we are charging 14.2 volts again.

Next is to tackle the fuel smell. Thought it was just a bad filler hose, turns out the tank had seen better days. Big hole in the filler neck, plus lots of other small holes. Not worth fixing when a new one is under $200. If I hadn't already registered the thing, I would have parted it at this point, but now its committed to being my DD for a while.



I needed the crossover tube since mine was rusted to my old tank. I really didn't want to pay the $100 every online place wanted though. I lucked out and it was still on the only E30 in a nearby pick-n-pull. Thanks to whoever halfway dropped the rear subframe and just left it hanging by that tube though, that was great. Picked up a few other goodies, all for $10!

[Etfren]

So while waiting for my tank and other parts to come in I cleaned up the wheels. Half the reason I bought the car was for these, I really liked the OE gold with silver lips.

After cleaning, scuffing as much of the baked on brake dust off, and polishing.



The center caps were all badly faded so I disassembled them, sanded and painted them. Forgot to take pictures of them disassembled, but I can get some if anyone is interested in how they come apart.



I was quite impressed with how close the color match was. The silver was Krylon 1406 Sliver Metallic and the gold was Rustoleum 7710 Gold. I didn't use any clear and the gloss level is nearly the same as the wheels.

New tank finally showed up. Pretty easy install compared to some I have done.



While I had the driveshaft and exhaust out I also replaced the flex disc and CSB. The CSB was totally ripped and the clunking I heard when taking off was the driveshaft banging around under the car. U-joints were hammered, but I wasn't going to drop $400 on getting it rebuilt at this point. I'm keeping this thing under $1500 for now.

With all the rust, the flange for the exhaust broke in two while removing the bolts. The muffler also fell off after taking it out of the car, so I was due for a new exhaust system. Luckily the shop I used to work at still lets me borrow their lift and a welder so I cobbled something together. They had a spare brand new muffler for a Honda so I tossed that on. This was my boss's solution to the broken mounting flange while still being removable.



This is why we call her Rusty.

[Etfren]

Here is the fleet as they sit now with the wagon and '89 in the background.



Next project is fabbing up a skid plate to protect that low hanging M42 pan. Plans are to run some local Rallycross events with it, and maybe some drift events later this year. Also daily driving it so I can have some downtime to mess with some projects on the Vehicross.

[Richter]

cool stuff so far, nice job on the wheels

Where'd you order the fuel tank from?

[Etfren]

cool stuff so far, nice job on the wheels

Where'd you order the fuel tank from?

Got the tank from Rock Auto. $180 shipped and it got here in less than a week, 3 days ahead of schedule. I was very impressed, been ordering a bunch of stuff from them for my Isuzu's recently.

Anyway, I picked up some goodies locally. Got some new seats and H4 headlights and set to installing them yesterday. No pics of seats yet, ran into problems with the rails and then ran out of daylight, so that got postponed a few days. Pulled it into the garage to swap the headlights.

Swapped out the lights and turned them on and then ran into some wiring issues. The low beams both worked, but when switching to high beams, the passenger high beam didn't come on, the drivers side did, but the drivers side low beam went out. Lovely.

Turns out being a rusty old car from MN, the wires on the connectors for the high beam had corroded badly and were barely hanging on and changing out the bulbs broke whatever was left holding them. Pulled the power side out and re-soldered it. Now the low beam works on both setting, but the high beam doesn't work at all. Pull it back out, find that the ground wire also separated while fidling with it and solder that back together. Now it's all working!



So I know the cool thing to protect headlights is the Xpel film. Well I didn't have any of that on hand, but I do have these!





These were some leftovers my dad had from back in the day when he used to have a "souped up" '76 Capri and later a pair of E21's in the early 80's.

Unfortunately he hasn't been into performance cars since he sold those, but he is getting into helping me with the E30's and enjoying reminiscing about his BMW days.



Unless you look at them from the side you can't even tell they are on there.





I am very pleased with the light output, even with the generic bulbs that are in them. I always hated driving at night with the sealed beam candles.

[Etfren]

So I got to installing my new seat tonight. Picked up a set of no-name buckets from a local R3v member. One is torn up a bit so I am going to take a crack at re-covering it later, so for now I just swapped brackets and installed the passenger seat on my side.

Brackets were rusty so I wire wheeled all the rust off, primed and painted them.

Before, with my NOS oil and fuel filter to be installed soon.



Painted



Installed. Took about 45 mins to swap out the driver seat since it took some fidling to get the custom brackets to line up properly. Seat fits nearly perfect, just has a very slight angle towards the left so the bolster clears the center console.



Right after I took this I realized that I am now unfortunately one of those kids with a single race seat in my other wise stock daily driver. Ah well, gotta start somewhere and it will be justified soon. I am very happy with it, feels great driving the car with proper support now.

[the imitator]

You already know the answer.. Cuz race car.