Rontgen's 1990 325iS Build Thread

[eternal24k]

fantastic thread and great looking car. Leatherique has never made any of my leather softer, in fact, they say "For “cardboard hard” leather, several applications will be necessary." so, pretty much the opposite. But it does great things to dry leather and really seems to help.

[ATL_E30]

Just read through the whole thing! Awesome thread!

[Rontgen]

Thanks!!

[Staszek]

Looking really good!!

[Rontgen]

It did to some degree, but the leather is still very firm. I guess the difference is that it doesn't feel like it's going to crack and self-destruct like it used to. I think the key is heat - the leather needs to warm up to really absorb the conditioner.

[Richter]

really nice build, looks awesome!

Did the Leatherique conditioner soften up your seat leather? i tried a few products on my seats that did absolutely nothing...

[Rontgen]

Time for an alignment:



The finished product:





I'm very, very happy with how this turned out. The drop is just right, handling is factory fresh+, and the ride is very compliant for what will be a daily driven car. Still lots of little things to finish on this project, but this is the last big item! We can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel! haha

[Rontgen]

Subframe Bushings coming out:



Definitely time for replacement:





New Bushings going in:



RTABs:

[Rontgen]

Yet another long overdue update. More progress - slow and steady! lol

The suspension on the car was a mix of original 28-y/o pieces and some unknown aftermarket ~10 y/o parts, so we decided to change it all and start with a clean slate. The parts list:

- H&R Sport Springs (50406)
- Bilstein B4
- Meyle Front Control Arms
- E36 FCABs
- Lemforder sway bar bushings & end links
- Lemforder Subframe Bushings
- Lemforder RTABs
- New strut mounts, spring pads, etc

Car up:



Subframe Out:



Had some trouble with the right rear brake line. It absolutely refused to loosen up. These were lines that we installed <1000mi ago, so I can only assume we over-tightened them. It turned into a nightmare but we eventually worked through it. Needed to create a new Copper Nickel rear swingarm hard line, though

[Rontgen]

Still have a couple small things to do (HVAC panel is broken, door sills both broke during removal, and stereo install), but it's at least drivable for now! I'm out of the country for the next month, but when I get back - it's suspension time!

[Rontgen]

Both front seats had a considerable amount of slop in the mechanisms and didn't always like to latch after an adjustment. After looking closely, I saw a lot of dirt build up in the hinge mechanisms and decided to clean it up in hopes it would resolve the slop.

While that helped, it didn't resolve the issue for either side. The passenger side was an easy fix - the 2 Phillips-head bolts that secure the backrest to the hinges were very loose.

The drivers side wasn't so easy:



The previous owner was a big guy and the seat bottom frame definitely showed that. I found major damage in the back right corner and another 4 areas where the frame was cracked. After a trip to a professional with a TIG....

[Rontgen]

The leather in this car was in good condition, but was very dry. I used some Leatherique conditioner I had and let them bake in the sun to allow the leather's pores to absorb the conditioner.

[Rontgen]

We removed the carpets and thankfully found clean floor pans. The drivers side had a little bit of surface rust, which was wire-brushed to remove and hit with protective paint as a precaution



Dash in and dyed the carpets black after a pressure-wash cleaning. We'll get some black floor mats to prevent further wear of the carpet.

[Rontgen]

At some point long ago, a previous owner had installed an aftermarket alarm system. That had evidently failed at some point, so the alarm modules were removed by the previous owner, but he left the rats nest of wiring behind. We pulled all of this out



We also rebuilt the VDO cluster, replacing the odometer gears and SI board Ni-Cad batteries

[Rontgen]

After pulling the rear parcel shelf, it was obvious how much UV fading and fabric damage there was.



We cleaned it up, removing all the fabric that had been reduced to dust and then dyed the remaining fabric black. It's not perfect but it looks much better than before.