Melon's E30 Build.

[Melon]

So, I bought an E30.

Ta da!



This belonged to a friend of mine, who had it for fours years, he bought it with the swap done, but was in pretty rough shape. I've helped him do most of the major surgeries, suspension, gas tank, differential, and clutch, so I'm familiar with the car. He got tired of it and wanted to focus on other projects.

So, here's what I got.

1987 325e Auto
M20b25 swapped from a 1989 325is
5-Speed manual - Getrag (I assume)
Headers, with custom 2.5" exhaust, 200 cell cat, magnaflow muffler
New Sachs OEM+ clutch
Garagistic DSSR shift rod
Z3 shift rod with new cup
New clutch master and slave

Drivetrain:
3.73 LSD. freshly serviced and sealed.
75a poly rear diff mount.
Garagistic SS lines all around
Bilstein sports with HR sport spings
HD mounts up front and lifetime bimmerworld mounts in rear
New sway links all around


Car needs a lot of work. My plan is to make a decent driver's street car out of it. Not going full on race car, but would like to autocross it, drive it to work, or out on a date with the lady, or put it through it's paces on a mountain road.

The suspension bushings and smaller bits need replacing, and I'll get to that, but the springs and shocks are fine, stiffer sways are going to be needed.

I ordered the UUC BBK for it, and I'll install that when I do the suspension and engine work.

I got started with adding a steering wheel and seat.





And I bought a whole lot of crap.



I autocrossed it.



Then I decided it's time to get to work on the serious stuff. So, I started stripping it down and prepping it for paint.







Let the body work games begin!

[K-Bar]

Pics!!

[Mazdayasna]

Yes it doesn't look like you uploaded properly. Try uploading to imgur and using [IMG] tags?
Looking forward to your content!

[Melon]

Dah crap.

I linked from Imgur, what's the trick to get them to embed properly?

Edit: Got it. Stupid Imgur, had to add '.jpg' to the end of each link manually.

[alistairolsen]

Christ at the image sizes, but the car looks like a good project. Always nice when you can follow on from someone you know and you know what has been done has been done right.

[Melon]

Christ at the image sizes, but the car looks like a good project. Always nice when you can follow on from someone you know and you know what has been done has been done right.

Fixed!

I'm new to using Imgur, and this forum doesn't auto-resize like others do.
Think I've got it figured out.

[Melon]

Got the rest of the interior out last night.

[Mazdayasna]

Got the rest of the interior out last night.

woof, what a mess! That will be fun to put back together, have you done all this before?
At work I get unreasonable pleasure out of rewiring electrical panels and tucking everything in nicely, and my E30 is currently suffering from multiple electrical gremlins, but still I'm too afraid to commit to a rewire. Maybe one day.

Have you settled on a color yet? Reupholstering anything/adding sound insulation while you're in there?

[Codym42]

I like where this is going!

Why did you pull the dash?

[Melon]

woof, what a mess! That will be fun to put back together, have you done all this before?
At work I get unreasonable pleasure out of rewiring electrical panels and tucking everything in nicely, and my E30 is currently suffering from multiple electrical gremlins, but still I'm too afraid to commit to a rewire. Maybe one day.

Have you settled on a color yet? Reupholstering anything/adding sound insulation while you're in there?

I'll have to sit down the the Bentley manual and go over all the electrical connectors one by one, it's the only way to make sure they're all good.

Have I done this before?
Not exactly, I've done a lot of wrenching in my day, but nothing of this scale. So, should be fun. I'm taking notes, tagging and bagging all the screws when labels.

Color.
Fire Orange.

I got inspired by the H&R car.
I'm not going to have the valence or painted bumpers, but mine will be a M20 car. :hubba:

I got new seats, I'll be installing a new headliner, as well as B-Pillar and C-Pillar trim. Going to buy decent condition rear seats off eBay for about $400. The car came with the back rest, but it's pretty rough, no bottom bench.

[Melon]

I like where this is going!

Why did you pull the dash?

I got the car with a separate heater box. So I'm going to try to make one good one with the two. The car also had no A/C, the PO was trying to install it, but I'm going to check the evap core and change out the expansion valve for 134a.

Also, it's going to be easier to isn't all the window seal with it out. It ripped the edge of the dash when I pulled the seal out.
Oops.

[MB07]

Little rough but a good amount of mods already done to give you a decent jumping off point. Excited to see how this build goes!

[ahrensNW]

400 for rear seats is steep

[Melon]

Little rough but a good amount of mods already done to give you a decent jumping off point. Excited to see how this build goes!

Yeah, she needs some TLC for sure, Thanks!

400 for rear seats is steep

:up: I figured someone would let me know if I could get them cheaper. I've been looking through the FS section on here briefly, but mainly been browsing eBay.

[HerbE30]

Where the Schmidts go?