Re-body project for my 24V e30

[bimmer630]

Ive been daily driving my E30 pretty much since I got it back in 2011 or so. It was never a nice car, I got it for about 700.00 with a blown M20, and put an S50 in it with a 5 lug suspension, 5 speed swap, etc etc.



Original build/swap thread is here https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/sho...d.php?t=271850




Anyway, the car is very rough at this point, and I used it for two winters in Cleveland. Ive got holes in the floor, license plate lights that are falling out of the rotted tail panel, etc etc.


Found this clean Texas coupe and had to jump on it, even though Im not really prepared to do any of this, and was honestly just gonna sell the 4 door a few months ago and be done with E30's.

[bimmer630]

Heres the old (rusty) car

[bimmer630]

Thrashed rocker on the right side of the silver car (was like this when I bought it... I always thought maybe Id pull it out and install some Mtech skirts or something.. )

[bimmer630]

The two E30s, Waiting to become one


My garage is crap, theres no lighting in there, only one outlet, and no room. the hopes are to get some of the work done at home and tow the cars over to where I work to do the "real" work

[bimmer630]

Its rare to find a rust free body up here in Northeast Ohio, So I had to grab this thing. the only trouble is, I drove an hour away with a trailer and didnt know there was going to be some damage to the front frame rails and a LOT of damage to the rad. support. The guy I bought it from was honest and said the rad support was tweaked, but I didnt know it was going to be as bad as it is.

still totally worth it though

[bimmer630]

A view of the engine bay before I took it apart. I just hacked the Rad support off since it was so mangled, Ill have to replace it anyway

[bimmer630]

And the motor that will go into it...

[bimmer630]

Its super Clean below the battery box (And at the lic. plate lights too).

[bimmer630]

Its obviously had an incident with a tree or something.. And they just beat the rad support back together as good as possible and replaced the grill and hood (?).

The rails have some buckling in them which I decided to try and straighten a few weekends ago

[bimmer630]

Whats with this site and trying to upload pics? First I discovered that my iphone takes pics in this new HEIC format that wont work with anything.. And then when I figured out how to get the proper Jpeg files moved over to the PC, some of them still fail uploading here on R3v.

Also, why cant I post more than one image in the post at a time?

[wworm]

what are you using to upload photos? I'd recommend hosting them on flickr or something. Pretty quick and easy to do.

also, how did you end up doing the front 5 lug swap? Hub adapters or e36 transplant?

[bimmer630]

what are you using to upload photos? I'd recommend hosting them on flickr or something. Pretty quick and easy to do.

also, how did you end up doing the front 5 lug swap? Hub adapters or e36 transplant?

Im just using the attachments function on R3v. Ill check out the flikr thing. Never have used it


My 5 lug is 96-up E36 M3 knuckles and brakes, with Mz3 struts (Any e36 strut works though) and 96-up M3 control arms, with offset CABs

[bimmer630]

the sports seats are trashed as usual, but I plan on recovering them

[bimmer630]

Stripped the dash, carpet, and heater box out of the white one this past weekend, And found that the damage on the trans tunnel is a bit worse than I thought
I knew the Guibo came apart and thrashed the tunnel, but I didnt know that it actually sliced through the sheetmetal in places. that will be some work.

also It looks like the motor was pushed back into the firewall in the accident, and dented up the firewall below the heater box

[bimmer630]

Heres the floor on the passengers side. Not as bad as the drivers side