87' vert progress thread

[jhaurimn]

Did you find vogtland convertible springs? Or did you use regular e30 springs?

Springs are based on the engine, there shouldnt be a difference from coupe/sedan and vert. Its either 4cyl or 6cyl.

[paynemw]

I really like the red interior + black paint. I wish the PO for my '87 325iS kept the red interior.

[jhaurimn]

Little overdue for an update. I hardly did anything with the car in 2019 until the fall, but updates have been steady since.

It was September before I really messed with the car at all, and had a no start issue. Fuel pump fuse kept blowing. Since there are two pumps, I replaced the fuse and tried starting without the internal pump plugged in. In my quick testing, the fuse didnt blow again. Ordered a new (and expensive) internal pump from blunttech


Old pump didnt look too bad.... and car still would not start. Tried fuse test again and managed to blow it with internal pump not plugged in now. Time to order another fuel pump. Go to remove the old one....uro branded pump. Doesnt look to be that old....replaced with bosch pump


New filter while I was in there. Car starts again.


Big package....whats inside? Euro bumpers and a euro valance. (no picture of parts unboxed for some reason)


With old valance removed, took some time to tidy up the harness




New euro valance primed up. I applied por15 to the backside as well to protect against rust prior to this.


A NAPA auto near me has a paint area where I can get paint put into a can, as I do not have a setup to properly spray paint. Its worked well in the past. Decided it would be fine for the valance as it has a rough texture and is separated from the rest of the car with the bumper.


I was surprised, compared to the old valance, paint matched perfectly.


I had a little bit of paint left...and was not planning to paint the extra fender I got when I bought the car. (as the one on the car was smashed) The paint wouldnt be good after a few days, so I decided to just see if there was enough left for the fender. I am not joking when I say on my last coat of clear I had two decent sprays left before it started splattering due to the can being empty. Didnt get as much clear on it as I would prefer, but it was enough.


While wetsanding


And after. Not perfect, but excellent for a spray can job in my opinion.


Old smashed fender removed, and a shit load of dirt with it. I applied por15 to any surface rust I found.


After putting on the new fender and giving a 10 second hand polish to the neighboring door, I was relieved to find the paint matched.


Door was filthy as you can tell


And valance on. You may also notice I put some smoked headlights on. They did not last long.




I started prepping the front euro bumper for install a month or so ago. Started by cleaning up the plastic bits




After


And not many pictures of the process sadly. But eventually I figured out how it all went together and got it on the car!


Now you may notice something missing...fog lights. The valance i bought came with brackets for fogs, but not the lights themselves. My m3 since I bought it had butchered wiring on its fog lights, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to fix that, while also giving the convertible some fogs as well. Just had to switch around some brackets.

Here you can see the plugs had been cut off. I obtained plugs some time in the past to wire in and fix this.


The m3 brackets pop right off


With those off, they pop right into the euro valance fog brackets.


Aaand wiring fixed.


Nice and tidy.


And installed. Front end finally looking how I imagined when I bought the car. (also switched to normal smilies at this point as I didnt like how the smoked ones looked)




Getting to almost current now. Paint had seen better days


After a little compound polishing, looking much much better. Not going for perfect as there are some very deep scratches.


M3 was on shelf duty for a bit while I waited for the brand new fogs to arrive to replace the ones I stole off of it haha


Obligatory euro grilles




And now to yesterday. Finally ripped out the shit aftermarket radio setup. HVAC panel was destroyed so I ordered another to replace it.






Rear speakers were toast.


Aftermath of removing all the extra wiring. Was tapped into the original harness but in a way that was easily fixed thankfully.


Mucho better


And everything I took out minus the cd deck which was a pain to get out so it immediately went in the trash. Still have to pull front speakers as well but saving that for another day.



Aaaand we are caught up. Still waiting on a good shape rear euro bumper, should have one this summer. Been thinking about wheels as well....

[Tzantushka]

Euro bumper turned out really nice.
Looks really clean!

[bradnic]

SUB'D. glad we got you squared with the amp bypass! I updated the speaker wiring thread with your pic.

[jhaurimn]

Update time :)

When redoing the radio stuff, I decided to replace the destroyed hvac panel.




There was also a chrome trim piece here that had the broken plastic piece that plugs into the body broken, so bought a new one to replace.


Got lucky and there was one on ebay available that was in decent condition. Old broken one on top




My transmission used to grind into 3rd if i shifted at all quickly. Went to go change the fluid, and the transmission was definitely low. New MTL fluid was put in and the grind is gone.


Also found a rear euro bumper :)


Aaaaand, a birthday present to myself, a new set of ronal LS wheels with yokohama adven fleva v701 (the replacement to the yokohama s drives)




Thats all for now. :)

[2mAn]

Wow, looks perfect now.

[2mAn]

jhaurimn Time to bring this thing out of the garage?

[jhaurimn]

jhaurimn Time to bring this thing out of the garage?

It is now. :)

Whats going on here....


Ope.


OPE.


OPEEEE.


Boom.


Goes.


The dynamite.

https://youtu.be/YUD1qV5_Gvk

All buttoned up, just gotta tidy up the engine bay a bit and bring it to an exhaust shop. This is the m52 from my old rusty 325i, and this is at least the 5th car its been in. 3rd e30. Shes a trooper.

[2mAn]

Now how about an M3 update?...

[jhaurimn]

Now how about an M3 update?...

Unfortunately, nothing really to update on the m3. I went crazy on that car for 3 years and got it to the point where I was happy with it, and haven't done anything new since. Every year I tell myself I am going to drive it more... not going too well so far this year lol. I still have it though!

[2mAn]

Maybe we can get a COTM on the vert when its done... I think we were going to do one on the 325is but you waited so long that it rusted away LMAO... at least you're back

[jhaurimn]

Got the car to the exhaust shop. Pretty much the same setup as my old 325i exhaust had but with slanted tips. It really is harder with an early model to get the muffler looking right. I may end up doing something different down the road but I just wanted to get the car driveable.





Unfortunately on the way home...I was having overheating problems. In downtown Minneapolis. At 4PM. Not ideal. The spot I managed to park turned into a tow away zone which I was waiting for the tow truck and a parking lady was about to give me a ticket but thankfully just gave me a warning. Not the greatest of days.


And all because of this bastard. After the engine sat dry for a month prior to putting the m52 in the vert, the thermostat would not fully open.


Thankfully engine survived and is running great. In the old car I had the aux fan running to a manual switch (fog light switch) in my dash. I noticed low speed wasnt working and high speed would eventually blow fuse 18, so I knew the resistor was bad. I was going to order a new resistor for ~$30 when I realized MTC made a new aux fan with new resistor for about $145. Decided to just replace it all.

Its tight but because I no longer have an oil cooler in the way, was able to replace it without taking off the bumper and valance. Nice.



I also ordered a 80/88c switch for the m42 radiator so I can have the fan be controlled automatically, should be in soon.

Car gets aligned on wednesday and she should be good to go for quite a bit. I am glad to be back in a fast and reliable e30!

[jhaurimn]

Video going over the swap as it progressed here https://youtu.be/EeOekwLjyE0

[2.5-12]

engine got a car swap.. for the 5th time