1988 325is Alpineweiss II

[mbonanni]

Got the seat covers Monday and have put in a few hours getting my seats together. A little bit more to go, but I think these are going to look sweet when they're done. I've never really had an e30 with a clean interior, so I am looking forward to how this turns out.











I also ordered the following from FCPEuro which should be here next Monday.
Control arms
Tie rods
Sway bar end links (F/R)
Strut mounts
Shock mounts
Oil & filter

I have the Camaro KYG AGX struts and plan to get KYG AGX rear shocks as well. Not sure what I want to do for suspension. I am between either doing a shock/spring setup and also some aftermarket sway bars, or getting a coilover kit and camber plates from ground control or similar.

[mbonanni]

Been neglecting posting photos because i still need a couple things to finish the interior, but the front seats are done with the exception of the seat shocks. I am having trouble with the passenger side tilt locking. It won't lock in any position other than furthest forward. I am happy how they turned out though, annd for the crappy iphone pics..

[2mAn]

Who did you buy the covers from? I want to redo some sport seats for my car. Did you need any special tools? Kinda intimidated by doing it, but Ive seen several tackling it so I think its worth a shot

[mbonanni]

I got mine from lseat.com for $330 ish shipped just for the front seat covers, shocks are like $150+ to replace all 8 as well so keep that in mind. I did not do that yet. Overall the job was not that hard but youll definitely want to take your time, do it little by little every day and follow the diys. I bought a heat gun to help shrink the leather after, clothes steamer to help expand the foam, hog ring pliers, and hog rings.

[benwalsh91]

the seats look amazing! i want to see how the trim has come out as thats on my to do list soon!

making me tempted to re do my seats now aswell. hmmmm

following along the progress, keep up the good work!!

[968Reckless]

Who did you buy the covers from? I want to redo some sport seats for my car. Did you need any special tools? Kinda intimidated by doing it, but Ive seen several tackling it so I think its worth a shot

Seats are easy. Get a set of harbor freight 12” bolt cutters to remove old hog rings.


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[Aleman]

That is 100% Cardinal red. It was the only interior offered in 1988, in red.

For reference...

0162 "Cherry" red (1984 spec)
0208 "Taurus" red (1985-1987)
0256 "Cardinal" red (1987-1989)
0324 "Crimson" red (1990+)

Could be 0296 Cardinal as well. Not sure why they changed the code number from 87 to 88.

[mbonanni]

Having my car be a project car it made the seat job less stressful. If I had to do them in a weekend I would definitely make sure you have everything you need right there.

I actually have a new update, progress has been slow but I’ve been in between jobs the past couple weeks and finally settling in at my new place.

Anyways, assembled my coilovers yesterday. These are American Racing front springs, aftermarket adjusters and sleeves, new top hats, IE top seat thing? (maybe I dont rememeber) and KYB adjustable MR2 rear struts. I like the way they turned out, and for only ~$200 total! Very excited to try them. Sorry more iPhone pics.



I also was able to get my subframe reinforcements welded up by a new coworker and powder coated at one of our vendors. Stupid me forgot to have the sway bar reinforcements welded in so I may have to just rock it as is or find a way to secure them on. Do you guys think I can’t just install them with my sways and not weld them on?? Hmmm... I also got my e46 330i rack mounted up to the subframe, but now for the issue I encountered today...

While installing the subframe, rack, and new motor mounts everything was going well until the last bolt [emoji19] Welll it was very difficult to screw in and then ended up not going in all the way. Turns out the previous owner broke the end of the old bolts way deep in the threads, sooo now what do I do? I read I can come from above the rail from the engine bay and possibly drill it out then extract it using a left hand drill bit?? I have no clue... I would hate to use a spacer for this, but if it comes down to it I may have to... Aside from that I will be ordering rear shocks soon and then getting her on the ground so I can see what other gremlins are hiding from me.

[Jokester]

I had to remove a broken bolt from the frame in the control arm location.

Total pain in the ass. Lots of yelling, banging, and drilling got it out.

If it has enough threads, I don’t see any issues with a spacer, just make sure you torque it to correct specs and check in on it every now and then.

[mbonanni]

I googled some thread engagement rules of thumb and It said generally 1-1.5 times the bolt diameter for steel is good enough. I believe I have about 1 full diameter of the bolt so I am just going to machine a spacer at work tomorrow and keep an eye on it like you said. I absolutely do not want to deal with drilling this out unless absolutely needed.

Moving on from that I will be installing my steering coupler and power steering lines today. If that goes smoothly I should be able to bolt up my control arms and strut housings as well. I’ve got a bit under two months before I move again, so my goal is to have it completed a couple weeks before that.

I really need to figure out what wheels I want to put on this thing... My all time favorite wheels for e30s are style 32’s but I didn’t plan for five lug and already bought new rotors and pads so I’m strugglin to find something else.

[mbonanni]

1988 325is Alpineweiss II

A little bit more progress - Coilovers and controls arms are installed but not torqued because I still need tie rod ends, controls arm bushings, and sway bars. I also installed a power steering delete I had laying around cause my ps reservoir had an inch of gunk in it and I did not want that shit in my new rack.

[laidback93]

Loving the progress. And that interior is delicious!

I'd drop on by if I still lived in Modesto.

BTW - I bought my e30 from a guy in Sac. He's a lead fabricator at Kontrolle Engineering in Rancho Cordova. He did a crap ton of work to my car before I bought it. Super cool guy.

He's now working on a DeLorean project.

[Staszek]

Looking good, like seeing another AWII IS build!

[mbonanni]

1988 325is Alpineweiss II

Thanks guys! Really enjoying putting this one together.

Yesterday I started the car for the second or third time since doing the water pump and timing belt - fires right up. I let her get to operating temp for the first time and then it sat halfway between half and 3/4 on the temp gauge however died a few times for no apparent reasons and then took a good 5-10 seconds of cranking to restart. Not sure what the problem is here, but before I get to chasing that down I need to get a few hose clamps as I am missing a few key ones most likely causing some serious vacuum leaks.

With that said I was also experiencing erratic idle, a misfire or just plain running rough and the rpm gauge would flutter a loot when I would bring the rpms up and sit at one spot. I have a video posted below, Any reasons that would cause this? I think perhaps the cluster is bad as my fuel gauge is intermittent as well. I tested the TPS and it checked out, could it still be bad? I also checked the spark plugs and cyl 3 was a tad loose as well as very wet with what looked like oil. After wiping it down and tightening it up it seemed like she ran a bit smoother.

https://youtu.be/2EQqhLcV8XM

And here is a short little video of it starting and running. Sometimes when I rev it up and let it go back to idle it drops real low and then starts to hunt so I tried to replicate that to with no real progress. You can kind of heard how it is running rough in this video, and the exhaust note sounds really deep and not like something’s I’ve hear from an e30. Almost boat like - however that might be the rusted out stock muffler.

https://youtu.be/m2rmKkn8LuI

I went ahead and checked the oil after letting it sit for a few minutes and it was well above the full line - going to drain some today and see if that does any good. Damn previous owner must have put 6 qts or something in.

Those problems aside I have ordered some wheels, good ol classic Ronal LS. [emoji41]

Now moving onto suspension - I received my Camaro KYB agx a week or so ago so I need to figure out how I am going to install the lower end of those. Normally a step down spacer would be ideal but I cannot find one online anywhere, anyone have experience installing these? Recommendations?

Also will be paying Jokester for some sway bars today as well as ordering a few more odds and ends so hopefully I will get all those next week and I can put her on the ground [emoji1591]

Annd a pic of my daily e30 just because what’s an update without some kind of pictures.

[mbonanni]

Let me know if the embedded YouTube videos in my last post are not working. They show up for me on Tapatalk, but not when I use safari browser on my phone.