Japandrew73's OEM Euro Restore

[JasonC]

So new headlight rings come in chrome? If so, i'll get some for mine as a nice little detail.

[Japandrew73]

So new headlight rings come in chrome? If so, i'll get some for mine as a nice little detail.

No i said they don't come in chrome. It looks nicer in chrome. My old ones are for sale in the for sale section if you want.

OEM headlight rings only come painted silver.

coming along nicely, did you see the alpina front valance? It would be amazing on your car.

I thought about it, alpina chromies are awesome, but my car isn't an alpina and i couldn't live with being a poser. ignore my shift and ebrake boots

[Japandrew73]

The moment you all have been waiting for has arrived...
I had everything layed out and ready for instal on my dresser and at this point was just waiting for the Fedex Truck. I began to prep my car for the swap (Take off diving board). I was gonna shit a brick if the Fedex truck didn't come with the rest of the parts because this is my DD and I'd be stuck driving around with no bumper.
Please excuse the layer of filth on my car. Tomorrow I will wash it and take pics for all to see. Also in a few pics the sun glare makes it look weird but deal with it.
Something kind of cool that I learned is you can do almost anything with the BMW toolkit because my socket set is mixed and matched from like 5 different sets and I didn't have the right socket size to take pretty much anything off. I used only the tools from my toolkit in the trunk.

Euro Plate off/Last look at diving board


Bumper off


Right Apron off


Shocks off (notice the dead spider)



Left Apron off


While I had everything off I figured to do the best I can without a huge hassle to make the valence look good, even though it's getting replaced very soon. So I washed and clayed it to get as much shit off as I could. There's a bit of a difference, worth the 10 minutes.


At literally the same time as when I had nothing else to do but instal the bumper, the Fedex truck came with my last package.



Moved everything needed for the instal off my dresser and outside.


Bumper Mounts on


The mess I had created


What I thought had been the correct plug housing for the Euro turn indicator was far from it. For now I just have plugs on there but will eventually get plug housings if I am able to find the correct housing.


There are 3 wires in the diving board turn indicators, Blue, Brown, and Grey/White striped. By Process of elimination I found the two you need for it to function correctly are the Blue and Brown. The correct function is that they are NOT running lights like your previous turn indicators, they simply blink when the blinkers and hazards are on.


This is for Kronus, This is how the chrome overlay works at the joints.




Fully chromed out


Mounted bumper and lifted up as much as I could while screwing into mounts so as to leave as little gap as possible.


slight gap by corner... fixable at some point



Other side on with same small fixable gap


Trim piece on


Turn indicator on along with center plate. If there is one thing differently that I would have done it would be to put the turn indicators on before I mounted it. There is one nut that took me 30min to get screwed in tight enough, it's just a horrible angle to get into place.


Other side trim piece on


Small gap in between light and trim pieces (gap is normal)


Here it is


But there is one last step




One more more step




started to repaint lip while it was off (still wet in pic)


I have little pics of the bumper installed but will have loads more tomorrow





So the front of my car looks beautiful and Thursday I order the euro valence which will go to paint and onto my car, then fogs, then rear bumper.

[kamotors]

very nice, looks 100x better

[kronus]

Nice.

For future reference, it's much easier to completely assemble the bumper off the car and then put it on.

[Japandrew73]

Nice.

For future reference, it's much easier to completely assemble the bumper off the car and then put it on.

Yea that's what I wanted to do but I was reading the DIY in the DIY section of these forum and it says "Hint: put the center trim piece on last" so i assumed to put all the trim on last. Oh well, i'll do that for the rear. Any idea on how to minimize the small gap on the sides?

[Edev]

I hate being jealous. Beautiful e30. It cleans up quite nicely.

[atomic]

Looking good man!

Now I know what turn signal housings I need to order for my early model full BBS body kit...


And I need to order a complete front euro bumper to match the rear I have in storage

[karzrtoyz]

Your car is turning out really nice, good work!

[Japandrew73]

Looking good man!

Now I know what turn signal housings I need to order for my early model full BBS body kit...


And I need to order a complete front euro bumper to match the rear I have in storage

Or do you need to sell your rear euro bumper to me?

Is your BBS kit for the euro turn signals like mine? Which plug housing did you use?

And thanks for all the compliments guys.

[WhatWentWong]

interesting news i have just found out. I thought my econometer has been reading backward the whole time but have discovered this.

The US econometers go in Miles Per Gallon, MPG (So when flooring it, it goes to 0 because you are traveling 0 miles per gallon)

The Euro econometers go in Liters Per 100 Kilometers, L/100km (so when flooring it, it goes to 40+ because you are using 40 liters or more to reach 100 kilometers)

Weird huh? It's pretty much backwards. So my econometer DOES work and it ISN'T going backwards.

Haha, surprised a Canadian member hasn't spoken up about this at all. Maybe someone did and I neglected to read all 11pages. You also could have gotten the same cluster from Canada and it would have looked all but the same and equally "euro", but probably a lot better pricing.

So, now your speedo is reading in KPH, but does your odometer actually tick over in 1 KPH interval, or 1 MPH interval? Interesting too how your original US cluster off your car had the fuel gauge reading in metric Liters, and maxes at 60L. To my knowledge, 6cyl cars got 60L fuel gauges (well, metric cars did anyway), and 4cyl cars got 55L fuel gauges like your new cluster. So it seems your 'original cluster' in your US 318i might have actually been a hodge podge of bits from a 6cyl metric car:S This is making my head hurt!





Cheers....

[e30this]

you should paint the inside of your front bumper to keep it from rusting. I notice that is a common problem with euro bumps..

[Japandrew73]

Haha, surprised a Canadian member hasn't spoken up about this at all. Maybe someone did and I neglected to read all 11pages. You also could have gotten the same cluster from Canada and it would have looked all but the same and equally "euro", but probably a lot better pricing.

So, now your speedo is reading in KPH, but does your odometer actually tick over in 1 KPH interval, or 1 MPH interval? Interesting too how your original US cluster off your car had the fuel gauge reading in metric Liters, and maxes at 60L. To my knowledge, 6cyl cars got 60L fuel gauges (well, metric cars did anyway), and 4cyl cars got 55L fuel gauges like your new cluster. So it seems your 'original cluster' in your US 318i might have actually been a hodge podge of bits from a 6cyl metric car:S This is making my head hurt!

Yah, with my original cluster It was all american I just put the euro gauge face on for the fuel economy and i hadn't learned that 4cyl cars had 55l tanks so it just said 60l. And yes my odo ticks in KPH

you should paint the inside of your front bumper to keep it from rusting. I notice that is a common problem with euro bumps..

It's a good idea, but I suck at painting and don't want to overspray onto the front, not after how long its taken me to save up and put together everything.

[Japandrew73]

These pics are also in the Members rides section but here they are again.

I washed it up and got it nice and presentable for the camera and this is how it turned out.





My lonely rear diving board

[Dave McLaren]

Well done!