Less rust and hopefully some reliability- the Midwest Daily iS

[Staszek]

That's in pretty nice shape!! I remember back in 88 (didnt have a license yet) but I would build E30 325ix coupes all the time I wanted one so bad.

Looking forward to following this!

[AWDBOB]

As little traffic as there has been lately, it's threads like yours that keep us coming back. I 100% agree with you regarding social media, and love flipping though the build threads from start to finish. Keep it up!!!
I've always been interested in an IX as I will eventually need something with AWD. I've wanted an older Wrangler for forever, but if I came across an IX like this one I'd have a similarly tough time pulling the trigger as you did. Something about an AWD e30 in the snow that seems so appealing

Thank you!! I have a lot of fun tracking progress on here. And reading other awesome build threads (like yours) lets us all tap into the pot of motivation to push through a project or find some creativity to come up with something fresh.

I love me a Cherokee Sport 2dr- cheap and crappy. Wranglers have gone up in price and are so rusty now it's a struggle to find one to daily. They are great fun, though.

If you ever find an iX like this one and are in need of a winter daily, don't hesitate! These cars are really stout in stock form. If you keep up with things, I think they can really be quite reliable. The key (and this is mainly to myself), is keeping things in scope and not letting projects get out of hand. Linda's journal is a clear indication of that

Thread hijack in progress.

Are those of you winter driving your IXs doing fluid treatments to undercarriage? I have a clean but not perfect 88 IX and I can’t bring myself to even mount snow tires anymore.

I feel shame winter driving it, but it’s a shame not to drive it, too.

I plan on using fluid film one I seal up what I can. I also know several folks who use Krown Rust Control- Krown uses a formula similar to fluid film, and if you have them coat your car (reasonably priced, might I add), they will actually offer a guarantee with their services.

Unpopular opinion: I don't really like the way the iX drives compared to a RWD E30. Because of this, I have sold the nice iXs I've owned over the years that were too nice to drive in the winter. The value of a clean, manual iX makes it tough to justify driving a car through the winter, so I completely get it. But to me, they're meant for this! I think your initial approach going into winter driving in addition to how you care for the car during the salty seasons could dramatically limit the corrosion to where you could semi-worry-free enjoy your car in any weather. It'd just take an extra step of intentionality initially and throughout the season.

Bobby, you buy some many cars. I love it! This one looks fun! I am finishing up my rust project now, keeping my ix as the daily for the time being. They are too fun in the snow and I actually have felt more secure in the ix than my Audi. Maybe that's the inclusion of snow tires in the winter, but either way they are tanks in the snow.

Edit: I know you know this.

It has taken me a while, but I do feel like I am thinning the fleet down to just the "right" vehicles. I'm sure I'll be following behind re: rust repair. The snow tires on this thing almost make it "too" good in the snow, if that's even a thing. It's too grippy to slide!

That's in pretty nice shape!! I remember back in 88 (didnt have a license yet) but I would build E30 325ix coupes all the time I wanted one so bad.

Looking forward to following this!

It certainly looks better in photos than in person, but it is way nicer than I could've ever asked for, for the price I paid. Man, the '88s are so great. Heidi my lachs '88 is one car I think I'll look back on and regret selling. But, it helped pay for the M3, so I'd say it was a worthy compromise.

[wworm]

stoked to see this stay kinda stock! but also stoked to see where you take it once it starts to snowball (pun intended lol)

[mjweimer]

Hopefully you got to play in the snow a bit the past few days. I can't wait to get a look at this thing in person. An iX is an awesome winter car and as has been mentioned, they won't rot to the ground if you keep up with some regular rust repair and prevention.

[AWDBOB]

stoked to see this stay kinda stock! but also stoked to see where you take it once it starts to snowball (pun intended lol)

Me too- honestly driving a stock iX around in the winter has been oddly satisfying so far. I modified all of my old iXes and didn't realize how much cruiseability I was giving up until now. And don't you wish that evil on me, I don't have the mental energy for this to turn into a "build". As things break I will likely make them better, but if it ain't broke, it ain't gettin' fixed.

Hopefully you got to play in the snow a bit the past few days. I can't wait to get a look at this thing in person. An iX is an awesome winter car and as has been mentioned, they won't rot to the ground if you keep up with some regular rust repair and prevention.

The snow has been a blast! I've been playing with fire by putting off changing the tbelt. This HG leak is pretty bad, so I am waiting until I can do the HG/Tbelt/seals/etc all at once.

Lets make sure we don't put it on the lift. Ignorance is bliss, right?

[mjweimer]

The snow has been a blast! I've been playing with fire by putting off changing the tbelt. This HG leak is pretty bad, so I am waiting until I can do the HG/Tbelt/seals/etc all at once.

Lets make sure we don't put it on the lift. Ignorance is bliss, right?

Makes total sense to do all the head related work at the same time, half the head removal process is timing related. I'll check out my remaining M20 parts and see if I happen to have any misc seals for the head.


Besides the fact that the "wreck" is currently stranded on the lift you don't want to pull it in for fear I'll start wire wheeling and grinding on the underside....I have this problem with opening up cans of worms....


MJ

[AWDBOB]

Makes total sense to do all the head related work at the same time, half the head removal process is timing related. I'll check out my remaining M20 parts and see if I happen to have any misc seals for the head.


Besides the fact that the "wreck" is currently stranded on the lift you don't want to pull it in for fear I'll start wire wheeling and grinding on the underside....I have this problem with opening up cans of worms....


MJ

Bahaha good enough for me! Thankfully I have this iS parts car here (also with 130K on the clock, ironically) with an 885 on it. I'm getting that head done in the meantime to have it ready to just swap on in one fell swoop. Valve guide seals, pressure test, a nice valve job, new Febi rockers and a good clean up from Kevin should do the trick (notice no cam or HD rockers in that list)!

....I don't do well with downtime. The less time I have this thing off the road, the less chance there is for it to snowball.

I had to change quite a bit with my iS build, so I have some fun parts for the iX like some rebuilt M50 injectors, a BBTB, a K&N drop in filter, and an old Squid chip I'm going to have him burn an Eco tune on for this thing. I also have all of the stuff to delete the TB heater and simplify/tap the TB vacuum ports, so I'm going to do that when I do the cylinder head. This will all be Service #1.

Hoarding parts is good when you get a new car that needs some love.

Service #2:

The steering rack has some play, she needs outer ball joints, CABs, front struts, and front lower case seals and an oil pan gasket. The iX front lower case seals to the oil pan gasket, so I'm going to do all of that at the same time. I'll pull the subframe and hoist the engine up and do all of this at once. The kicker will be front struts, as I'm going to have to likely weld new tubes on these strut housings. At that time I plan to change the endlink location as well since it's only a few extra bucks so I can run an E36M3 front sway.

[jeenyus]

sounds like the simple daily is turning into a project. haha! Be sure to document the whole oil pan gasket process on the IX. I know i'm going to need that at some point.

[AWDBOB]

sounds like the simple daily is turning into a project. haha! Be sure to document the whole oil pan gasket process on the IX. I know i'm going to need that at some point.

Meh, I am just addressing legitimate concerns in two different weekend services that’ll be months apart. Compared to my usual snowball, these are just two maintenance projects.

If the HG wasn’t leaving puddles in my driveway I’d just throw on a timing belt and be done with it, but unfortunately such is not the case.

The car sat before I got it, so all of the vacuum houses, intake elbow, etc are all dry rotted, so I’m essentially just fixing what’s broken.

The key, though, will be making sure I stick to the above.

[mjweimer]

Ah ha - having Kevin work the spare head and getting it ready to drop in is definitely the way to go, turns the whole job into one smooth repair. Service #2 sounds to be much more involved but all doable in chunks of time. Sounds like a good plan for making a solid daily.


MJ

[moatilliatta]

Good stuff!

I had an 88ix that I daily’d for 3-4 years. Heated the SRD Recaro and put extra sound insulation. Never got to enjoy stock suspension as the front dampers were seized like a 2x4 when I first got it. The Ground control with konis were quite compliant. It was such a solid car with rattles that I miss. It’s a lot of work to make another street / daily compliant E30.

[AWDBOB]

Ah ha - having Kevin work the spare head and getting it ready to drop in is definitely the way to go, turns the whole job into one smooth repair. Service #2 sounds to be much more involved but all doable in chunks of time. Sounds like a good plan for making a solid daily.
MJ

Agreed! Gotta make things safe and leaky-free while making sure she's always on the road.

Good stuff!

I had an 88ix that I daily’d for 3-4 years. Heated the SRD Recaro and put extra sound insulation. Never got to enjoy stock suspension as the front dampers were seized like a 2x4 when I first got it. The Ground control with konis were quite compliant. It was such a solid car with rattles that I miss. It’s a lot of work to make another street / daily compliant E30.

I love the 88 iX. When I swap over to sports seats I'm adding heated elements and switches, and I have some RAAMmat and ensolite from the sound deadening work I did on my Subaru that I was planning on using on this thing.

I planned to cover bigger door holes with the RAAMmat and also put pieces on large panels to dampen vibration. Then ensolite as much as I can to cap some high frequencies, as well as a small square of deadening and ensolite behind each speaker. Was also going to throw a few pieces on the rear wheel wells. Any other key areas on the E30 that I'm missing?

Thankfully my definition of a "daily" is much different than most, as I have a take home vehicle for work. This will see much fewer miles than a typical daily driver, which gives me some flexibility on a few things. I love me some GCs, I just don't want to lower the car any to avoid needing camber plates and putting extra stress on the axle boots. A full length GC setup with stock USMs isn't out of the question when the time comes. I don't think the GC iX rear setup will go high enough to match stock height, but it has been a while.

I will have actual updates after the first of the year!

[AWDBOB]

I attacked project #1 "grind back and seal the rust" head on tonight. The grinder informed me that I should've driven this thing to the scrap yard.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr



I cut back most of it and started to prep the surface for the new panels. I started with this area because I knew it'd be the worst out of the bunch and I wanted to get it done and over with. I'm routing the vent houses through the trunk to save time remaking everything that's gone. Going to use weld thru primer on everything, then por15 over the welds, then seam seal, then undercoat.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr



I'm concerned about functionality, thus my main objective is sealing off open holes. My parts car is rust free, which is going to come in handy. I still don't know how I'm going to tackle the battery box, since it has a few layers and stresses me out.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr


There's an open hole from the factory jack mount into the passenger wheel well. I'm just going to cut it out and weld a panel in it's place.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[mjweimer]

This is always the worst rust area on an E30...you were smart to start there and get it over with....

Isn't it fun to shower in hot rubber undercoating as you grind!!! At least you have solid metal around all the areas so the welding will be reasonable and you can grab the evap tank brackets off of the parts car.

Are you routing the hoses similar to this guy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3ySsY3O7jk

I have yet to sort out the best way to handle my battery tray/valence rust. Mine's not the worst but there is no metal in the lower left corner where 5 separate pieces of stampings meet. I have a feeling it will be a series of small patch panels stitched together.



Look forward to updates!


MJ

[AWDBOB]

This is always the worst rust area on an E30...you were smart to start there and get it over with....

Isn't it fun to shower in hot rubber undercoating as you grind!!! At least you have solid metal around all the areas so the welding will be reasonable and you can grab the evap tank brackets off of the parts car.

Are you routing the hoses similar to this guy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3ySsY3O7jk

I have yet to sort out the best way to handle my battery tray/valence rust. Mine's not the worst but there is no metal in the lower left corner where 5 separate pieces of stampings meet. I have a feeling it will be a series of small patch panels stitched together.

It is quite fun to shower yourself in hot undercoating. I bought a nice respirator for this job and I am glad I did, it's not fun.

I was considering cutting all of my patch panels from that area of the parts car with brackets installed, but decided I didn't want to clean all of the undercoating off of them. I think I'll just drill out the few spot welds for the brackets themselves and weld them onto the new patch panels.

And yep, that's the method I was going to use! I'm sure BMW did it their way so no evap pipe would pass fully through the cabin, but I'm not too concerned about running them like that for the sake of this car. The pipe to route those hoses was completely gone as well (inside the car and out), so this routing solves multiple issues for me.

As far as I've seen poking around, this section is much worse than every other section on the car, so I'm hoping I can get away with my original plan of just grinding back the rust and sealing it up for the rest of it.

I only have .03 flux wire in my ProMig140, but with how thin some of this metal is, I think I am going to need a tank and some .023 mig.