The Humble Lachssilber 4 Door - Austin's Daily 325i

[mike.bmw]

2mAn In my previous post I actually thought about saying, "You're going to regret posting a photo of your mom", but I didn't want to encourage anyone. Good work.

[2mAn]

Even mom got involved trying to reach the bolts for the petal box

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Thats cool that your mom was willing to get down and dirty

anymore pics of your mom?

[mike.bmw]

Awesome progress so far. Congrats on the manual trans swap.

[Ausatz]

Thanks! Yes, I try to incorporate that into a couple other items throughout the car.

Before diving into the manual swap, I did most of the regular maintenance items, timing belt, water pump, thermostat, cap rotor plugs and wires, fuel pump, air filter, etc etc, not that exciting to take pictures of.

I had never done something to the magnitude of a manual swap before this, but luckily, there is a very helpful thread somewhere on e30zone or somewhere. The hardest part was honestly figuring out which throw out bearing I needed with my single mass flywheel on my 86 eta trans but I eventually figured it out. I did my homework beforehand and the whole process went very very smoothly. I wont go too in depth with a manual swap but I'll post a few pics

Parts Parts Parts (I think it cost me around $1200 total for everything including resurfaced flywheel, brand new clutch, and brand new basically every other part I could replace)

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Z3 1.9 Shifter

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Alright, here's something I'll argue with you all about. "Dual Shear" shift select rods are pretty much bs. You're not shifting your street car so hard that you are torquing your stock shift selecter rod, all the shift slop comes from the pin and shifter bracket thingy. I made my own compromise for about $3.50 since I didn't really want to dish out $90, and I guarantee its as tight if not tighter than a DSSR. Anyways.. Replaces all the shifter bushings while I was at it, the shifter feels amazing! I love the tight notchiness of it.

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

And finally, I finished the wiring, tested all the gears on jack stands, and it worked!! All I needed was a shift knob, so I cut off the end of a broom handle and I was on my way, happily shifting my own gears!
(don't worry, I know that steering wheel cover is horrible, that gets addressed down the road.)

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

The car was coming along great. The thing I really enjoyed about building the e30 is that unlike my focus SVT, the car is very loose and theres alot of room for improvement from the stock form, and it can be turned into an amazing car! The focus came from the factory with sport suspension, a tuned engine and so modifications didn't make a big difference in the driving experience. On the e30 however, with each modification I did, the car drove better and better and was more and more engaging and I really enjoyed that.

Driving through the woods of Pennsylvania became a great getaway from the stresses of senior year engineering school

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

And I could finally test the LSD and don't worry... It works

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

It was around this time I began trusting the car to use it as my daily and drive it to and from college. The focus was pretty sick and I was really enjoying the e30.

[stanhayward]

Beautiful key man, nice little detail. I'm assuming that theme will carry over to the wooden cargo carrier you mentioned?

[Ausatz]

Continuing right along,

My car came with only 1 key, best part about an old car, I can get replacement keys for $3.50 from ACE Hardware. The plain metal key was too boring for me though so I had some fun with it, and started a theme that would carry through the car later on.

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

I then used a fine Dremel bit to cut out the profile of the key in each half, glued it together, and finished it up

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

I love how this came out and is still honestly one of my favorite pieces of the car.

Decided it was time to push those bumpers in a few inches.

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Polished them up a bit!

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Painted the trim

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

and back together

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

on to the booty

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Uh oh... Better address this

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Boogy welding with flux core wire

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Aint no water gettin through that!

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

And back together. I didn't push the bumpers all the way in, maybe halfway just so they weren't QUITE as huge, but didn't look broken

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

The car had a rear armrest, but no opening to pass items through to the trunk! so that was taken care of with a smack or two from a hammer

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Pop Pop helped me sew the small rip in my rear seat

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

And I experimented with a polisher on the paint a little bit to see what the outcome would be

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Not bad.. I didn't have the time and all the supplies to do an entre cut and polish at this point, but this motivated me to do it in the future

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

And finally, I found a good deal and brought home.............................................. ...a 5 speed trans and driveshaft! I could not wait to get the ball rolling on the 5 speed swap. This was a fun car already and I knew this would take it to the next level.

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

[Ausatz]

So I finally had my very own e30! In its stock form it was slower, looser, and more disconnected than my focus was, but it really engaged all my senses and was a very enjoyable driving experience. At this point, I was in my senior year of college and money was a little tight, but I made a quick list of items I would like to check off to get the car to a fun, daily driver, well sorted car.

Performance

-Manual swap
-Sport springs/shocks
-Offset control arm bushings
-Wheels and tires (15" either style 5's or something else oem looking)
-e36 steering rack
-Rear subframe bushings/diff bushing

Exterior

-Bumper tuck
-Replace faded emblems
-Paint mirrors
-Paint faded trim
-Front bumper trim fill panel
-Fill paint chips
-Remove ugly fog lights
-Replace hood with nicer one
-Full detail, cut & polish
-is spoiler
-wood slat roof rack
-address rust

Interior

-Fix tachometer
-Sew or replace torn drivers seat
-Restore/re wrap sport steering wheel
-dye rear speaker deck back to gray
-sort out assorted dash lights
-Leather shift boot/ebrake boot/handle
-nice (shift) knob
-protect dash as best i could

Maintanence

-Timing belt,water pump, thermostat
-Plugs, wires, distributor cap & rotor, coil (ignition kit)
-Fuel filter
-Fuel pump
-Adjust valves to spec
-Paint valve cover/general engine bay cleanup
-New injectors/clean injectors
-Fix coolant sensor
-Diff fluid
-Coolant Flush
-Steel braided brake lines and brake fluid flush


Extras

-Rear subframe garagistic caster & camber adjustment plates
-Stainless steel long tube headers & exhaust
-MAF conversion and tune
-Front & rear sway bars
-Euro bumpers, and euro valence with fogs

SO...... I know a project car is never complete, but the general plan I had with this car was to use it as my daily driver, take it on adventures, build it as I go, and just really enjoy driving it. If I completed the majority of this list, the car would be complete for my purposes. The goal was to have the car sorted enough that it could be driven hard and would respond well, and look aggressive, and then be able to throw my bikes on the roof and go tearing down stone roads and not worry too much about rock chips and small imperfections.

First things first, I gave it a good wash, and repainted some of the trim pieces to black.

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Look what 32 years have done to this!!

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

So much better

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

I actually kind of like the all wrinkle black..

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

but I shaved the paint off the raised emblem anyways, and installed a strut tower bar that I got in a trade

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Cosmetically, it was starting to look so much better!

At this point, I was doing small cosmetic details, but slowly purchasing parts to do a mechanical overhaul so that I would be able to trust the m20 to not leave me sitting.

I was growing more and more fond of the car.

This is not my car but this picture has always been my favorite of a lachssilber 4 door early model and has always been my "goal picture" so to speak although I didn't want to go quite as aggressive with the stance. (disclaimer this is not my picture, I found it on google, not sure whos it is.. Thanks for the inspiration though, whoever you are)

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Long drives on twisty roads made me really love the e30, but also reminded me how badly it needed a suspension refresh and that good old G260...

E30 build by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

[Ausatz]

Alright, It's been a while since I've made a build thread and since my last attempt kind of failed, I'm trying again.

Hello R3V!

My name's Austin, I'm 23 and proud owner of a 1987 BMW 325i sedan. I've been around on R3V for a while but never got around to making a build thread.
As I will get to later, I am at a little bit of a difficult time in the build of my e30 and for now, am waiting on parts.. (you know how that goes) I decided, in order to keep the e30 fire alive in me during this next few months, it was time to finally document the work I've done to my car, and what got me to where I am today!

So.... Rewind 3 years...

I come from a background of teaching myself to work on cars as I went through highschool and college and a good friend of mine in college had an IX. I didn't even know what e30's were when I first saw that thing but it sparked something in me, the scream of an M20 drifting through the snow, and that was that! At the time I was driving a 2002 focus SVT which I honestly really liked except it was fwd and there was nothing that could be done about that. I knew this was the wrong wheel drive so I started tentatively looking for a RWD e30.

One evening, I was driving along and there on the side of the road, among corn fields and farms of Lancaster Pa, I saw it, the 4 circle headlights peering back at me. (oo==[||]==oo)
I slammed on the brakes, and got out to examine a.... E30!

It was a 4 door, early model, automatic, car BUT upon further inspection, it had very little rust for an e30, a nearly crack free dash, and was basically fully loaded with an LSD, rear headrests, Leather steering wheel and seats, 13 button OBC, electric windows and sunroof, and the good ol' M20 engine. I knew it had potential and I met up with the guy to check it out. After a few meetings, we came to a deal and I brought it home for $1700. Here she is back in January 2017 when I brought it home!

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Untitled by Austin Kratz, on Flickr

Feel free to follow along, I will slowly be recapping the last couple years and bringing you guys up to speed on where I'm at today.