After a year of searching, an Alpineweiß story

[iwantspeed]

I realized we have the same car. What's the big deal about alpineweib II again?
I am about to install a new engine on it that only has 63,290 original miles on it. I just bought the donor car today which hugged a tree last week in sonoma.
I'm so excited.

Your thread helps me to improve mine now. Thanks!

yep same car its pretty cool

its hard to find alpineweib II on a e30 without an airbag
and it think it looks better then alpineweib I but thats just my opinion

nice mileage on the m20
glad i could help

Looks sick in the last shot man! :up:

thanks
credit goes to fred larimer for the shot

I'm going to start chasing you down and leaving notes now. Awesome car bro!

as in leaving notes to buy the car?
or taking notes and how to do the same things?

[iwantspeed]

new goodies

chrome kidney
smiley ellipsoids (with a twist)
hid conversion
lamin x for lows and highs
e36 window switch conversion

stay tuned for updates

[JrCamacho]

Awesome thread bro, keep up the work. Im in the midst of picking up another e30. I used to drive a '91 318is, no longer have it.

But this... amazing build up of this car has sparked my interests of getting another and getting it fresh and close to "off the dealer lot" as you can get it.

[kalib0y]

great attention to detail. Where in CA are you located?

[iwantspeed]

Awesome thread bro, keep up the work. Im in the midst of picking up another e30. I used to drive a '91 318is, no longer have it.

But this... amazing build up of this car has sparked my interests of getting another and getting it fresh and close to "off the dealer lot" as you can get it.

thanks,
if you need any help finding one, pm me.

great attention to detail. Where in CA are you located?

thanks
I'm located in Socal, near Irvine.

[iwantspeed]

Ate rotors
Ate pads
Ate Super Blue DOT 4 brake fluid
Bimmerworld Stainless kevlar lines getting installed tonight

pictures coming soon guys.

[Oldemar Gutierrez]

I´ve read every single page... I can only say I love your car!

[iwantspeed]

I´ve read every single page... I can only say I love your car!

why thank you,
your gunna like what im getting ready to post
3 months of updates.


I wanna give a shotout to some people who have helped me fix this car.
Richard at Michagelo Motorsports
Robert at E30 MotorWerks
Sean at Irvine Bmw
Alex at Irvine Bmw
Shant from Archie's Tow
IRON-E
archie
ncouraud
mkcman17
td325ic

[iwantspeed]

crash

first of all sorry for the cell phone shitty pictures.
I went through a short depression period and I didn't even think I would post this on the car forum.

So dec 18
this happened on my way to the dockwelier meet in la.

It was cold rainy sat.
it was pouring rain.
i was going down a three lane street in the left hand lane.
a lady got in my lane and was trying to get in the far left lane to turn at the next light.
she cut me off in the gap i had in between the car in front of me.

the light turned red and i didn't have enough room to brake.
I down shifted and braked to slow down but ran out of room
i tried switching lanes because there wasn't anyone in the lane next to me and I crunched the driver side front end of my car. :hitler:
i thought this would never happen to me.

super cautious driver.
always driving defensively
i fucking crashed my car.

I damaged the driver side fender
hood
core support
both head light grills
kidney grill
hood hinge
driver side low beam high beam and bracket
plastic headlight cover
my matching number vins. (this one hurts the most)
and my ego.

I put a wtb ad and i sourced some of the parts i needed.

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=192432

ncouraud
from irvine got me a
hood
fender
headlight grills
fender liner
and a kidney grill
all for a very reasonable price.

i bought a core support new from irvine bmw
i bought the hood hinge at the junkyard.
i bought the headlight assembly from someone on e30tech as well as on here on r3v. He started refurbishing ellipsoids and doing a smiley retrofit to us ellipsoids. you get the beam pattern of the us ellipsoids with the looks of the euro smiley's the best of both worlds.:-)



i stripped the front end and drilled out the factory spot welds and chiseled them out.
i hack sawed the major chunks of the core support by hand.
I really was wishing that i had a sawzall.
I must have gone through 3 or 4 blades.
the last part attached to the frame rails was a complete pain in the ass.
i used a bfh and a chisel and drilled through the spot welds.
i took about 3 hours just to get it bare.
I didnt snap any picture's either.
the grocery bag has the engine harness in it.
I REALLY REALLY wanted to do a wire tuck but time constraints with working 2 jobs really limited what i wanted to do.
I needed to get a car back as soon as possible.
i used these tools plus a hacksaw and a drill.



out with the bitch



at this point i had AAA flat bed tow it to Roberts Calhoun's shop E30 MotorWerks in Huntington Beach. Once it arrived there the core support was replaced with a new one and TIG welded in. I was only charged 2.5 hours book time. and my over the phone quote was substantial more.
He also got it done in one day.
I dropped it off Friday night after work,
While I was at work sat afternoon Robert called to tell me that the car was done.! but he left a voice mail, when I got off work he had already left the shop and wouldn't be in till Monday.

I got the car flat bed towed back to my house.
looking like this


I started putting everything back together.
radiator
coolant hoses
system bled
oil cooler back on.


hood mocked up


finally back on the ground after a month.

[iwantspeed]

braking system upgrade

I bought bimmerworlds stainless kevlar coated D.O.T approved brake lines

ATE rotors
ATE pads
ATE super blue brake fluid

new goodies



new lines


installed
front


rear

[iwantspeed]

abs system diagnoses

While I was there..

I decided to check the condition of the abs sensors.

they where all really dirty as well as the hub rings.
by far the worst one








I used carb spray to remove all the crap in there


clean ring

[iwantspeed]

black interior retrofit

Teaser Mc Teaserson









new door panels
they are from a e30 with late model valances but still with diving boards, an in between car between early and a late model so it still has the plastic circles to fit a allen wrench and manually roll down the window.
I was really trying to find one with out that.
and the passenger door panel has 2 small imperfections.
the rear seat had a little stain that I was able to remove.
the price was too good to pass it up.

I bought all new clips for the door panels at irvine bmw for a whopping 5 bucks.
It was kinda hard to put the new ones in.
the clips are super sharp and i cut up my fingers in the process.

fronts


rears


seat back


seat bottom
you can see the stain here,
hot soapy water
diluted simple green
Lexol vinyl treatment
was used on all the panels before installation.
it got the stain out and really cleaned them up nice.


I had installed front black speaker covers a while ago.


Archie
got me a set of black premium rear speakers with tweeters, I still haven't gotten around to installing them.
I wanna do something with the rear shelf and then I will install the speakers then.

Rear installed



shitty picture of the fronts.


yes i still have tan front seats FAIL but the seats I want are really hard to find.
Black leather sports seats out of e30 m3 or out of convertible ( you have to remove the piece that limits the recline function) with horizontal stitching and heating pads.



even thou this picture is shitty i really like it.
I have replaced the 4 spoke steering wheel with an MTECH1 wheel
replaced the black plastic mirrors with alpineweibII mirrors
I replaced the blank mirror sail panels with tweeters
replaced the 3 different tones of tan door panels for a uniform shade of black door panels
replaced the tan speaker covers with black ones
and I have rebuilt the cluster

[iwantspeed]

coolant sensor

So when i got the car running and I went to bleed the coolant the idiot light in the check panel came on for the coolant level.

It was kinda low, i topped it off but I the light wouldn't turn off.
I looked at things a bit more closely and found out it wasn't the sensor but the actual connector.

the plastic on the sensor had become so brittle that it had broken off when i unplugged it, when i stripped the front end before sending the car to robert.
damaged connector


I cut this off a car at the junkyard.


cut


splice, shrinkwrap


make it neat


idiot light off
coolant level is where it should be.
I'm a happy camper.

[iwantspeed]

e36 m3 sunroof switch conversion

I have always wanted to do a e36 window switch conversion.
In my previous e30 i rebuilt the window switches several times.
I wanted something (oemish) but that worked better, looked better and wasn't over the top expensive.
plenty of people have done it before.

I followed e30shmobberr 's wiring diagram

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showpost.php?p=2111397&postcount=330

A friend of mine JOE( thanks man)
was stripping his e36m3 and turning it into a track car, so I scored the sunroof switch from him
I went to the junkyard and got a wire harness plug and sunroof flat bezels

i bought another e36 switch off of td325ic for ten bucks pretty good deal.
the bulb worked but the actual switch function did not work. fail.
i emailed him and we were able to work something out.




I bought a new pair of wire strippers and crimpers and made wiring way easier.
i took off the center consoles to make more room to wire it.
the leads are relatively short on the factory wiring for the window switches.
especially on the passenger side.

on early model cars the harness comes in a bulk of wires all from driver side floor board. but on late model cars the wiring for the driver side switch comes up behind the shifter and the passenger side comes up from right below the ash tray.

you need to modify the center console anyway so why make it harder.




check if it works before wrapping it up.
lights up

it works

modify the center console you just have to shave a little material

all trimmed
new e36 sunroof flat bezels in place


all done
now im just waiting on another window switch

[iwantspeed]

hid conversion

I ordered the us ellipsoids with the smiley retrofit and i also ordered laminX to protect them.
I also ordered DDM's hid kit.

I was going for a newer style bmw's headlight intensity as well as Acura's TL brightness of the low beams. Mazda's new mx3 speed Miata has an option for an HID Xenon upgrade that you can order and that is also perfect brightness.

I didn't want to be blue and ricy and attract un wanted attention.


On my previous e30 it had sealed beamed headlights which sucked.
On this one I bought with ellipsoids and it was a definite upgrade from sealed beams.
the new lights(when they get here) will be completely polished lenses and no pitts what so ever. so that an even better upgrade
the icing on the cake an hid conversion

sealed beams
<pitted ellipsoids
<pitted ellipsoids with an hid conversion
<polished ellipsoids with an hid conversion and laminX to keep them clean.

I was able to narrow it down to
55 watt 4500k
and
55 watt 5000k

I made this thread to help pick between the 2

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=196650

i chose
55watt 5000k after seeing an e30 in person at night time with them installed.

I went to DDM showroom in Huntington Beach to pick up the lights in person, I have heard the take forever sometimes to ship items and also that sometimes they send one hid of one spec and the other of another spec.
I didn't want to deal with that so it was worth it to me to do a 30 min drive and pick them up in person.

55 watt 5000k


I also purchased ddm's ballast mounting brackets.
I absolute hate cars that get there cars featured in magazine's and you can see the ballast just ziptied to something.
it looks terrible and unfinished.

pro
I mounted mine between the fender and the sheet metal that fender bolts up to.
its out of sight, out of the way, it can still breathe and not overheat, it won't get affetcted by vibrations, the fender liner shields will keep it from getting wet. and its mounted above the horn.
cons
if i have to remove and replace the ballast i have to jack the car up and remove the fender liner, but to have the engine bay simple, neat and tidy, im okay with that.


the car still getting put together when i took this picture but i couldn't wait to see the lights on.


and the first night time drive with the lights on.