Dad's 1990 325is

[E30RoadKing]

Much to my excitement, the E30 became synonymous with me. I used to drive through town, and then when I was walking around, people would stop me and ask, "hey, you're that guy with the old black BMW right?" and then compliment me on it. I used to go into stores and hear people talking amongst themselves about the "cool black BMW rolling around town". People even tried to race me on the one long stretch of road that separated the counties.

[E30RoadKing]

I have really enjoyed reading about the history of this car. I hope you bring it back to its original beauty and 5 speed swap it. Nice to see another nice e30 in PA and keep updating.

Don't worry bud, I'm getting there!

[E30RoadKing]

Now here's where the story gets hairy. On Easter Sunday in 2014, I was on my way home from my dad's house with my brother. All of a sudden, I was T-BONED in the E30.

T-Boned... by a deer. A deer actually ran into the side of my car. I did not hit the deer, the deer hit me. Can you believe that shit? Here are the pics from the aftermath.

[E30RoadKing]

I was livid. But there was nothing I could do about it. So I found a junkyard to replace the mirror, and I also picked up a tail light while I was there along with a central locking control unit. I bought a new side moulding strip from BavAuto too (this is actually when I bought the new emblems as well, not earlier as I had said, oops). The tail light had a crack so it was filling up with water during the rain, and I bought the CLCU because the car kept locking and unlocking itself randomly. But I knew I wanted to fix the car, so I saved up all year, and in June 2014 while I was visiting my grandmother in Arizona, my dad dropped her off at Butch's Auto Body in Plumsteadville, PA. Butch has been a friend of my dad and uncle for 30 or so years, so he gave me an honest price for a perfect collision repair job. We also had some take care of the rust spot under the rear valance and some other bits and pieces, which included 25 years of small rocks hitting the hood. Here are some pics of the body work.

[E30RoadKing]

When I got back from Arizona in late July, I had to save up some more and get her painted. Two weeks later and here was my result. I was so happy, it looked brand new! I did not paint the plastic bumpers because they seemed mostly ok, nor the front or rear valances. The car came to me with this matte, textured finish on these pieces, and I was told that's how they came new, so Butch refinished the valances this way. If this is incorrect, please let me know! I see so many cars where this isn't the case and the valances are repainted gloss to match the rest of the car, but I don't know if that's people's personal preference or stock. The bumpers also seem to be a little faded as well, but they're so uniformly faded, even on the bottom, that I really question if they're faded or factory. Again, any input, please share.

[E30RoadKing]

Alright, that's enough for tonight, I'll come back tomorrow and wrap up the story, and then that will put us at present day, where I'll document some of the cool stuff that's in the works. Thanks for all the feedback!

[bruner]

Awesome story so far! That seems so crazy to imagine a deer running into a car like that. I'm glad to see you saved her though. In for tomorrow's update for sure!

[rturbo 930]

I'd suggest putting your images on flickr and posting them with their BB img code.

[E30RoadKing]

So here are some pictures from after the body work and paint were done. Bonus, there's the OEM 6 CD changer I picked up for $100 shipped and installed my senior year of HS. If anyone has any extra CD cartridges like the ones pictured, please send me a DM, I would gladly buy them.

[rturbo 930]

Okay, let's try to work this out because clicking on each pic link individually is a PITA, and that's just not gonna work.

What did you do, and what didn't work? From your photostream, click on a photo, hit the 'share' button (little arrow pointing to the right, located bottom right of window), select your image size, copy the BB code, paste it here.

[laidback93]

Love this history in this thread. Very cool.

Subscribed.

[E30RoadKing]

Then, in June of 2015, the automatic transmission died. I determined that the teflon seal for clutch pack 'A' failed and the trans couldn't hold line pressure. The car moved fine in reverse, but when you put it forward gear, the RPMs would go up but the car would not move forward. I used this opportunity to get a different car and bought a 2004 BMW 325Xi from the same dealership my parents bought the E30 20 years prior. The E46 came with a FAT folder of dealer-serviced maintenance records since day one. This was a neat little car, and I was quite fond of it, but after 18 hours of owning it, this girl with a suspended license totalled the thing.

After I got my money back I bought a 1980 BMW 633CSi. This was my first manual transmission car, so I used the 40 minute drive home to really teach myself how to drive stick. The car lasted for about 3 months until I was cut off by a Prius trying to beat the stop light. I ended up rear ending him. It was at that point that I bought a 2007 BMW 335i convertible, which I daily'd for a little over two years and 35,000 miles. I had both cars simultaneously for about a month, so I traded the E24 for a 2007 Suzuki GZ250, my first street bike, which I ended up selling after two months. Around March of 2016, I had ideas to bring back the E30, but with a manual transmission swap. However, since my dad still technically held the title, he decided that he would rather replace the automatic transmission. So instead of saving my money, I bought a 1979 BMW 320i. This car had all of the "iS" bits like the MSport wheel, Recaro seats, rear swaybar and LSD transmission. I drove this car everywhere, because it was so much fun, and I wanted to keep the miles off the daily. I ended up trading the E21 for a 1987 325es to get my fill of a 5 speed E30. This car was pretty clean, but needed all new brakes and suspension, which the owner included. The ETA motor was good to me, never once died or left me stranded, but it wasn't enough. So I ended up finding a 1987 E30 convertible with an M20B25 that I would swap into my coupe.

Here are some pictures of the cars I used to try and fill the void.

[E30RoadKing]

The convertible was just outside of Baltimore, Maryland, about a 2 hour drive. I just needed the car for the engine, so being able to drive it home was a bonus. I enlisted the help of my best friend and we left early in the morning. I test drove the car up and down the street and it seemed fine, but the guy waits until I hand over the cash for the convertible to tell me that the sale was conditional based on me driving him thirty minutes out of my way for him to pick up his E46 in Towson. Whatever, that's fine.

So I'm driving him in my coupe, and my friend is driving the convertible, and for the whole way into Towson he's about 10 car lengths behind me. When we get to Towson, turns out the convertible had a fucked up throttle cable and it was seriously stretched out, preventing the throttle from opening all the way. I did my best to fix it in the gas station parking lot, but it didn't help much. My friend asked to switch cars because the throttle issue was bugging him, so we did and then left to go back home. I pulled out turning left and pulled into the middle/turning lane, and my friend in my coupe started to follow behind me. Out of nowhere, a Mini Cooper smashed into the side of the coupe and pushed my friend across three lanes of traffic. The 325es had a dented quarter panel, cracked wheel and the control arm was bent, pushing the half shaft into the differential, destroying the gears. The car couldn't move at this point. There were no injuries, and the woman who crashed into my friend was very nonchalant about the whole situation, not seeming to care about what just happened. She wasn't bothered because the Mini was a rental car. She told the cops and myself that she saw me in the coupe, and was while she was distracted with that, she didn't notice my friend. She didn't even hit brakes when she hit him at 40MPH. Despite what I believe to be an admission of guilt, the insurance company ruled in her favor. The 325es was a total loss.

So now it's getting late and I had to have the 325es towed back home from Baltimore, Maryland, and my only ride was a beat up E30 convertible with bad shocks, a loud wheel bearing and a throttle that wouldn't open all the way on the highway... Once I got home, the original plan was to take all the new parts off the 325es and make the 325i convertible into a decent daily. It had a new top that was mint, so I was gonna swap some interior and exterior bits to clean that up, swap my audio system, swap the bilstein shocks, put new brakes, a wheel bearing and a throttle cable on it and have a capable, clean E30 vert to daily. But then I had a better idea.


In hindsight it didn't seem so bad, but thanks to this, I got my 1990 back on the road, so it's better this way.

[ahrensNW]

Damn bro, I thought I had bad luck with cars lol.

[2mAn]

Try using better grammar if you're going to tell us long stories... It helps when they are broken up with pictures too. Please figure this out, I want to keep reading about your intelligent decisions haha