I really don't know where or how to start this story...I wasn't even interested in buying this car to be honest. I already had 3 E30's sitting around, but a friend of mine took interest after borrowing one of mine for a few days, and asked me to find one for him. I then remembered seeing this one for sale locally on Facebook marketplace a month or so earlier (around February of this year), sent him the link, and he asked if I would go take a look at it one day.
Now I had actually contacted the person selling the car for the owner the day it was listed, but they just wanted too much for it...which was $1500. I knew from the pictures that it was probably going to need a good bit of work, as it was obvious it had been sitting for quite some time without being driven. So I setup a time to go take a look at the car, and this is how I found it when I got there. Oh, and the location was a goat farm. This is important.
Uhhh....Roll Tide?
Yes, this was from an errant bullet at some point while on the farm.
You can also see the melted right passenger taillight in one of the pictures...no idea what happened there, as the owner said it was there when he bought the car in 2008.
The car would run, but not very well...and it was showing a fair amount of white/gray smoke from the exhaust. I took it for a short test drive, and surprisingly it drove fairly well...although the brakes were very sketchy and the front balljoints were worn out. The car had never been in an accident, and it had all of the original oxidized paint. The only rust was found on the sunroof panel, and some bubbling on the roof where a sunroof visor had been installed since new. Besides that, it was a very straight and solid chassis.
So it wasn't running well, the car was pretty ugly...but I saw a good bit of potential there. I have never been crazy about 4 door E30's, but I love a red E30...and I think that is what really drew me to this car. It was also a manual, a very solid chassis, plastic bumpers, and from looking at the previous service records it had been meticulously maintained from new until at least 2003. I made an offer of $800 which was turned down immediately, so I said thank you and left.
Couple of days later I get a call one morning, and it was the owner. Would I be interested at $1000? Ehh....not really, but maybe...hell ok whatever I will buy it. So I made the trip back out to the goat farm...oh and by the way, I forgot to mention that there were over 100 goats on this farm...and half of them walked and climbed all over this car for years. The oxidation of the paint prevented me from seeing the damage their hooves had caused, but you will see what I found shortly. Here it is after I got it home and sprayed it off.
Here is a before shot of the hood right before I did a test polish:
And after a quick pass of the buffer and some M105:
But you can see the scratches in the paint...and they aren't coming out.
Was a bit bummed about the scratches, but it is what it is. A few days later, I went by my buddy Ken's body shop, and he wanted to do a very quick polish with his rotary. It needs more work, but it wasn't bad for a very quick pass over most of the paint.
Although I was able to drive the car the 15 miles from the goat farm back to my house, it was running worse each time I tried driving it. The fuel pump also started whining very loudly...and this was a 3 month old fuel pump put in by the owner. It was also still smoking pretty badly out of the exhaust. After some diagnosing, I discovered that the fuel return path back to the gas tank was being completely blocked, which was causing a very high fuel pressure, which broke the FPR and was flooding the engine. After replacing the FPR, and then disconnecting the fuel return hose after the FPR and running it into an open bucket, the engine ran great with no more smoke from the exhaust! I found that the blockage was due to the tank return being rusted, so no other option but to replace the fuel tank, pump, and associated rubber lines. Here is the old tank removed:
And the new tank installed:
By the way, this is the kind of mess you have to deal with on a car that has sat in a field for too long:
Not the ideal place for someone that might be terrified of spiders...which I am not. This is what the last of the fuel in the old tank looked like.
Once all of that work was done, Ken did a quick temp fix on the bullet hole in the quarter panel. He hammer and dollyed it out, then we hit it with some etch primer until we do some body filler and paint later on.
More coming as soon as I get a chance to post the rest.
Now I had actually contacted the person selling the car for the owner the day it was listed, but they just wanted too much for it...which was $1500. I knew from the pictures that it was probably going to need a good bit of work, as it was obvious it had been sitting for quite some time without being driven. So I setup a time to go take a look at the car, and this is how I found it when I got there. Oh, and the location was a goat farm. This is important.
Uhhh....Roll Tide?
Yes, this was from an errant bullet at some point while on the farm.
You can also see the melted right passenger taillight in one of the pictures...no idea what happened there, as the owner said it was there when he bought the car in 2008.
The car would run, but not very well...and it was showing a fair amount of white/gray smoke from the exhaust. I took it for a short test drive, and surprisingly it drove fairly well...although the brakes were very sketchy and the front balljoints were worn out. The car had never been in an accident, and it had all of the original oxidized paint. The only rust was found on the sunroof panel, and some bubbling on the roof where a sunroof visor had been installed since new. Besides that, it was a very straight and solid chassis.
So it wasn't running well, the car was pretty ugly...but I saw a good bit of potential there. I have never been crazy about 4 door E30's, but I love a red E30...and I think that is what really drew me to this car. It was also a manual, a very solid chassis, plastic bumpers, and from looking at the previous service records it had been meticulously maintained from new until at least 2003. I made an offer of $800 which was turned down immediately, so I said thank you and left.
Couple of days later I get a call one morning, and it was the owner. Would I be interested at $1000? Ehh....not really, but maybe...hell ok whatever I will buy it. So I made the trip back out to the goat farm...oh and by the way, I forgot to mention that there were over 100 goats on this farm...and half of them walked and climbed all over this car for years. The oxidation of the paint prevented me from seeing the damage their hooves had caused, but you will see what I found shortly. Here it is after I got it home and sprayed it off.
Here is a before shot of the hood right before I did a test polish:
And after a quick pass of the buffer and some M105:
But you can see the scratches in the paint...and they aren't coming out.
Was a bit bummed about the scratches, but it is what it is. A few days later, I went by my buddy Ken's body shop, and he wanted to do a very quick polish with his rotary. It needs more work, but it wasn't bad for a very quick pass over most of the paint.
Although I was able to drive the car the 15 miles from the goat farm back to my house, it was running worse each time I tried driving it. The fuel pump also started whining very loudly...and this was a 3 month old fuel pump put in by the owner. It was also still smoking pretty badly out of the exhaust. After some diagnosing, I discovered that the fuel return path back to the gas tank was being completely blocked, which was causing a very high fuel pressure, which broke the FPR and was flooding the engine. After replacing the FPR, and then disconnecting the fuel return hose after the FPR and running it into an open bucket, the engine ran great with no more smoke from the exhaust! I found that the blockage was due to the tank return being rusted, so no other option but to replace the fuel tank, pump, and associated rubber lines. Here is the old tank removed:
And the new tank installed:
By the way, this is the kind of mess you have to deal with on a car that has sat in a field for too long:
Not the ideal place for someone that might be terrified of spiders...which I am not. This is what the last of the fuel in the old tank looked like.
Once all of that work was done, Ken did a quick temp fix on the bullet hole in the quarter panel. He hammer and dollyed it out, then we hit it with some etch primer until we do some body filler and paint later on.
More coming as soon as I get a chance to post the rest.
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