My new e30 resurrection project

[Mpolito3355]

Thanks! It's fun and frustrating at the same time. I am quickly realizing I would have been better off starting with a better car. But with this one I get the freedom of trying new things, like paint and body work, without the fear of messing up a nice car. Also I rescued an e30 that otherwise would have e probably been junked.


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100% correct if you mess something up its not to big of a deal since your bar is low starting off with what ever your doing plus thats why its called a project car.

if you bought one already done it wouldn't be as fun ....also wouldn't be as frustrating ....but still would make for a cool story/build

[shawmcbigdis]

So over the weekend I installed the Garagistic odometer gears, replaced the SI board batteries with some brand new ones from Amazon (well to be fair a friend at worked that can sodder way better than me actually did it), and installed LED bulbs for the main gauge lights.

Its so nice to have all the gauges working.

I do still have to tap the dash to get the temp gauge to work. It's like it gets stuck at the bottom when it is turned off. Its been like that since I got it though, always worked, just needed a tap. The tach and mileage and OBC never worked, well worked 1 in 10 times I turned the car on. Now they are perfectly fine.

Next up exhaust.

[shawmcbigdis]

OK, so it took me forever to track down the overheating issue I was having. Thought I just wasn't bleeding the system good enough. Turns out the brand new thermostat was bad and not opening up. Swapped that,a nd all is good.

Now on to exhaust.

So I've got a couple quotes to slap a muffler on there from local shops, lowest one is $250. seems expensive for a couple feet of 2 inch tube and a muffler. The problem is, the previous owner just cut the system off after the cat.

And from the looks of it, it has been changed with something before that also. There are no flanges after the manifolds, just a bunch of slip over and welds. The strange part is it looks like a factory cat, it has BMW stamps on it, but nothing else about the system looks factory from what I can tell.

So, do I pay $250 to have a cheap muffler tacked onto the end of the system? Which is the easiest, but seems like I'm over paying for what I'm getting. Or the other thing I am considering, is getting a set of the cheap ebay headers like these https://www.ebay.com/itm/Stainless-E...wXeJYCwdd#rwid

and a cheap ebay axle back;
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1987-1988-1...87217?var=null

That puts me at $250 right there, but I am assuming I will need something in between them to get from the headers to the exhaust pipe. So it will cost me a little more. I'm in Oklahoma so no smog, so I can ditch the cat without worry. Then I can sell it to a recycler to make back some of the cost.

I know everyone says those headers are crap. But hey, what I have is a janky mess anyway. I've got time to mess with them, since this isn't my daily driver, but I don't have a lot of fabrication skills.

Some day in the future I want to do an "i" head swap, so having a true dual exhaust already will be handy for that. Also, I kind of like how the cheap ebay'ness of it fits the kind of low end DIY build I'm doing on this.

So what say yee? Make the ebay parts work myself, or just pay up and get a cheap muffler welded on?

[Eric Giles]

So what say yee? Make the ebay parts work myself, or just pay up and get a cheap muffler welded on?

If it was me, I would find a used factory 325i cat/mid section and bolt it up to the existing exhaust manifolds, then install that ebay cat back muffler you linked...and install all of it yourself. Then you'll be ready for the i head setup later on, and you won't have a loud/obnoxious sounding E30.

But that's just what I would do (and actually did on a previous '87 325 eta).

[shawmcbigdis]

If it was me, I would find a used factory 325i cat/mid section and bolt it up to the existing exhaust manifolds, then install that ebay cat back muffler you linked...and install all of it yourself. Then you'll be ready for the i head setup later on, and you won't have a loud/obnoxious sounding E30.

But that's just what I would do (and actually did on a previous '87 325 eta).

That's a pretty good idea if I could find one for a reasonable cost. Most I've seen are $300+. That'll put me close to $500 total, which I guess isn't bad, just more than I want to spend. I wish I could find one locally on Craigslist or something, but e30 parts are few and far between around these parts.

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[Mpolito3355]

OK, good enough. Turns out the brand new thermostat was bad and not opening up. Swapped that,a nd all is good.

^^^^^You had to get to t-stat housing 2 times ? that sucks ....guess it could be worse you could have had to do the starter 2 times .......anyway

Now on to exhaust.


So, do I pay $250 to have a cheap muffler tacked onto the end of the system? Which is the easiest, but seems like I'm over paying for what I'm getting. Or the other thing I am considering, is getting a set of the cheap ebay headers

^^^^^IMO either way your overpaying for cheap ....just depends how much money you want to over pay :)


I know everyone says those headers are crap.
^^^ you said it not me

But hey, what I have is a janky mess anyway.
^^^^ might as well go as cheap as you can if you NEED it ...if not wait until you get what you want.

Some day in the future I want to do an "i" head swap,
^^^^ dont double pay if your gonna do the "i" head swap soon anyway.

either way still waiting for updates on your build keep it up !!!

[shawmcbigdis]

The i head swap won't be any time soon, like years down the road. Like I said, this is going to be a very slow project. I have way more time than money for it right now. Just wish I had more fabrication skills, and access to more parts close to me.

Looks like I may have found something on craigslist that will work. It looks like its the cheap headers with custom piping back from there, x pipe, 2 cherry bomb resonators, then at the muffler it Y's into a 3 inch to connect to muffler, Muffler has dual tips, so still looks kind of stock. Under $200 for the whole thing, so I think this will be my best bet.Well, at least my cheapest bet. Nice part is, its cheap, and he's already taken care of any bending or whatnot to make it fit right, so hopefully a pretty easy bolt on.

[shawmcbigdis]

OK, so I'll be picking up that exhaust this weekend. So time to order some new studs, nuts, and gaskets. Also going to get a hounds tooth armrest rear seat back while I'm down there. The car is currently beige vinyl interior, so it won't match at all. But it doesn't have any tears, and it has an arm rest. All the seats will eventually get re-covered anyway, so don't car much about color, just want the foam to be in good shape, and wanted an armrest.

Speaking of recovering the seats. I will eventual do them in a black leather (or probably vinyl) bolsters with read and black hounds tooth center sections. My kids name all of our cars, and since this one is black, with some red highlights (well will be) we've decided to call her Ruby after Ruby from the show RWBY, https://roosterteeth.com/series/rwby My girls and I love that show, so this seemed like the perfect name for her.

So along those lines. I installed a new drivers side interior door handle this week, since it just had a rope tied to it when I bought it to open the door. Since I had the door panel off I decided to try painting it to see how it went. I had planned on buying new black door panels, but this turned out so well, I think I'm just going to paint all the interior panels.

So here is the passenger panel it's original beige;



And here is the drivers side panel painted black and red



I'm pretty happy with it. Even the wife and kids love it. There are some spots where the black got through the masking onto the red, so those will need to be fixed. But all in all, I'm happy. And for $25 in paint and a little time, it beats the heck out of $100+ for solid black panels.

I just used the Dupli-color rattle can vinyl and fabric paint. Now to take off the passenger side and paint it.

[shawmcbigdis]

So some good and bad news this weekend.

Good - got the passenger door panel painted, and the front kick panels painted all black, and got one of my missing dash pieces installed (glove box top, still missing glove box, the side panel on the center passenger side, and the top knee panel on the drivers side). Got the rear side panels partially painted, need to tape them off and finish them. Also got a new rear seat backrest with arm rest

Bad - Drove it to meet a friend tonight, and the tach and OBC didn't work again. Not sure whats going on, after I replaced the battery it was fine, and now nothing. hit the dash and it didn't help. The exhaust I was supposed to pick up I didn't get, but hopefully still will within the next week. And the rear seat back is the frame and horsehair type, not the yellow foam type like I had. I imagine all armrest and/or headrest seats might be this way though. I was surprised the see the complicated mutli-pivot hinge mechanism for the armrest, thus the need for the framed version of the seat I assume. My e39 has an armrest and is all foam, with a very simple connection for the armrest, not sure why they couldn't just do something like that. The good news is it fits;



Oh another thing about it compared to my old one. It has 2 slots on the passenger side and one on the driver for the buckles, but my car has 2 on the driver and one on the passenger. So one buckle is without a home, oh well.

I also picked this up at the local scrap yard;



e46 center console and arm rest. I guess I'm all about arm rests this weekend. Getting this thing to fit will be my summer project, no rush on it so we will see how it goes.

Also, started trying my hand at some body work. Given how questionable my paint work has been, you would think I would know better, but screw it, this is how you learn. So the door and fender will just get replaced at some point, that leaves the bottom of the passenger quarter panel, just behind the door.
Here it is before any work;





And here it is after a few whacks from inside. I cant get very low, so I could only get to the top part of the dent to knock it out. I also can't get very close to the door jamb, or the wheel well, so was only able to get a small port of it knocked back out.





I bought that cheap hot glue cross bar dent puller from harbor freight, but I couldn't get it to do anything, it just pulled the tabs off the car without pulling up any dent. Might try ordering a slightly better PDR kit from Amazon. I really want to buy a stud welder and slide hammer them out. But I know darn well that will be a huge waster of money, and make for a very bumping finished product. Fun though. The other option is Harbor Freight has that air powered suction cup slide hammer thing. But it's almost as much as the stud welder, but with he possibility of not needing to paint afterwords. So I don't know. We'll see if I can get anywhere with a better glue on tab system, and go from there.

[shawmcbigdis]

So its been a wile, and not much has really happened, or at least not as much progress as I wanted.

I decided to go ahead and try to repaint the whole back of the car. Sanded down the trunk lid and put on several coats of Rustoleum rattle can. About a week later I tried sanding it, but it just gummed up, it was still soft. Not sure why I painted the front driver sand fender with rattle can and i sanded and polished it just a few days later and it was fine. But this just wouldn't dry right. So I figured this was a good excuse to buy a cheap paint gun. Got a HVLP gun from Amazon and went at it with Rustoleum thinned with Acetone. It was so bad instead of orange peel I called it grapefruit peel.



So sanded it off, mixed it thinner and tried again. Better, but still really bad. Went and got the "nice" HVLP gun from Harbor freight and tried that, same thing. So I have no idea what I am doing wrong. I see all kinds of people on the internet SPraying Rustoleum, so I'm not sure what my problem is, but its pissing me off.

Anyway, while I had time, I took off the front bumper and cleaned it up, and collapsed the shocks. I sprayed all the bumper trim with several coats of Plastidip, also I cut the trim on top of the bumper back to bring the whole look in a bit. Also trimmed the license plate holder down to the same size as the rub strip I'm fairly happy with how it all turned out.





But of course nothing is perfect, Even the bumper trim is all messed up on the side with the fender damage;



So front end is coming together, the back side is a never ending mess though. The exhaust I thought I was getting never happened. So I still need to figure out what I'm going to do with that.

Oh well I wanted a project car, boy did I get one.

[shawmcbigdis]

Man this is going way slower than I had hoped.

Anyway, got the back half painted, at least to what I would call good enough.





I've got a new Roundel and "325" badge for the rear, but can not find an "ES" badge anywhere. I have the one I took off, but it's not in the greatest of shape, and I'm not really sure how to make it stick. But I guess its all I got so I have to figure it out.

Some more good news, but kind of a hassle. I live in Oklahoma, which is an e30 wasteland, parts are impossible to find here. But most my family lives in California, which is e30 heaven. So I've recently picked up a few badly needed parts, but they are in Cali, so I'm not sure when I am going to get them. But I got me a front fender, an early ES front air damn with fog lights, and the driver side under dash piece I was missing. Now all I need is a glove box and the dash will finally be complete. Well of course I have to get that part from Cali also.

Also this past weekend, I picked this up on a whim;



purple tag ZF rack from an e46 325iC. The rack in the car was spewing fluid when I got the car. When I did the timing belt, I just didn't put the belt on the PS pump, so it would stop pushing fluid out. e46 rack was only $58 at the pick and pull, so hopefully its in good shape. Car was an 05, and was super clean.Kept the inner tie rods attached, and I will be picking up some e36 outers. I've got a swap kit and solid coupler disc on the way from Garagistic. The problem is I can't get the old rack out. Well what I actually can't get out is the steering column coupler. I can't get it to come off the spline shafts on either side. I've loosened the pinch bolt, and tried to pray the joint apart with a flat blade screwdriver, but it won't budge. sprayed a bunch of PB Blaster in there, tried some more, and still nothing. Going to pick up some more PB Blaster (I ran out) and a wood chisel today. Hopefully that will be enough to pray it off, without ruining it.

Still no exhaust on the car. The craigslist unit I found fell through. So still need to do something about that. Also need to do something about the lack of a rear bumper. Not that it matters, since this thing has pretty much lived in the garage since I bought it.

This thing is def more project than car at this point. But someday I will have a fun e30 to drive around, I hope.

[shawmcbigdis]

Wow, finally got it off. Took a few hours of PB Blaster, pickle fork, sledge hammer and torching, but finally got it down. Letting it cool now, then will tear it apart and grind down the joints to avoid binding.

Hopefully by this weekend all the new parts will be here and I can put it back all back together. I've got new front sway bar end links, that I ordered a while back just to get over the free shipping limit. I might as well put those in while I'm down there.

I've used up my project budget for this month already. So I probably won't even get it aligned until next month. Maybe exhaust then also, but it seems like that never happens.

[shawmcbigdis]

Dang it! Looks like the rack I got at the pick and pull is leaking;



I gave it a closer look, and I'm not sure its that bad. I mean its def leaking, but whats in the pic is all that was there, nothing ever came out of the boot. I decided to go the super cheap route and just put it in like it is, and put some stop leak in the fluid. This car is a beater at best, so good enough for now.

Problem is I can't get the damn thing back in. For as hard as it was to get the coupler off, the get the rack in and the coupler onto it and the steering column has got to be twice as hard.Even out on the ground trying to get the coupler onto the rack is nearly impossible. I caked both ends in assembly lube, but that didn't really help. Since its not super hard to get onto the steering column, I'm thinking I am going to get it on the rack and then install the whole thing with the couple on, and just slide it up onto the column as I shove the rack up there. That's got to be easier than putting it on the column and trying to slide the rack onto it. But like I said, I couldn't even get it onto the rack outside of the car.

All I have is some masonry chisels, maybe I need to get some sharp wood chisels to try and spread it out more. The masonry just seems to mostly mush the metal not so much spread it apart. I tried heating it up, but then it so hot I can't get a good hold on it to shove it on, even with gloves, at least none of the gloves I have.

So plan for tomorrow, wood chisel and maybe better gloves.

Anyone have any ideas/suggestions?

[vtechnik]

I really dig the rustoleum panel by panel painting, post more pics of that as you go please, and keep up the good work!

[shawmcbigdis]

I really dig the rustoleum panel by panel painting, post more pics of that as you go please, and keep up the good work!

Thanks!

Its kind of ghetto but its working. And the car actually does look better than when I bought it. Although considering the amount of time and money I've spent on it, I probably would have been better off just getting a Maaco $399 special. Problem is, I don't have all the panels yet. So its the panel by panel home paint process for me. I've still got the passenger door and fender, and the front air damn to paint, whenever I get them.

Now, back to work getting this stupid steering rack in.