Joe's E30 325i Sport

[TriggerFish]

So.

 

I've wanted one of these for about two years. I've finally left uni and got into a position where buying one was worthwhile/justifiable.

 

I had been holding out for a white one, but this came up locally so I went to have a look, and ended up buying it.

 

It's had 5 previous owners, was been garaged stored, has done 7,000 miles since 2006 with the same owner since 1996. I think the spare tyre is the original too!

 

Spec includes luxury items such as mechanically adjustable rear headrests (oooo), heated driver's door lock (aaah), heated leather seats (working), map/mirror lights and wipers for the headlights.

 

First thoughts are it drives great! No banging/clunks/noises/sloppiness. Just needs the speedo wires replacing, and the driver's seat reclining mech. fixing.

 

I met up with a friend after buying it, who lives just around the corner from the seller, and when parked up already had one person ask questions about it, and take a couple of photos on their phone. 

 

My first thoughts were to use it for fast road/track use, but I'm thinking I'll just restore it to factory fresh, and modernise a couple of bits like the brakes and new shocks/springs.

 

Not much else to say for now, but here's some photos:

 

 

 

 

And one with a friend's 330cd

 

 

 

It's really dusty in the photos, but will give it a good polish and wax over the weekend.

Edited 15 April, 2014 by TriggerFish

[bilun777]

Lovely......but you gave me an     ARGHHHHH moment when you mentioned fastroad/track use.

Join e30zone.net. You'll make thousands of people very jealous (me included.)

[TriggerFish]

Cheers!

On e30zone already too. Not sure I can see myself getting along too well with some of them though!

Yeah, the track/fast road plans fade the more I drive it tbh. Thinking factory fresh is defo the way forward for this.

[BossFox]

Looks very smart.

[BrownBarge]

Very nice motor

[Guest BigJase88]

M// badges need ditched other than that looks awesome

[TriggerFish]

Cheers for the kind words

Yep. On the case with the M badges! Just need to work out how to remove the front one without destroying the grill.

[TERKIN]

very nice :yes:

[Coops]

V Nice - always liked those BMWs, possibly because I remember them in the BTCC!

 

 

 

How many miles overall - you say 7k since 2006?

[TriggerFish]

Quite a few... 174k!

Drives better (tighter) than my old 80k polo though - goes to show the importance of maintenance!

[SNH]

Very nice.

[Stu08]

I had an E30 325i Sport M-tec 1. In Dolphin Grey; I loved it. The M badges are standard as it is an original M spec car. Keep the badges on.

Reminds me of mine; wish I still had it now.

[TriggerFish]

Cheers all. Beauty is only skin deep it seems. These next few updates from my main thread on the BMW forums, so sorry for the length as it's a combined update. Also apologies if things don't read too well, it's a complete copy/paste, so might include responses to other people.

 

So. I've stripped out the carpets in the boot to assess the rust. The bit by the striker plate I knew about, so that's not too bad. The rest of it I didn't, so that's annoying. Only bright side is I won't need to pay to fix it.

 

 

 

 

 

[TriggerFish]

I went to remove the seats today so I could look at the mechanism, see why they weren't adjusting properly. Good news, I've fixed the seats. While they were out, I thought I'd lift the carpets, see what lurked below. The results aren't pretty.

 

The footwell rust:

 

Passenger's:

 

 

 

You can see the tracks of the water from when it rained here. One being pointed too by the screw driver, the other by the socket. There's a third running down the mastic from the previous repair too.

 

 

At the source of the ingress. (Alex, I'll never forget Geoff asking you/Dave what ingress and egress meant!  ) At least that big rubber grommet to the right seems OK.

 

 

Driver's:

 

Wiring looks fun.

 

 

What's that hanging out underneath?

 

 

Oh. It's another hole.  

 

 

 

 

 

Considering now, if my friend is willing, to strip everything down and get it all welded. Only issue is storage of the engine etc.

 

Tomorrow, I'll remove the body kit if it stays dry, and most likely get ready to cry myself to sleep.

[TriggerFish]

Well, after sweeping half the car off the driveway, I've got some an idea of what lies under the body kit.

 

To be honest, it's better than I was expecting, but that doesn't mean much!

 

 

Also found a large hole in the floor - an MOT failure of a hole. Considering it passed in March from Hughenden Autos in Wycombe (planning to look into reviews - see if they're known for this), I'm wondering what else is lurking that the MOT didn't pick up on.

 

Bits of this have been worked on before and clearly sprayed, but it doesn't look like the brackets were removed for the spraying 

 

Anyway, some gory photos!

 

This grey section, as denoted by my fingers (and the same on the driver's side too) is all rust. If I punched that, it would fall out. Passed an MOT though...

 

 

Driver's side:

 

Front wing:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Passenger's side:

 

 

Looks quite 'stanced' here in a weird ratty way, oddly.

 

 

 

In this section, there's clearly replacement metal, but no visible welding. There is mastic however. Lots of mastic. I'm beginning to think this car is mainly made of rust and mastic.

 

 

 

And behind the rear bumper:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where these bumper bracket arms touch the paint (out of shot) there's some surface rust, but nothing bad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, in summary, sills are dead. Front wings are fixable (as the body kit hides the rusty areas), but I'll likely buy new ones and get them sprayed up so that when these do fail I've got spares ready.

 

The rear valance bit is mostly OK, but there are some bits of surface rust around a couple of bits, and some more severe stuff under one of the brackets (which I can't get off as the nut has been destroyed).

 

Before I was willing to give the seller (a mechanic), the benefit of the doubt, as the car was garaged, so not exposed to rain. Now I'm not so sure and think I've been well and truly 'had'. Although I doubt I'd find (m)any sellers who'd let me go to thins level of dismantling to check of rust, so not sure I'd ever be 100% sure I was avoiding it. (I was expecting the sills to need replacing before buying it though)

[TriggerFish]

So, the long and short of where I am now. The car is badly rusted, but I'm in too far money wise to be able to sell it, so I've got to fix it realistically. 

 

A friend who restores Austin 7s for a living can do all of the non-cosmetic welding, like the sills, and the floor, so that's the bulk of the work covered. Best part is, it'll be free (well, he wants me to do some work for him, but that's fine). I intend to buy new sills, and get new parts put in.

 

I might then get some new front wings and spray those up ready while the car is in the body shop. I can then store those and keep them ready for when these ones rust through. 

 

Pretty gutting at the time I discovered it, but I'm starting to feel a bit happier about it now. It'll be good to know it's all done anyway.

[AshVrs]

Really feel for you mate. Hopefully it hasn't put you off the car despite being a bit duped. I'm still jealous, rust aside it is a quality motor.

sent from my Galaxy Note 3

[TriggerFish]

For now, I'm still a bit jaded about it. I'm sure once it's back and fixed though I'll fall back in love.

 

I went through this with my 330d when that blew it's clutch, radiator and turbo (well, a fault with the actuator, the turbo is fine), and considered selling it, but now it's running fine I'm back in love. I imagine the E30 will fall into my good books in the same way as well.

 

As sad as it sounds, every time it gets the thumbs up or a flash, it all suddenly feels worth it, so that alone is motivation, weirdly. I'm just hoping I can get it done and painted ready for DC14.

[SNH]

Stick with it pal, it'll be worth it in the end. I went through similar with my old vr6.

It could've been a lot worse.

[TriggerFish]

It could be worse I'm sure. Still a pain though.

 

Today's revelation. It's not made of mastic and rust. It's made of mastic, rust and that very rare, highly sought after and much coveted structural cardboard. This isn't just any old cardboard, but the special, bulkhead supporting structural cardboard. If anyone wants any to improve the chassis rigidity of their Skoda, I'm sure you can have some off cuts, assuming demand doesn't outpace supply -_-

[Toxicvrs]

My Dad used to own an E34 we bought it needing a lot of work, we lost hope and were a bit jaded as well but the moment he drove it all of his previous views on the car were gone, I really like these old BMWs and this one will be worth it when complete as they're lovely cars.

[TriggerFish]

Today we made a start on the welding. Got most of the driver's arch done, although found it's going to need a new inner rear arch liner making up as this one is dead. Also found the source of the rust on the passenger's side of the boot - the ariel for the radio leaks (Mr. Mastic missed a trick there!).

 

Anyway, some progress - helped along by some little helpers.

 

 

With all the holes opened out:

 

 

 

And filled and primered (not the neatest welds, but meh):

 

 

So that's that done. There's one more hole that'll need welding from the wheel arch as the welding torch won't fit behind the arch and edge of the boot/wing panel. And of course the fabrication of the new inner arch.

 

Some digging in the passenger side of the boot revealed this - more mastic!

 

 

Looks like Mr. Mastic has made a new 'arch' (rear of the rear arch) and just mastic'd it into place. Quality job as ever.

 

Sorry for the photo quality, I forgot my SLR. Still, it was slow progress, but it was progress nonetheless. 

 

Planning to look into rust treatments like Dinitrol or something to try and protect what's been done already. Does the fun ever end?

[TriggerFish]

Another day at it, and the rear driver's arch is as done as we're going to get it. There's still this hole, which I'll leave to a body shop for fear of damaging the 'outer'/visible skin:

 

 

I had some fun poking around the floor with good, and bad, news.

 

In good news, the massive hole is actually a removable panel - so I need to buy two more of those from BMW:

 

 

 

In bad news - it turns out mastic hides a multitude of sins:

 

 

^ That's the passenger's side - yet to be opened out.

 

This is the driver's side, only semi opened out:

 

 

That perfect circle hole has another removable panel to drop in, so no panic there!

 

While I was there with my camera, I also grabbed a couple of shots of some of the old Austin 7s up there:

 

 

I think that's one piece of ali for that body work!

 

This gets raced:

 

 

As does this:

 

 

They can reach upto 90mph, apparently. I've driven one and found it semi-scary at moderate (30mph?) speeds. I imagine doing 3 times that on drum brakes would be terrifying! 

[TriggerFish]

New sills arrived today 

 

 

Luckily they go right up the upright part where the weather seal strip goes, which should mean they're a lot easier to fit as they just butt up - no need to overlap/joddle the new ones.

 

And I ordered some Bilt Hamber stuff to treat the metal/welds. Still need to add a little to that collection, but it's a start.

 

 

Also picked up a new black carpet (£60)after I destroyed mine (plus it's much better condition) and a new heated rear window switch as mine has a crack down the middle of the light up section (£4)

[AshVrs]

Is it cheeky of me to ask how much new sills like that cost? I have no appreciation of how much it would potentially cost to restore a car that's the only reason I ask.

I've always seen it done on wheeler dealers and the like but you never really get a feel for proper costs as not everybody has access to their very own Edd China! Lol

sent from my Galaxy Note 3