Daily driver/weekend project e30 320

[gouba 0]

*managed to rip the oilcooler out after hitting a pot hole today, not looking promising*

Firstly thanks all for your help on this forum, I have very quickly learnt how to do more than a simply oil change with this vehicle.

My previous rides have been japanese POS, nothing too exciting, reliable, but too common and boring. My car was written off and as a result I needed something new.

So after a bit of looking this came along, a 1990 320i auto converted to a 320 manual.

A few things needed doing to it, a busted O ring which leaked oil, the gear box was a little noisy, interior needed replacing, needed some general maintenance and was in need of a valve adjustment (so nothing too major)

So i took it home and started working on it. I wanted to swap the rims for something a bit more classic and picked up a refurbished set of 15 inch bbs rs rims from Eagle.

and a test mock up

I got some wheels from the boys at Precision wheels and slapped them on (highly recommend these guys if you need wheels)

After this I grabbed some new interior pieces from 0ghost0 and trademe in the form of a leather interior, new steering wheel and gear knob. (photos to come of this)

The car got some general maintenance (oil change, coolant flush, gearbox and diff oil change) and this is when issues started to arise.

I found that carpet was getting wet in the interior, so out that came. I found a leaking heater core and a rust hole in the floor pan in the drivers side about the size of a 50c piece. I did a quick job on that for later professional fixing.

At the same time I found more rust in the boot of the car, it looks like water has leaked through the rear lights and has rested below the car jack and battery.

and

and

If anyone can recommend a good panel beater for this I would be very very grateful.

Next stage was the installation of a new headdeck, front components, rear splits, amp, and sub. I didnt get a chance to wire it up properly initially, so it looked terrible.

a basic plate was made (which will be skeletonized later to reduce weight)

and amp installed

This needs further work in the sense of cutting out the majority of that panel and making a covering panel out of 3mm mdf and matching carpet. If anyone has a spare e30 boot carpet they don't wan't ill happily buy it from you.

Then, the zip tied lip came off (also need to replace the broken fog light on the drivers side)

and the replacement clips from Blackie (you're the man for hooking me up) were used to replace the broken clips

Parts that hadn't been properly prepped were painted with Color Pak Vinyl Etch and satin black top coat

and a z3 shifter from Ray was installed. This took way too long as I dropped the circlip (don't do this ) and I was trying to rotate the plastic shift holder anti clockwise from the top rather than from underneath the car. Use some white lithium grease when replacing the z3 shifter into the shift holder. I really recommend this upgrade.

Two things I noticed while doing the work, I need a new battery (expiry date is 09/2003)

and im going to have to sort out my exhaust before I do my rear suspension upgrade. The welded brackets mean I cant remove it as the mounting rubber is one nasty bit of work. It's a good opportunity to clean it up and get some decent tips on the back as well.

[

So this is what it looks like now

Plans for the future include

dropping it another inch or so, replacing the bushings in the rear end with solid bushings, completing the stereo install, fitting front and rear strut braces, fitting a rear sway bar, fixing up some chips in the paint, replacing a noisy release bearing (this will be my biggest job yet), putting in a decent diff (hopefully a 3.73 lsd), doing another valve adjustment as I keep missing one or two, and finally giving it a good cut and polish.

Thanks for looking guys, any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Matt

Edited March 16, 2013 by gouba

[3 SERIES 92]

Looking good!

Fantastic write up so far, remember to keep it updated.

Cheers

[tire 10]

Cool! You seem to have everything under control.

Seems like all the E30 tail light seals are just starting to go, I know of a few others with the same issue. 4 to be exact

ps, Can you get rid of all the doubled up pictures?

[gouba 0]

fixed the doubled up images, sorry about that.

[BenEvans 0]

its looking real nice mate!

good to see her finally getting her own project thread

its interesting to see those pics of the rust, i neva would have thought it was that bad... im now dreading lifting the carpet out of mine

oh and also if u find a good panel beater let me know

[gouba 0]

i never expected to find a perfectly dry car, supposedly there is a good panel beater in Barrys Point Road.

i'll let you know

[APT 179]

more pics of wheels on car pls

[gouba 0]

more pics of wheels on car pls

Any particular angle you would like to see?

[APT 179]

Side on photos would be good mate, aswell as pics showing your offset. thanks

[Jacko 2078]

That looks mint man, I want your seats!

Im keen to get my hands on a Z3 shifter and new bushes at the moment.

[gouba 0]

That looks mint man, I want your seats!

Im keen to get my hands on a Z3 shifter and new bushes at the moment.

Gra a shifter from Ray, definitely worth the $120.

The bushings at the gear box end need to be replaced at the same time, otherwise there is lots of lateral play still remaining

[gouba 0]

Things i plan to do this weekend include

A valve adjustment

replace my valve cover with a black painted one (I accidently cracked my old black painted one)

fix up the tweeter wiring on my rigth front component.

Install newly painted and refurbished wing mirrors

If anyone has the following, ill happily come buy them off you

a grey e30 boot carpet

drivers side fog lamp replacement

an e46 armrest/cupholder/arm rest shroud

Edited August 4, 2010 by gouba

[dirtydoogle 383]

So much awesome!

Every time someone starts building a nice looking E30 I get excited and start thinking E30 thoughts..... I think I'll add E30 manuals to my list of what to buy when I sell my boat.

[Lucan 196]

Nice.

Looks alot like mine, cept 2 doors...

[gouba 0]

Nice.

Looks alot like mine, cept 2 doors...

Yeah I notice that, i need to steal your 16s though to make it that much closer

[gouba 0]

So a bit of an update.

Had a pretty mixed day, I lined up the bonnet properly as it was a few mm out of line, worked out that one of my front component tweeters was blown (lined up some nice silk ones to replace them with) and sprayed the two replacement wing mirrors to put on tomorrow (more photos of that to come)

It came to doing the valve adjustment when i realized I had a big problem and was in way over my head. I did a valve adjustment about 6-7 weeks ago which quietened everything down considerably. That was all good up until about 2 weeks ago when it started to get really quite noisy again, I simply put this down to one of the tappets being a loose and needed adjustment.

Fast forward to today and I take the valve cover off to find

can you see what is missing?

after a bit of fishing about I find this

but no eccentric bolt (time to take the sump off). It seems that the right side of the arm (the nut side) has been damaged somehow and the bolt has flown loose. This is strange in the sense that the damage is to the nut side and not bolt side which could have sheared off. There is some markings on the wall indicating some metal on metal fun.

So the damage is bad enough to be really concerning but after a quick trip to pick a part my brother and I managed to find a replacement bolt and reattach the eccentric to the arm. On the good side the engine is really quiet now and sounds great, the bad side is that I now have to get it urgently fixed :/

As I dont have the time to get this fixed, how much should I expect to pay to get this sorted?

Edited August 7, 2010 by gouba

[Jeddy 0]

Looking good, what widths and offsets are the wheels?

[gouba 0]

Can someone take a photo of (or describe to me) how the oil cooler is meant to be attached to the body? I replaced the old one to find it held in two two self tapping screws (not cool) and watn to affix it properly.

On another note the car is off to get the damaged rocker arm replaced and a noisy thrust bearing swapped out

[gouba 0]

Grabbed some photos of the fitment as asked, also replaced the tired looking wing mirrors with new ones

[Lucan 196]

What brand/kind of paint did you use on the mirrors?

Looks good.

[AzonicNick 0]

Keen for a bit of that too. Car looking good!

[gouba 0]

Process for the mirrors

One of them was previously painted so I sanded back with 100,180,240 grit wet back sandpaper till I has hitting plastic.

I then sprayed with a couple of light copies of color pak Vinyl Etch (this stuff is awesome)

I then sprayed with three light coats of a color pak satin enamel black (cant remember the color)

I then sanded this all back to plastic again with 100,180,240,400 grit wet back sandpaper to smooth any imperfections out.

then two light coats of vinyl etch and three light coats of satin and left it to dry overnight (then chucked in the hot water cupboard.

Rebuilt and then chucked back on the car. Took a little time but it looks really good. Been through a couple of washes and I haven't seen any wear so it looks like it will hold.

[Guest Simon*]

This is a great wee project car, well done man!

Is the rocker arm sorted?

[gouba 0]

This is a great wee project car, well done man!

Is the rocker arm sorted?

Dropped it up to Ray at HellBM and all was sorted.

I also got the thrust bearing replaced at the same time as it was quite noisy.

Also need to drop the car down another inch or so to get rid of that gap in the front, anyone got any super lows spare?

Edited August 18, 2010 by gouba

[Eagle 1524]

Good to see my old wheels being put to use , hardly had them on my old car long.

Just for reference iirc:

Front:7.5" with 1.5" lip. ET15

Rear: 8" with 2" lip. ET10