Another decrepit E30 316i coupe being revived (In colour)

[aramoana 20]

Update time! What has happened since the last update. My exams are all finished, interviews completed and now we wait. At the same time, my order from Schmiedmann finally arrived (Of note, FedEx is very slow in NZ) and I got the wheels done. 

The beginning

Giving them a first clean and scrub after buying them 

Stripping them down with wire wheels and paint stripper (Took a long time)

Etch Primer. I actually quite liked this colour, and the centre covers have the etch primer with 2k clear over them on the back face and it looks really nice, so it was food for thought. 

High build primer to fill in my careless mistakes when I got trigger happy with the wire wheel

Honda Satin Silver Metallic (NH623M) was suggested as a close match for the BBS factory colour and I think I agree. The colour is superb. Covered it with a 2K aerosol clear. 

 

While I was on a roll, I decided to tidy up the engine bay and install some new gaskets that I got. 

Valve cover and upper intake sandblasted and cleaned

New upper instake gaskets

Installed freshly painted parts, I am glad I did it, because it makes the whole thing look a lot better than it did. Should tide me over while I figure out what I need to do for an M42 swap. 

 

On the to do list

- New intake boot from MAF to throttle body, mines cracked. Maybe someone has a non-cracked spare?

- Install new bonnet foam 

- strip front calipers, spray them silver and rebuild with all new parts

- Tail light seals

- Repaint entire car

- Radio aerial to be found and fitted

- K8 Foglight relay to be found and purchased. Im having trouble with this one, does anyone know where I could get the correct relay in NZ? BMW weren't able to tell me what relay I needed, and the part numbers I found online didn't come up with their parts catalogue. 

[Deano1968 37]

PM'd.

[Olaf 3317]

On 11/19/2021 at 8:50 AM, aramoana said:

On the to do list

- New intake boot from MAF to throttle body, mines cracked. Maybe someone has a non-cracked spare?

- Tail light seals

 

I've got a decent nick intake boot for M40B16 in my parts stash, and a pair of very good condition tail light seals.  IM me if you're keen, I'll figure out an appropriate figure and some freight.

[aramoana 20]

Much has happened since my last update. Most significantly, I discovered why I was quoted 10k to repaint the car. The prep work required for a good paint job is ridiculous. I spent many many hours sanding, filling, sanding, filling and sanding some more before I was satisfied with the surface to paint it. I got very lucky with my spray gun set up. I had been watching trademe for a while looking for air compressors and spray guns, and I eventually found what I was after - a guy who had bought all the right, top quality gear brand new but didn't want it anymore and was flicking it cheap. I got a toolshed 50L 13CFM belt driven compressor, a W400 IWATA, a .8mm Finixa and a whole bunch of paint prep gear all for less than half of what it would have been brand new. I got 2L of DeBeer paint from LinkUp paints for $328 (ouch), which turned out to be more than i needed. 

Sanding down the rusted stone chips

Leveling the paint with filler

A couple base coats later

Note mistake number 1 and 2 of many - The hard tape line on the pillar and not removing the rear window. In order to remedy the result of this, I came back 2 weeks later and removed the window, and did the blending into the roof properly like I should have done initially. 

Scuffed up the new clear coat and remedied any defects I could find while I was there. Also took the time this time around to do the entire rear of the car, as well as the boot lip area. Should protect it from rust for a bit with how many coats went on. 

You might notice a car next to the BMW covered in drapes. Its my dads 1962 Jaguar S-Type. Very nice. 

 

Another task which was massively satisfying was cleaning off the old glue to install the new bonnet foam. Prepsol did a wondrous job of it and made short work of the old adhesive. 

Cant forget the little black square. It didn't line up with anything for me, so on it went. Looks smashing!

 

Because the Z3 rack had been sitting in my garage since September, I wanted to get it in. Draining the old PS fluid was well overdue as it had turned into a black viscous oil, fargone from the nice red ATF it was meant to be. I tried bending the e30 pipes to match the new angles, but cocked it up and ended up just getting some teflon fittings and braided Dash-6 hose. Wasn't cheap, the new pipes cost me $405, which was mostly the right angle fittings. Im going to need new boots

With that all sorted and a new outer tie rod, I went for a wheel alignment, which has been on my to do list since I got the car. Unfortunately, it was confirmed that something was amiss. The wheel alignment went fine, but when driving, the car will pull to one side after a hard turn. If the hard turn is left, the car will not re-center and instead pull to the left like it is misaligned. If the hard full lock turn is to the right, it will pull to the right. The only thing I can think of is the strut top mount bearings being shot, which was also suggested by the gentleman at the tyre shop. 

So I ordered all of the required bits from Schmiedmann

Because the rear of my transmission has let a lot of oil out, Im going to replace the rear seal as well. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 19, 2021 by aramoana
Formatting

[Gaz 1061]

Nice, I've been looking at getting some painting gear myself but good 2nd stuff is hard to come by

[Olaf 3317]

Good score on the painting gear!  Paint looks good too, nice work.  Looking forward to seeing some outdoors shots.

[aramoana 20]

I feel like a child and its the night before christmas. Since my last update, many parts have been ordered, I finally got a wheel alignment, the Z3 rack was installed and the car has disappeared into the paint shop for a few weeks. The shop called to tell me that she was all ready to be picked up, but I wasn't around and they all wanted to get out early for the long weekend so I will pick it up on Tuesday. Im positively brimming with excitement. I'll post more photos once I get the car back, but for the m oment. 

Before

After

While its a bit hard to tell in this photo, the dents are all gone, the car is a uniform Sterling Silver and all of the stone chips are gone. It should look the part once I get it back and can take photos of it completely reassembled. What blows me away is that this car lived outdoors in a driveway for almost a decade not getting used, and it has no rust, anywhere. I feel that I lucked out with this one. 

[aramoana 20]

The E30 is a never ending source of entertainment. I got it back from the shop and it looks like a million bucks. Unfortunately, someone ran over my phone and now I can't take any pictures. I took the front calipers off, painted them with VHT caliper paint and installed new dust boots, slide pins and seals then re-installed them back in the car. I bled the brake system, but when I took it for a run, it felt really spongey. I rebled them to no avail, until I saw brake fluid gushing out of the passenger rear drum. I took apart the drum and it turned out that somehow I had bent the thick steel plate that locates the brake shoe, as well as bending the brake shoe metal, which allowed the drum piston to fully extend and pump fluid out. Comical really. It was time for new brake shoes anyway. 

I finally pulled out the blower fan (64111373766) and it was properly shot, but fortunately the fan in my car was also put in '94 to '02 Z3's and have got a used replacement en route courtesy of @BM WORLD. 

Problem: The dashboard is cracked

Solution: Pull the bloody thing out and fill it and paint it to look like new. However, can someone guide me on what filler I should be using? I havent been able to nail down a good flexible non shrinking filler. Also, does anyone know how to get the patterning on the filled areas? Ive seen people use patches of fabric as templates. Im wondering if anyone has gone down this route and can advise me. 

I need some help from the more experienced mechanics here

When I turn the key in the ignition, I have to really twist it in order for the contacts to touch and for the car to start. Sometimes the contacts break and the car dies. I haven't taken anything apart yet, but I'm wondering if anyone has some guidance on what I should do to address this, or what is causing this issue. 

[Olaf 3317]

@aramoana long time between updates - how's it going?  How's it looking?  Are you keeping the 316i faith?