My new build *Warning* Euro content

[N14_1.6DET]

I picked up an e30 318i about 2 months ago. After selling my R33 Skyline i was looking for something to use as a daily. I have never looked at or thought about Buying an E30 but my G/F loves anything BMW so when i fould this one for sale for $650 ono with rego she insisted we have a look. The car is what you expect for a $650 car thats on the road. Its rough, the paint on the roof is almost white, the interior is dirty and in poor condition but mechanicly it seems fine. So here we are i now own a 1985 E30 318i with an M10 that has 160,000 km on it. The plan for this car is to be a street car but have some fun on the track and also to help advertise my detailing business. Anyway on with some pics/info on what has been done so far.

Here it is parked at my house the day i picked it up! we stopped at a servo 5 mins after picking the car up to rip offf the massive UNIT sticker that was on the back window! This should have been my first hint not to buy this shit box.





First things first, remove the the towbar I pulled back all the tape around the loome to find where the towbar loome was joined into the cars loome so that i could pull the loome out properly and then gave it a decent wash.



Next on the list was an oil, oil filter and spark plug change ........... check out the plugs and oil that came out of this motor! the oil had clumps of shit in it!!!





The car seemed to run alot nicer now! and was going good untill i had to pick my sister-inlaw from the airport as i was headding home i lost my brakes!!! i was getting to a round about doing about 70k and then bam peddle to the floor and i wasn`t stopping that was scary! I got it home using my hand brake and down gearing lol I was about 2 streets from my house and i got pulled over buy Victorias finest and informed my car had no rego :upset I showed the officer my recipt and transfer forms that where in the glove box that said the car was sold with 10 months reg. he replied it has not reg anymore! (luckely he told me to take it home and didnt fine me) So i go home and pay the $24 or what ever it is for a vic road check (i had already done the free one 10 mins before i payed for the car and it said it had reg) The new check says that my reg was cancelled 2 days after i got the car! :asshole the guy i had got it off of had gone in and cancelled it before i could transfer it to my name! I called the previous owner and as you would expect he did nothing about it! whatever i stopped sooking and stated to get to work getting this thing a roady and some rego. A mate and i got under the car and found out that the rear wheel sylender was leaking that bad that i had no brake fluid left and the bleeder on the drum had been snapped off! lol! the next day i went out and got a discbrake conversion for the ass



I dont like using second hand parts so i ordered new rear discs and pads and seeing as we where doing this i thought i would do the trailing arms and subframe bushes then i thought seeing im doing them i`ll just do all of the bushes and because im doing all of the bushes i mose as well order new shocks and seeing as im ordering new shocks i mose as well order shorter ones and get some lowered springs for it can you see what happens to me? as i was waiting for parts i thought i might do some other small things!

There was a little rust hole in the back of the car so i hit it with a wire wheel to clean it all up and then sprayed some eatch primer on there as i cant weld so i will have to find some one to do this for me! (I have now cut this panel out of another E30 so i can just get that welded into mine)




Next bit was to tear the boot appart it was stained and full of shit from the old owner lol! here we go. This is the boot as it was.



All pulled out and sanded back!



all primed waiting for me to fix the rust then ill paint both areas together



as i was looking around on ebay I found this guy cheap!



Next thing i did while still waiting for my parts was paint the headlight surrounds and grille black (Painted at the bottom old at the top)



While i was painting the grille and headlight surrounds I got some other headlights and cleaned them up they look brand new



And all back together



Finaly my parts started to arive so i painted the subframe and controll arms black and test fitted the discs and pads.



Then these bad boys all rocked up









The springs are an unknown brand of spring. Anyone have any idea what they could be? The bushes are strong flex sport version - hardness 90 ShA (they are the hardest bush i have ever seen maybe a bit to hard?)

So we started on the front first



New springs and shocks we noticed that the sway bar link ball joints where stuffed as well as the inner and outter controllarm ball joins so i orderd all of these
Here is how it sat with the fronts in :yesnod now for the backs!



So here is the disc brake ass end with a quick coat of black and the new subfram and trailing arm bushes



Pulling everything apart in the back



Diff bush getting pressed in



Here is my main man Tom doing something for the BMW lol



And after a day of fucking around its all back together with my new bonnet (the old one had a massive dint)



Next up was tidying the car up a bit to make it look a little nicer as i wait for my ball joints to come in.

I painted these





and the rubber strip on the front of the bar





And re tared all of this! Still needs a clean up and finishing



Then pulled the controlarms off to do the controll arm bush (still waiting for my ball joints)

Old vs new





I`ll paint them black arms black when i get the ball joints

Then i pulled my seats out! I thought that they where some kind of origanal BMW seat but they are not they are infact old school Saas seats they have a lot of boulsting and they hold you in well and i think they suite the era of the car well but the meterial was so destroyed so i pulled them apart



Notice the air bag in the midle? Its an air adjustabul lumbar support!




Then i brought this



In the hope of doing something like this but differant



Then i pulled out all of the carpet and the rest of the interior so that it can get cleaned or recovered! we also found a complete loome that was destroyed every wire was cracked and split so we striped back all the wires and fixed them all again



And this brings us about up to date! hopefully i will get some of the seats done tomorrow ill see how we go. So far Everything has been done in my garage buy me and a mate and im trying to keep it that way! I would like to be able to claim that we built it and not just payed for things to be done.

So far my running cost is $3234 for what you have seen and some other bits and peices! im hoping to get this on the road for under 5K

I hope this wasn`t to boring for everyone!

[Big Yellow]

wow nice build mate!! always had a soft spot for e30s. have you seen that immac red one dumped on black splits?? always see it cruising on the monash

[N14_1.6DET]

Thanks mate no I haven't seen it!

[Course_Out]

Very nice work mate! Know a guy who races one (318is, just converted to sr20) and they certainly perform very well. I have driven a 318i, in good fettle they are a very nice car, I think with the refurbishing you've done to the suspension it will put a very big grin on your face!

[Drifter995]

Very nice car
Bit of a dick move what the previous owner did though >.>

[yiddo]

Very nice!

Like the way you're going with the interior too

[[[d a n n y]]]

wow alot of work
keep it up!!

[N14_1.6DET]

Thanks guys! Hopefully I'll get some more done this weekend!

[anth]

great work so far mate, can't wait to see how those seats turn out.

[tinto]

Looks great - all those small details youre sorting out will make it something very special.
I guess being a detailer you already know this
Looking forward to seeing you progress.

[N14_1.6DET]

Thanks anth and tinto! I have started on the seats i need to get some foam from clark rubber and then the two fronts will be done as well as the parcel shelf! Hoping to have this ready for rwc within 3 weeks.

[Gil]

Very nice progress so far!

This is how you do a real car diary

[N14_1.6DET]

Thanks Gil! Does anyone know why all my pics have gone? Sorry but I'm fairly shit with computers.

[Drifter995]

photobucket exceeded bandwidth... means too many people have viewed the photos lol. They want you to pay money to allow more people to view it... It should die down in time... if not.. go to imgur.com works well for me. but yeah... they just want money >.>

[Jimmy_HR32]

Not a boring read at all man.

Sucks about the rego, I hate dodgey sellers.

As Ben said above, try another image hosting website, I'm keen to see some pics as it sound's like you've done a lot of progress.