Full E30 restoration....

[Dr Firefly]

How much would it cost? Is it Scott's car on here that's had a gradual rolling restoration for about £10k?

How much to take it to a trusted and decently priced garage, get it stripped out, chassis restored fully and make sure every component that's put back is in as new condition? Probably looking at the £20k mark?

Just out of interest, financially it won't be on the cards for a few years yet... just like the idea of having the car in showroom condition rather than the constant replacement of parts as they wear out.

[Morat]

I'm sure there would be a market for some of the wizards on the zone to offer this sort of service. They know exactly what they're doing with E30s, don't need to reinvent the wheel and can rely on a steady stream of parts and advertising. Of course, for most people here its a hobby and not a job... but isn't being paid for your hobby the dream of every hobbyist?

[maxfield]

but isn't being paid for your hobby the dream of every hobbyist?

That's exactly why I'm training to be a mechanic.

[Bob_S]

too much than it's worth mate trust me I'm stupid enough to start one

[Gibson]

but isn't being paid for your hobby the dream of every hobbyist?

That's exactly why I'm training to be a mechanic.

no not really... i trained to be a mechanic and by the end of the day i was so sick of working on cars i couldnt be bothered to work on my own car. keep hobby and work pretty seperate is the best move.

i sell corsas now, spend all day hating them and getting in the e30 is a breath of fresh air and makes me love it even more.

[Morat]

I'm in league with the devil

Burn him! ;)

[maxfield]

I spend all week training on cars but I love working on my E30!

Everyone's different.

[Gibson]

you think bin men feel dirty when they go home at the end of the day... i have to shower for an hour and scrub with carb cleaner just to get the feeling of vauxhall off my skin....

[dannyboy759]

Wanna be careful, you might start finding random self tappers in places!!!!!

[daimlerman]

you think bin men feel dirty when they go home at the end of the day... i have to shower for an hour and scrub with carb cleaner just to get the feeling of vauxhall off my skin....

PMSL

[boombang]

I'm building a 205 Gti rallycar at the moment and that has been done as a full rebuild from bare shell (including back to galvanised coating on most of car, and welding in any new metal where required).

So far a year of my life and £5k of parts (including all the bits bits) plus another grand worth of consumables and tools are sitting there waiting for warmer weather to come along so I can finish.

It's very hard work and I stopped counting time spent on the car after 100 hours doing the resto just on the underside of the car!

[bss325i]

I spend all week training on cars but I love working on my E30!

Everyone's different.

No offence but your young and have been only doing it 5 min, I've been in the trade 10yrs now and wish i had a different proffesion that pays better.
Motor trade these days aint all its cracked up to be these days unless your lucky and work for a respected tuner or race team. Looking after modern cheap tat at a main dealer is boring and tedious.

[Gibson]

I spend all week training on cars but I love working on my E30!

Everyone's different.

No offence but your young and have been only doing it 5 min, I've been in the trade 10yrs now and wish i had a different proffesion that pays better.
Motor trade these days aint all its cracked up to be these days unless your lucky and work for a respected tuner or race team. Looking after modern cheap tat at a main dealer is boring and tedious.

Amen

[Simon13]

Like Gibson and Barry have said max it's an unwise move imo. Thats why i went into the building trade A) because it pays better money B) then i wouldn't get fed up with my hobby.

I'm glad i've done this also as i am still dead keen!

Back on topic! Firefly i'm doing this at the moment on my alpina, it's costing a fortune and i dread to think of the total cost once done. We can safely say i won't get all the money back but i'm not doing it for that.

Bodywork is going to be at least 3k for what i want done and i've done the strip down to a rolling shell. depends on how mad you're going with it really i reckon i'm going to spend 10k getting it how i want it. I need shooting but hey ho!

My aim is to have an E30 as new as poss and more importantly one with no issues just one i can drive and enjoy when it's restored! My weekend toy!

[Rik178m]

Max, If you like engineering Toyota do a Maintenance engineer scheme through nottingham uni. It'll pay alot better then being a mechanic. With overtime and shift pay it works out £35k and other companies pay better.

[Dr Firefly]

Ok, cos what I was thinking of doing long term was having my current E30 320i as my day car, but with it being worth so little anyway I was going to make it a pure hodge podge of stuff - eg upgrade it as much as physically possible, E46 330d engine in it etc, uprated suspension, brakes, cruise control etc etc.

But I've always loved the Mtec1 sports, and was thinking of getting one in decent nick (original bill of sale etc etc) and stripping it down, restoring it and getting it in perfect condition, and keeping it totally absolutely standard, and ending up with a mint one that I could keep forever.

All pie in the sky at the mo, but I have managed to get to the last 3 months of my medical degree, so if I get through this I'll have a pretty much guaranteed decent wage for life, as long as I don't kill anyone (accidentally of course, not really into killing them on purpose). So I can make plans now can't I? All involve renovating an old farmhouse/ barn and having 2 E30s. Not very exciting but hey ho...

[Simon13]

the tech 1 makes the most sense.

330d engine is lots effort and way more money!

[Rik178m]

renovated barn and 2 e30's sounds like an excellent plan mate! I like the idea of a 330d engined e30. In the distant future when e30's are depp in classic territory do you think a tech 1 would be of more value then a tech 2 or has the tech 2 become of a higher status?

[Simon13]

either will be i expect but the tech 2 seems to be more in demand still.

There's plenty of armchair heros who love the tech1 on here but when a nice comes up forsale they struggle to sell as no one seems to want to pay decent money for one. This isn't the case with the tech 2 really

dunno why

[x-works]

I spend all week training on cars but I love working on my E30!

Everyone's different.

totally agree, been working for 15 years now as a mechanic and if I
was to do it all over again I'd still have picked the same trade, still get
satisfaction in fixing something that was deemed f**ked, and starting an
engine for the first time you built with your own hands. Sure you can get
a pain in the arse when jobs go wrong, can't see this been much different
from any other trade. Best advise I could give is to get as much
experiance at the beginning of your career as possible, petrol, diesel,
cars, vans, trucks try and get a root around as much as possible, that
way as you go through your working life nothing will hold any inhabitions
for you and if you find yourself in a dead end garage on poor money
you'll have no reservations about leaving and finding more satisfying
work elsewhere.

[stonesie]

I spend all week training on cars but I love working on my E30!

Everyone's different.

No offence but your young and have been only doing it 5 min, I've been in the trade 10yrs now and wish i had a different proffesion that pays better.
Motor trade these days aint all its cracked up to be these days unless your lucky and work for a respected tuner or race team. Looking after modern cheap tat at a main dealer is boring and tedious.

Ive been doing it a simmilar amount of time and totally agree, ive applied to be a bus driver to get out of the spanner spinning and knuckle skinning and the training wage from them is a raise of nearly £1 an hour....... for sitting on my ass, driving all day

[maxfield]

And plenty of abuse from youths, although the things I've lost on the bus!

[march109]

And back to the topic in question, as with all jobs mate depends on how much you are willing to tackle yourself.

Scotts IIRC did come to around £10k from what I read, but I'm pretty sure if he was honest and added up all those small little reciepts he forgot about it would be alot more, hes put ALOT of work, time and mone in that car.

If you assume it was £10k in parts I suspect you'd be lucky to get a full resto for £20k, full bare metal respray type resto anyway, thats gonna set you back minimum £6k just to get some colour on the car if you did some work yourself. The biggest cost will always be labour, and that won't be cheap.

[Simon13]

if a shell is going to cost 6k to sort out it's not worth doing as it's obviously very rotton!

My alpina shell isn't bad, but theres a few places starting to go. I'm replacing every bolt on panel so it's only rust on the shell to tackle. If the shell isn't full of filler then it won't need a bare metal respray imo

[bloom_meister]

There will be very little on my car that isnt brand new or refurbished to as new when finished. Current budget estimates for the project are running at £24,500....that includes purchase price of the car and the Hartge conversion though so i'd say £15k is more realisitic if you use new parts and get everything done PROPERLY.

[Dr Firefly]

Just doing a bit of thread maintenance...

Back on topic! Firefly i'm doing this at the moment on my alpina, it's costing a fortune and i dread to think of the total cost once done. We can safely say i won't get all the money back but i'm not doing it for that.

Bodywork is going to be at least 3k for what i want done and i've done the strip down to a rolling shell. depends on how mad you're going with it really i reckon i'm going to spend 10k getting it how i want it. I need shooting but hey ho!

My aim is to have an E30 as new as poss and more importantly one with no issues just one i can drive and enjoy when it's restored! My weekend toy!

You got a thread up about this Simon? Would be interested... would be great if I could drop in and see it sometime when I'm down in Surrey.

either will be i expect but the tech 2 seems to be more in demand still.

There's plenty of armchair heros who love the tech1 on here but when a nice comes up forsale they struggle to sell as no one seems to want to pay decent money for one. This isn't the case with the tech 2 really

dunno why

I've really never understood that - there was that gorgeous one on here fo £3k the other day - the one that has Meguire's every day before being put in it's heated garage, and polished off the next morning! Looked absolutely mint. And it looks like it's back up

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... ic&t=87881

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... sc&start=0

How much would that car be worth do you reckon if it was tech 2? Fair bit more anyway. Personally think the tec 1's look much nicer - personal preference tho.

If you assume it was £10k in parts I suspect you'd be lucky to get a full resto for £20k, full bare metal respray type resto anyway, thats gonna set you back minimum £6k just to get some colour on the car if you did some work yourself. The biggest cost will always be labour, and that won't be cheap.

That's about what I was thinking. I think personal contacts (as always) and being willing to get stuck in will be the way forward. Plus I like making friends.

There will be very little on my car that isnt brand new or refurbished to as new when finished. Current budget estimates for the project are running at £24,500....that includes purchase price of the car and the Hartge conversion though so i'd say £15k is more realisitic if you use new parts and get everything done PROPERLY.

Have you got a thread up about this? Must say £24k is a fair commitment there. What car is it?

Oh and finally there's this debate about being a mechanic. Must say there was a time when I was thinking how nice it would be to have a fairly low stress job like being a mechanic. But then I began to realise you'd have to work on any car that comes in, even if you didn't like it. If you don't own the garage you're not paid that well, and yeah, a lot of skinned knuckles. If someone would pay me doctor's wages to work on my E30/chill out with a beer all day.... I think I know what my choice would be Maybe there is something to be said for not making your hobby your job, cos then you lose your hobby.

Still reckon anything that is a real trade is worth going into though - desperately short of people who can do real jobs: plumbers, electricians, plasterers, etc... when we've got 100,000 people a year leaving media studies degrees and looking for jobs in advertising. Really don't understand this country anymore, and I'm only 22! What'll I be like at 50!

[Sjoerd320i]

but isn't being paid for your hobby the dream of every hobbyist?

That's exactly why I'm training to be a mechanic.

no not really... i trained to be a mechanic and by the end of the day i was so sick of working on cars i couldnt be bothered to work on my own car. keep hobby and work pretty seperate is the best move.

i sell corsas now, spend all day hating them and getting in the e30 is a breath of fresh air and makes me love it even more.

True mate

I sell VW's and every day I'm looking forward to the end of the week so I can work on the e30 again

[pacerpete]

You cnuts need help ! I've just spent £4000 on an old BMW, no it's not a bogged up tech 1 turd, it's a B10 biturbo, now that's value !

[Simon13]

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... ic&t=70115

full thread here updated as and when it happens! it's on 14 pages now.

Bloom 24k is mad if you picked up a spanner and did some of the work yourself it would be more satisfying!

[murran]

I spend all week training on cars but I love working on my E30!

Everyone's different.

No offence but your young and have been only doing it 5 min, I've been in the trade 10yrs now and wish i had a different proffesion that pays better.
Motor trade these days aint all its cracked up to be these days unless your lucky and work for a respected tuner or race team. Looking after modern cheap tat at a main dealer is boring and tedious.

Ive been doing it a simmilar amount of time and totally agree, ive applied to be a bus driver to get out of the spanner spinning and knuckle skinning and the training wage from them is a raise of nearly £1 an hour....... for sitting on my ass, driving all day

been in the trade bout 8 years, feel happy with the amount of money im on (mot tester too), but more would always be nice...... some days its great and i love it, others its shite and repetative. just depends on who and what cars your working on.
at the end of the day...... if you dont like your job.......... quit!

[bloom_meister]

Have you got a thread up about this? Must say £24k is a fair commitment there. What car is it?

I took the thread down, tired of dealing with some very negative individuals. Full details will be published when its completed, via magazines and a special web page for the car.

The base car is a 1991 Motorsport cab in Mauritious blue and Lous white leather

[oakey]

J
I've really never understood that - there was that gorgeous one on here fo £3k the other day - the one that has Meguire's every day before being put in it's heated garage, and polished off the next morning! Looked absolutely mint. And it looks like it's back up

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... ic&t=87881

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... sc&start=0

How much would that car be worth do you reckon if it was tech 2? Fair bit more anyway. Personally think the tec 1's look much nicer - personal preference tho.

Great idea! restore a tech1
By the sounds of it (i spoke to ray yesterday) that tech1 for sale doesnt need any restoration