A bit of the back story, I'd known the car and the previous owner from competing against it in 12car rallies and autotests for quite some years. The car had been up for sale twice before, and for whatever reason it wasn't the right time for me to buy it. Anyways come last October I was looking for another toy, despite having other toys, you always want more toys, so dropped the chap a line and asked if it might be available. A few days later, I'm viewing the car, having a bit of a catch up, the car is tired, been in the garage for a few years, needs some bits looking at, rust on the inner arch by the fuel filler, a patch on the scuttle and a funny noise around the back axle. Anyways, it was cheap enough, came with a spare LSD, spare gearbox, engine a few sets of wheels etc. The deal was done and I was the proud owner of Dennis.
The plan was look over the back axle, move to the front axle, check the engine over and tidy up the interior... what's the line about all battle plans go out of the window once the first shot is fired?
Got the car in the air and first thing to note the propshaft centre bearing was knackered, so no worries, exhaust off, heatshield off, propshaft off, new bearing installed, new donut for good measure too, go to build things back up. Bearing doesn't line up with the shell
Turns out I've been sent an e36 bearing, not an e30, rookie mistake not checking the old part vs the new part before fitting.
Next it's time to look at the back axle, driveshafts seem ok, diff has a bit of play, so decide to swap the diff for the spare. While I'm having a general look around, notice the brake back plates are shot so the handbrake is living by a wing and a prayer, so start to strip the rear brakes down to see what condition the internals are in (i.e. just how much do I need to replace, turns out all of it). Passenger side rear caliper off and I have a multi-piece brake pad. Now I've heard anecdotally of this particular brand of brake pad having issues with the friction material delaminating from the backing plate in the past, but never actually held the bits in my hand before.
So with most of the rear suspension stripped off, time throw a lick of paint on the rear arms and throw in some fresh bushes.
...and with the trailing arms off I get a good view of the inner wing around the fuel filler
