My 1987 E30 318i

[cpalma]

Hey guys, here to introduce my 1987 BMW E30 318i..

• Zinoberrot Red

• Pre facelift

• M10 engine

• I've owned it twice

• 4 Owners (one of the owners owned it for 22 years)

• Currently undergoing a light restoration

• Needs a paint job

• Sits on a rare set of BBS RZ378

I'll start with a bit of a timeline and history:

2/1987 - 1992: The car was originally purchased at BMW Wollaston Motors, Northamptonshire but I have no paperwork between these years but whoever owned this car liked it a lot as it used to be serviced at a Rolls-Royce specialist called Hillier Hill in Milton Keynes. (funny thing is that after I bought the car I used to commute every day from Aylesbury to Milton Keynes)

8/1992 - 11/2014: The previous owner before me bought this car with 75k in Stoke-on-Trent where he traded in his Vauxhall Cavalier (I have this invoice) and it was only sold to me by his daughter once he passed away, one of her requirements for a new buyer for her dads proud and enjoy would be to find someone that cared and loved the car as much as he did.

11/2014 - 10/2016: Bought with 106k, this is the time period when I first owned the car, it was my first car that I bought with my hard-earned cash from working in the Construction Industry. I basically drove it everywhere around the UK and in the first two years added up around 22k miles. I learned how to do basic maintenance like changing oils, filters etc and it never let me know (knock wood) apart from once where one of the hoses had a small crack and it was causing a vacuum leak, easy fix - not so bad for a 25+ year old car.

10/2016 - 01/2018: Not much to add during this time period, I sold the car as I wanted to buy my other baby a 1989 E24 635CSI Highline (which I still own) 01/2018 - Present: As I was pretty emotionally attached to the car I decided to buy it back as I was still in touch with the previous owner! In June 2019 me & Princesa the german Sheperd, Rix313 and another friend called Ed (that should be joining in soon) all took our e30's to a super nice road trip to the Lake District, everything was great until we came back and my perfectionist side kicked in and I made a list of improvements that had to be made! (More about this / pics below)


Some pictures

How it looked when I bought it



Just before I sold it in 2018

[rix313]

Welcome Carlos

It’s cool to see those pictures of it so early on. I was scanning through my photos and found the one of when we went to collect her the second time around.

[cpalma]

So after the road trip to the Lake District my perfectionist side kicked in and I made a list of things to sort out!

I've started with refurbishing/upgrading the front end and doing the following:

• Refurbished Struts with welded ARB mounts (m3 spec)

• Refurb M3 19mm Anti roll bar

• E90 Tops hats

• New brake shields

• Reinforced subframe

• M3 control arm eccentric bushes

• New Eibach springs

• New inner/outer tie rods

• All new rubbers for the struts + top mounts

• All new bolts or zinc plated old ones

• Clean and strip some of the areas on the inner arches + Bilt hamber electrox zinc primer + Epoxy Mastix + Upol Gravitex + Coat of red (doing this atm)

• New rear top mounts + reinforcement plates

Some welding does need to be done on both the inner arches but the driver's side one is the worst one!

New parts


Inner arch before and note the state of the strut & springs on the right, the Apex springs were a bit shit and basically rubbing against each other



See what underseal can hide


Work in progress


Painted the inside of the chrome bumpers as they were getting rusty


Some new vs old pictures, most of the parts are coated with upol gravitex stone chip for extra protection




Struts & Subframe



Also some future plans are to fit the tech 1 body kit (I'm after some side skirts), e46 purple rack and willwood 4 pot brakes (although for the meanwhile I'm fitting some 325i ones)

A question for you guys, how is the state of your powder coated parts after a few years? I had my struts powder coated before and just after 3 years there was rust everywhere

[Tzantushka]

Nice intro and some fantastic history there.
Car is looking good on the BBS wheels.

And looks like you're doing a thorough job for rust protection on the wheel well and suspension components

With powder-coat durability it all depends.
If the parts have been prepared properly (e.g blasted) and every skerrick of rust has been removed - then a properly cured powder-coat should last a couple of years.
A quick blast with a wire wheel and powder-coat may not give the durability you're looking for.

Best combination for powder-coat durability is a three stage process:
1. Shot blast or sand blast
2. e-Coat for maximum adhesion & corrosion resistance
3. top powder-coat for added durability & looks

We do at work for OE tow bars.
This gives 1000+ hrs protection against the standard neutral salt spray test used by the major car companies.

The downside is that for threads and close fitting parts (e.g. strut tubes & collar nuts) it can make reassembly problematic with the extra coating.

PS: looks like someone has nicked your tools from the shadow board.

[martauto]

Welcome to the zone mate !!
Great write up and really well documented, dont let her go again !!

Mart.

[cpalma]

Nice intro and some fantastic history there.
Car is looking good on the BBS wheels.

And looks like you're doing a thorough job for rust protection on the wheel well and suspension components

With powder-coat durability it all depends.
If the parts have been prepared properly (e.g blasted) and every skerrick of rust has been removed - then a properly cured powder-coat should last a couple of years.
A quick blast with a wire wheel and powder-coat may not give the durability you're looking for.

Best combination for powder-coat durability is a three stage process:
1. Shot blast or sand blast
2. e-Coat for maximum adhesion & corrosion resistance
3. top powder-coat for added durability & looks

We do at work for OE tow bars.
This gives 1000+ hrs protection against the standard neutral salt spray test used by the major car companies.

The downside is that for threads and close fitting parts (e.g. strut tubes & collar nuts) it can make reassembly problematic with the extra coating.

PS: looks like someone has nicked your tools from the shadow board.

Hi Tzantushka,

Thanks for your reply, I guess I was unlucky with the power coating company I used in the past, although I did read on some forums that power coatings isn't really good for high impact parts as it can chip easily and leave the part unprotected!

Ahah yep they did!

[cpalma]

Welcome to the zone mate !!
Great write up and really well documented, dont let her go again !!

Mart.

Hi Mart,

Nope that's not happening anymore ahaha

[cpalma]

Some updates:

Arches painted and struts assembled




First pictures of the car





Cheeky trip (we always kept our distances) made last weekend with the 635csi, Ed's E30 and my friend Marq with the Z3m.




Started to fit the subframe & control arms to the car but had an issue with one of the threads of the subframe, had to buy a tap to clean the threads, I reckon paint got into it and messed things up, but all good now!

[martauto]

Beautiful car and absolutely love that interior

Mart.