My 318i - more piccies, nothing useful yet, just adding :)

[Jos]

My e30 4 door:

Engine: None
Suspension: None
Interior: erm.. none
Plans: Add rest of car to bodyshell










Seriously though, its my little project car. I have a 3.5l engine with <100k miles on it to go in, on the hunt for a gearbox and diff, slight change to the rear trailing arms and front hubs, uprated suspension/bushes, custom exhaust, full retrim and full respray to come

[Davenotouring]

Looks like you've got a decent project going on there.

Good luck with it!

It'll be a monster when you're done!

[Jhonno]

Nice!! Good base for a project - looks nice and clean

[Jos]

Thanks for the encouragment guys, yeah overall it is very clean. There were 3 bad bits on the bodyshell that have now been repaired





One of them as you can see is the front subframe mount, that had me slightly concerned:)

The only other bits that worry me are the rear arches, the inner arches are pretty bad and EuroCarparts say they can't get those parts anymore. I can get rear outer skins but they are Ԛ£180 each I can't get arch kits as it is 4-door car. Short of repairing the existing I dunno what else to do.

[zaust]

Keep us posted i think all will want to know how its comming on.

[radback]

Great post thanks

[E30_Don]

I'd try and get repair panels from a company called hadrian or failing that you should be able to seek them from smaller panel companies! Good luck with the project, it'l be nuts when its done, be sure to take it on a trackday!

[Jos]

Ok, the outer wings are repairable, the arch lips are missing, but that can be fixed. The same however cannot be said for the outside inner arches.. they are practically non-existant, I ground back until I hit metal.. and I hit the wingmount that it is attached to.. so not a good sign..

The parts are: 41141911149 and 41141911150 for the right and left arches..

E30_Don, whats the company you mentioned? Hadrian, do they have a website or a telephone no.?


Thanks guys

[Ziggy]

http://www.perfectpanels.co.uk/

[adrock]

bets way to builld a project from the ground up

[Jos]

No joy from Hadrian, they have outer skins, but not the inner sections themselves.. ah well, time to break out the panel hammer...

Suprisingly a 'Google' for the part numbers gives 1 result... yes 1!

http://germanparts.com/AllParts/AllPartNumbers_624.html

And thats it by the looks of things, I think I'll try making a set 1st, then if that fails I will look at this again. Bit depressing when you can't get a part, but I suspose that is to be expected with a 20 year old car.

[Jos]

Inner Arches Ԛ£50 each from stealers, arch repair kits Ԛ£20 each each for pattern panels.


Just secured the M30 engine from the 7 series, <100k miles, yum!

And heres some more shots.. ever wondered what your car looks like underneath?









I'll get some shots of the donor up next week.

[Jos]

Only 1 pic of the donor so far, the most important one:

[Jos]

Recipe is coming together... got another ingredient..




More to come but rain stopped play

[Jos]

Decided to clean the underside in preparation for re-undersealing..








Fairly massive difference from before, well pleased with results apart from the hole the powerwasher made in 1 bit ...

[Jos]

Moving an engine.. I imagine this is how the Egyptians moved their M30s around..



Removing headers.. no idea how I am going toget them back on, damn that was fiddly to do




So thats what the inside of the rocker cover looks like..



The start of the cleaning...

[Simon13]

we need more!!

[Jos]

[E30Adam]

Sorry for maybe sounding a bit dumb here but surely if you're using this car as the base for your project, wouldn't tipping the car on it's side damage the pannel work or are you replacing it all anyway??

Looks like it's coming along well, I'll be watching this one!!

[Jos]

Ah-ha! But it's not sitting on the panels!

If you look at the last posts with the clean underside, the 2 metal bars running up from the ground are L shaped. They are bolted to the subframe mounts front and back and rest on the ground, keeping all the rest of the car about 4" from the ground.

Hope to have some reassembly photos in the next 4-6 weeks, cashflow dependant unfortunatly..

[Zayyan]

I imagine this is how the Egyptians moved their M30s around..

It's looking good so far, I reckon you should save the money on the respray and keep the wheels, just put a 316 badge on the back. Nobody would know what hit em!

[Jos]

Lol, I don't think the steelies would last very long with that engine pushing them round. I also have an innate fear of hedges that would prevent me from using tyres that thin

Still undecided on the debadge or get a 335i badge made up for it. One thing I am pretty sure I will do is replace the BMW roundels with the Alpina ones as I think they look much better.

Not really into racing people, mainly as I have a 60bhp 206 atm.. and 6 points

[BMW325AW]

should look well done when ur all finished with it! Ive got a project goin like that. But not as thorough as that deal man! Glad to see another e30 rivived from the ashes

[Jos]

Thanks man! Actually the car was probably just about MOTable when I got it:)
But the plan has always been to 3.5 it. Don't really have the money atm to get it done fast so I am just spending my time doing stuff that I wouldn't normally do like redoing the whole car

Had a look at yours too, looking well!! You have a done a lot more bodyworking than I have and that's seriously time consuming. Most of mine is really mechanical but I don't want the bloody thing to rust on me after spending this amount of time on it. One advantage of the US compared to here, rust just doesn't seem to exist over there! I will get the sprayers to do the touchups on the bodywork and probably fit the bodykit too, I don't have the skill/patience for it.

Lol, you are 14!? Way to go!! That will be some 1st car!