E30 325i '85 -> Engine back in!

[TPS]

Same Here

[TriggerFish]

Fantastic stuff! Love that massive garage too

Your English is fine btw - no need to worry about that

[Sprungcasper]

loving this..

Same Here

Fantastic stuff! Love that massive garage too

Your English is fine btw - no need to worry about that

Thank you guys! I am doing the best I can with the limited budget I've got. The garage is an old greenhouse where they used to grow all kinds of vegetables. At some point a previous owner pored a thick layer of concrete on top of the old soil (with reinforcing bars etc). I now belongs to my uncle. He gave me this corner because he couldn't rent the corner because it would be to small. With 1,5 boxspace it is ideally for me. All the spares are out of the working space.

With that being said, I have a little update. First I got free doors from a fellow Dutch e30forum enthusiast. He needed some sheet metal I got left on the remainings of the touring. So we traded those. He also helped me blasting some the bits
that are being painted at the moment. His old doors are almost rust free, but have some dents in it. Since my car would need a full respray, it not a big issue.



Next up are some parts I received lately. I hope this will be enough to get it back on its wheels again:
- New handbrake cable (one was completely rusted out, the other one was in great shape)
- New topmounts from Lemförder.
- New brakelines with the distributor T-piece at the back
- New rubber rings underneath the front springs.
- Strongflex bushings
- New slide/guiding pins for the front brake calipers.
- New spring for the handbrake assembly
- Almost new rubber bushings for the rear subframe. (They are hard compound bushings. As I got those when I still had the idea of rallying this car. Hopefully the car will still be a little comfy.
- New connectionlinks for the stabilizer at the rear.
- New rubber seal for the boot lid.



I have also contacted Hammerite. On the Dutch website it said "4 Hours after the first layer it is paintable again, until 8 hours after the first layer. Beyond the 8 hour mark, you will need to wait 2 weeks to let it harden". But on the Belgium site I found another specsheet that said " After 48 drying, it would be paintable again". So I decided to send them an e-mail. They replied that with the change of the supplements (early 2015) it only has to harden 48 hours. If there's no text on the can that says it needs to harden 2 weeks, it is paintable in the next 48 hours.

Guess what I will be doing upcoming week

[Sprungcasper]

The trailingarms and subrframe are almost done. I hope to get the final coat on this week. Had decided to blast the frontstruts aswell and get them a fresh coat of black.



As orange is a colour I like, it had to comeback somewhere on the car. The front in orange was a little to much. Some of you may remember the paint I bought a few years ago...


Blasted, cleaned and decreased:


And then you and up with this:


After a day to let the paint fully dry up with the brackets (looks good to me!:


I also got the last bits to re-do the calipers. Got all the rubber grommets and seals.

[Sprungcasper]

Made some progress yesterday. As it was finally the right temperature to get the undercoating on, that's what I did.

First I had to put one of the exhaust brackets back on the spare-wheel bucket (if that's correct translated ). While the sealant was drying, I drove to another Dutch E30 forum member who had an original tool set for the boot lid. Almost complete and rust free! Needs some TLC, but couldn't resist it.


Back to the undercoating:

After the first 2 cans of undercoat:


Me in action. Captured by my love who helped and supported me throughout the day:


At the end of the day:


Sadly, I hadn't had enough cans of it.. Got 5, but to do the whole underside, it needs at least 6, maybe even 7. At some spots you can still see the white base coat through the black. Need to get some extra and put a thicker layer on these area's.

[madaboutthe30]

Makes me wonder what rust my car is hiding.

Keep up the good work, the end appears in sight.

[aimlessrock]

looking good mate.

[Sprungcasper]

Makes me wonder what rust my car is hiding.

Keep up the good work, the end appears in sight.

There is always more than you think.....
And I hope so. Aiming to get the car painted this summer (if the budget allows it )

looking good mate.

Thanks! It is only getting better from now on.

[DonMakaveli]

Makes me wonder what rust my car is hiding.

Keep up the good work, the end appears in sight.

There is always more than you think.....
And I hope so. Aiming to get the car painted this summer (if the budget allows it )

looking good mate.

Thanks! It is only getting better from now on.

wow !!can't wait to see the final product. Hang in there man, you sure are teaching some of us a thing or two. Keep up the good work!!

[Sprungcasper]

wow !!can't wait to see the final product. Hang in there man, you sure are teaching some of us a thing or two. Keep up the good work!!

I'll take that as a big compliment! I like to share my experiences with other enthusiasts. These comments help a lot to keep things going. Thanks

[mikelat]

Excellent work and a plus for persistence.

[Kedge]

Awesome project, so satisfying knowing you've got no rust in your car!

Any idea what your interior came out of? I really want one of those sunvisor panels.

[Sprungcasper]

Past week I finished up spraying the underseal. Got 2 extra cans and they both went on the car. So 7 cans of one litre is what it takes to do the whole car.

With everything all nice in black, it was time to get building! Started with the front, the new Strongflex bushings had to be pushed in. With allot of grease, that came with the bushings, you could pop them right in with your hands.


Next up where the H&R springs. Got them with the dampers, but where a little rusty. Got them cleaned up, blasted and my girlfriend (who helped me two days) sprayed them with 2 coats of primer and 2 with the blue final coat. Will see how long it will last, thinking of replacing them with an Eibach pro kit at some point. Color is some what lighter then the original, but it matches great with the covers I bought for Bilstein dampers.


In the meantime my girlfriend cleaned, sanded and primed the tank and tube. And to finish off, two coats of black.


With everything being painted, Is wanted to get the front subframe back in its place. Sadly two of the retaining bolts where to rusty and needed to be replaced. So I looked at al the other bolts and decided to buy them all New. The morning of day two started at the hardware store and 17 euro's later, I got all the bolts, nuts and washers new. After a half an hour.


With the front done, it was time to get the back assembled. A good friend of mine, had swapped the old bearings with new ones. Sadly at that time, I didn't had the wheel hubs pushed out from the old trailing arms. I tryed to get them out with a thick bolt through the hub and a big washer. It moved an inch and then it stopped... So I asked local car dealers, but sadly they didn't want to help. I asked the friend of mine again, but he doesn't have time within the coming two weeks. With almost three years of rebuilding, those two weeks doesn't matter either

Trailing arms weren't an option to finish off. Over to the rear dampers. The topmount where shot. Luckily I got those new with the other bushings from Strongflex.


Also got the pu bushings for the rear subframe/crossmember. Put those in as well and mounted it on the car. They may have to come out again when mounting the fuel tank back in, time will tell. Hopefully with all the bushings being a little stiffer as the old rubber ones, I hope the car won't become too stiff and uncomfortable.


At the end of the day, I wanted to assemble the struts. Couldn't get the springs in their sockets. Will look at it comming Tuesday. Then the front will be almost complete.


To finish this update off, the tipping frame isn't needed anymore. Lowered it temporarily on some jackstands. Just some few more weeks and the car will be a rolling chassis!

[Sprungcasper]

Excellent work and a plus for persistence.

Thank you! Will do the best I can. I'am lucky to have some friends around who help me a lot to bring this to a good end...

Awesome project, so satisfying knowing you've got no rust in your car!

Any idea what your interior came out of? I really want one of those sunvisor panels.

It really does! But don't know if I will do this one more time... The guy had in a prefacelift 325i. But he had it for almost 15 years and bought out of another car.

[Sprungcasper]

Today went on where I finished last week. So I started finishing the front suspension bits. The springs are sitting right in the struts. I only remembered that I forgot to put the ring between the topplate and the topmount. This can be done before I'm going to drive. Otherwise all the grease, water and junk will mixup and destroy the new and beautiful ballbearings.


For the watchful viewer, the old wheel bearings are reused at this stage. The same applies to the steeringrack. Reason: There wasn't budget left for new bearings . The steeringrack will be replaced by the powersteering one of the donor touring. Speaking about steering, I put the steering wheel back on after almost 3 years!


Then I puzzled with the fuel pumps and floatings of the original tank and the type 2. The advantage of the type 2 fuel pump is that it is inside the tank. The downside is that there is no return line (on the one I have) and the amount of fuel will not be right on the cluster. The advantage of the 'old' external pump is that these are more reliable than the type 2 fuel pumps. The disadvantage is that the holder, that it was attached to, is completely rotten away. This was also no longer available to order. After speaking some people via Facebook and eventually speaking BMW expert Peter Molenaar here in the Netherlands, I decided to stick with the external pump. I am going to fabricated a new support that will be attached to the brackets where the tank is mounted on. It's going to a bit creative with some aluminum i guess .


The advantage of getting the pickup point out, that it was now possible to get the rust out on that spot. Closed the hole with masking tape, cleaned it with a steelwire brush on a drilling machine, primed it and finished it off with two layers of black paint. Also very neat now .


Then I saw that one of the air vents of the trunk was still in. This has been removed and I discovered even more rust.


To be continued..

[Sprungcasper]

It's time for a monthly update!

Fuel- and brake lines are in place. It was the first time I have worked with copper and bendingtools, but after a morning of trail and error, they were both on the car.




Because the bracket of the fuelpump has been cut away, the fuel lines runs through this place. The fuelpump will be an in-tank one from the partscar I had. Have them all at home to make 3 into 1.


Also the new plates around the brakediscs have been installed at the back.


I managed to find a used set of Eibach Pro springs. Some minor rust on them, but nothing to worry about. Also some new rear brake discs, so I can build up the handbrake to hold the car in place when the wheals are back on it.


I will be back in July with some more updates. Untill then I will be busy with finishing this semester at college.

[Sprungcasper]

O welll, I have forgotten to update this forum,my bad. So here it is:

Got my self a new front grill, as the old one got broken in the crash almost 4 years ago.


Next up was the assembly of the rear axle. All painted and new strongflex bushings were installed. Put my old 3.64 diff in at the moment. But got an 3,46 diff a few weeks ago. Will put that one on when the car is finished and the diff rebuild.


After some fiddling and 1,5 hour later the rear subframe and trailingarms were back on the car. Without proper floorjacks is was a Slow and stressful situation to get I in position, but it's done! Also some new brake disks installed in the process.


So in the end, after almost 4 years without any running, or even rolling gear, on it, it was time to get it outside for some pictures.


Next job was to getting the front welded back in. Sadly I made an mistake with my measurements, which resulted in cutting lose my welds and reattaching it all, at the correct place, back in.


At the end of that day I could not resist to build up the front end.

[Sprungcasper]

After a few weeks I finally found some time to get working on the car again. This time my brother came by to check out the process I made over the past couple of months. He helped me to get all the widows out in one piece. Which revealed yet some more rust....


So out with the old and rusted part


And in with the 'new' donor piece that I had saved from the red donorcar.


Meanwhile I made an appointment with the painter to get the car painted at the end March/beginning of April 2018. Goal have been set, now lets find some time to get working on the car again . (Probably during Christmas break...)

[BMG]

Lot of work going in to this to rid the car of the rust bug. Nice to see another one being torn down and rebuilt bit by bit. Keep at it.

[Cypriotgeeza]

Nice work mate!

[Sprungcasper]

Lot of work going in to this to rid the car of the rust bug. Nice to see another one being torn down and rebuilt bit by bit. Keep at it.

Well the rust bug is almost out, at last.... Some minor spots need some attention and it will be fine.

Nice work mate!

Thanks! Keep the motivation coming! Last steps are always the hardest!

[Cypriotgeeza]

Nice work mate!

Thanks! Keep the motivation coming! Last steps are always the hardest!

100% but the last steps are the most exciting because your anticipation builds up!

[Sprungcasper]

Nice work mate!

Thanks! Keep the motivation coming! Last steps are always the hardest!

100% but the last steps are the most exciting because your anticipation builds up!

That's 100% true. Makes me motivated to get this car finished and what I really want to hear is that 6 cilinder fire up once again. .

Been busy to get the enginebay cleaned up and prept for paint. Spend 1,5 day with my girlfriend and a friend to get it completely back to bare metal. Found (another) bad spot on the firewall.


Cut out and replaced by some fresh metal.


After some more clean-up, sanding, vacuuming and decreasing of the whole lot, it was time for some masking:


Next-up the etch/wash primer. For the first time, I used a spraygun and 2k paint products. First layer was a little to thick. Let it dry for over a hour.


After that long hour waiting it was time for some basecoat:


Comming Wednesday I will continue with the interior and booth cleaning up and hopefully prime and get the basecoat on. Finally some progress and building up, instead of breaking the thing down.

[brutus]

inspirational ,
this will be a minter !
well done

[dimebag_from_hell]

Inspirational my man, I'm hoping to get myself a project very soon!

[Sprungcasper]

inspirational ,
this will be a minter !
well done

Inspirational my man, I'm hoping to get myself a project very soon!

Thanks Guys,

First of all: A happy new year!

It is a bit more work than I expected. But seeing the enginebay in one colour, makes it more relaxed and motivated to get the rest done.

[Sprungcasper]

I started on the interior and booth on Wednesday and Thursday. The floorpanels weren't that bad, so I decided to only get the rusted areas back to bare metal and the rest only sanded down. Despite this 'time saving' procedure, it still cost me 2 days of sanding, vacuuming, decreasing and masking the whole lot up.


I took the doors out to get better access to the interior. First some etch primer.


Second layer and it is one colour, instead of the rusty blueish


Same treatment for the booth. One more layer of gray and the cosmosblau can go back on.


I gave the enginebay another layer. Second one out of three is on. Needs to be sanded once more for one more Gray layer. Then some blue paint can be applied.


Getting thrilled about building this thing up, instead of the usual 3 steps forward and 5 steps back scenarios.

[Sprungcasper]

I started on the interior and booth on Wednesday and Thursday. The floorpanels weren't that bad, so I decided to only get the rusted areas back to bare metal and the rest only sanded down. Despite this 'time saving' procedure, it still cost me 2 days of sanding, vacuuming, decreasing and masking the whole lot up.


I took the doors out to get better access to the interior. First some etch primer.


Second layer and it is one colour, instead of the rusty blueish


Same treatment for the booth. One more layer of gray and the cosmosblau can go back on.


I gave the enginebay another layer. Second one out of three is on. Needs to be sanded once more for one more Gray layer. Then some blue paint can be applied.


Getting thrilled about building this thing up, instead of the usual 3 steps forward and 5 steps back scenarios.

[Sprungcasper]

Well let's give an update:

Few weeks back I picked this up:


Actually picked up a few more than that one
Another Dutch e30 club member had bought some seethe from the same guy. Brought them with me, saving him an extra hour drive. Mom and dad not really happy about it.


Back to the car. Serviced the brake calipers. Front ones had some scratches on the pistons so order those new.


Now all new bushes, rubbers and stainless steel brakehoses


Also checked the whole wiringloom front to back. Adding central locking in the process. Also cut out all the bad connections and added descend connectors from a another cut up loom. Completed with 50m of new wrappingtape.


Had some headrest mounts for the backseat laying around for quite some time. Being original brackets, they were both a bit rusted. Sanded back


And painted 3 layers of Hammerite black.


To finish this update, last week I applied the seemsealer in all three compartments.


Comming Saturday will be all about sanding the outside of the car. May the seventh is set te get the car picked up for paint!

[Sprungcasper]

Another piece of the puzzle done

Last week I build an improvised paint booth, so I could paint the car on Saturday.


Advance in time to last Saturday. After testing and some fine tuning of the paint gun, paint was on in a blink of an eye. Prepared the clear coat a used a second paint gun to apply. With the lack of a air extractor, it was hard to see where I was applying the clear coat.


Once the air cleared up, I could finally see the first bits back in it's original color. It looks a bit darker on the pictures. Some dust particles are to be seen in the paint, but nothing to be worried about! Me is a very happy person







Orded some last bits, hoping to arrive before Easter. Like to be getting some stuff back in the car coming Friday:
- Brake lines;
- Wiring loom;
- Brake calipers
- Brake servo
- Power-steering rack
- master clutch cylinder

And last but not least, pulling the straight six out of the corner and cleaning that beast up. If parts arrive on time, I'm getting the timing-belt replaced by Tuesday. With a bit of luck, the engine will be running within a week or 2.

[fixedwheelnut]

This build is phenomenal, Well done Casper

[Gavla]

Awesome result so far mate, can't wait to see the finished car

[aimlessrock]

loving this

[Sprungcasper]

loving this

Awesome result so far mate, can't wait to see the finished car

This build is phenomenal, Well done Casper

Thank you guys! Can't wait myself. It is getting there, finally, after almost 4 years of blood sweat and tears

[Sprungcasper]

Meanwhile. We are a month further in time, so time for another update:

After a week, to let the paint dry, it was time to start assembling the car.

First to go back in: Wiringloom!


Next up: Engine!


In the meantime I rebuild the master brake cylinder at home. Cleaned the reservoir for the brakefluid. (left cleaned, right a spare one).


Also the master cylinder it self got a fresh coat of paint:


To get the engine back in, we needed to get the gearbox of. While the gearbox was of the engine, I decided to change to clutch. Brake- and clutch pedals went in. As did the expansion and hoses of the cooling system.