E30 Zone

Iv had two moredoors now, 3 tourings, but the hankering for a Sport has never gone away. It was the sight of one in dolphin grey which made me see the light and turn from the dark side of FWD Peugeots into BMWs and to be honest, i love my tech1 moredoor a lot!

But when a dolphin grey tech 2 became available on here a month or so ago, my heart spasmed and i couldnt resist going for a look.

The viewing turned out to be hellish, mainly because of a heavy night out the night before viewing, a heavy dose of traffic and a tight schedule. But the car was advertised as only needing paint, with some resto work already having taken place.

Anyway to cut a long story short the car looked pretty good underneath and round the arse end, the front of the car was covered in 5 years worth of dust, and as a worse case, i knew i could frag it for more than the asking price. A deal was done.

Had the car recovered on a low loader, although it started and drove, the rear crankseal was pouring oil and the brakes were partial seized.


However it didnt look too bad in the summer sun.




It boasted a few new panels...



And one side was already part prepped...





Pretty grubby inside...














But as always, these cars hide their horrors quite well. If an hour with a pressure washer and TFR raised suspicions...






There was no mistaking once the stripdown began.









This car is rotten.



Very Rotten.



You may just be able to see the floor, through the floor.




After a few days spent wallowing in self pity, i explained to my brothers tha id break the car for parts and cover my losses. However we have a rather proud record of fixing things that most would condemn, so i bowed to peer pressure and began to fix the sodding thing.


Basically, the cars not that bad. (From the A posts back, or so i keep telling myself). The front third of the cars foo barred. Mainly due to previous owners 'repairing' rotten areas with a mix of silicone sealer, tiger seal and tin cans.

I have no idea how, or why, but this area seems to have been repaired by some kind of trained chimp on work experience. Id never seen an entire corner of a car held together by 3 spot welds and 4 tubes of tiger seal before.

I began with taking the car to bare bones, so all interior removed, windows out, dashboard removed.



A better look at the driver side front inner wheel arch repair, hand crafted with gloop



And the top of the drivers side inner wheel arch/front bulkhead/into front battery tray area.



With this outstanding repair trapping water, the damage was quite substantial, travelling from top to bottom of the A pillar.



The seam between inner wing fitch panel and inner wheel arch tub was literally pulling apart



With the damage visible from the engine bay, in the battery tray area





It all had to go.







Leaving quite a large hole, which i briefly considered leaving as an inspection hatch (in the same style as a glass hulled sight seeing cruise boat). After several rounds of tea i spent the next two days hand fabricating some thing that resembled new panels.
















So that was that. Ill get some more pics at the weekend, but basically from floor to windscreen is now all new metal, pedal box bolts all welded back in, battery tray area repaired so its onto the other side when i get some free time.

Luckily, its in slightly better condition under the fusebox.....





Cheers,
Matt

I admire you for not fragging it,

Carry on the good work

Ditto keep up the realy good work .

You will enjoy much more as you are putting in some good graft into it.

Keep the pic's comming.

Good skills for persevering to save it, it's far too easy for people to frag E30's these days due to a little rust here and there which a few hundred quid could sort and yet on the other end of the spectrum people will buy VW splitties with not an inch of good metal on them for thousands, spend more than their house is worth restoring them and still end up with a slow wheezy van... Where's the logic

Nice one and a good sense of humour to boot

All the best with it !!

i sold a tech 2 sport when I was drunk once needless to say it was in much better shape than this. Good luck with it.

I've done strange things with rotten birds in a alcoholic state but never bought a car, good job really

i hope you can turn it around m8 and get it back on the rd.

nice welding, one day i will restore a roootten tech 1

Fair play fella nice to see some sheety and welding skills saving an E30 from fragging (y)

you will be very satisfied with the result and I'm proud you are not sell it but repaired.

The outer body shell paint I think is still good.

Good work fella. I do hate to see E30s getting crushed when there is a possibility of repair.

keep up the good work mate....great to see your not going to send it to the scrap yard.

Awesome. Looking forward to seeing the progress and a big thanks for saving another of these wonderful cars for the future...

Well done for saving another

have you checked the inner rear arches yet ?

Cheers for all the comments people! Haha, its those horrid bloody volkswagens that i normally end up welding back together, so it is nice to spend some time on a car i love!

Yes the back inner arches, rear boot floor and rear pockets are all in very good condition, they're the thing that saved me fragging it to be honest. Im putting on a pair of new outer arches as there starting to bubble at the base near the sill, and id rather get it all done once.


Car is then having a full respray, and i might be adding an M52 either now or in the near future, ill see how i get on for money and workshop space!

It also has a pre facelift houndstooth interior at the minute, so ill either swap this for the correct leather interior or i keep getting impure thoughts about rollcages and bucket seats

Thanks again,
Matt

keep us updated m8

Hi Matt,
Please keep posting pics up, it's really good to se how you do that kind of stuff, i've seen the work done at the workshop and it looks like you'll make this one pretty good again. I bought the wheels from you, remember?
Anyway, best of luck mate.
Cheers
Jon

Nice work Matt

Like others have said, good to see it not being reduced to scrap.

There's some inspiration right there for me to get stuck into my touring. I'm not expecting it to be as bad as that, I have a better shell that I can get for cheap to fix up.

Fair play for saving another E30, hope you enjoy her and I look forward to the rest of the resto.

Kudos for not fragging it. It will all be worth when tis finished gleaming in a fresh lick of paint, thats what i keep telling myself anyhow

Very well done that man!Nice to see someone take the time to put one back together again instead of breaking it up for parts.I've seen few E-type Jags,Capri 3100, etc back on the road as if they had just rolled out of the factory great to see keep up the good work.

Much admiration and respect due to you my good man - looks from the photos that you have the skills to do a very good job on the rotten bits. Well done - can't wait to see some more!

Time for an update i think, iv been quietly cracking on with the Sport, not as fast as id liked but the workshop was invaded with rotting fords (A mk1 Escort mexico, Series 1 RS Turbo, and an Escort Cosworth - so we now have 'hot' fords through the ages sat beside each other, all rusting gently together).

After finishing the metal work on the drivers side, it was onto the nearside, where a rather sneaky fusebox had been hiding some horror stories.

The pictures show the majority of it, but basically iv had to repair a large section of the bulkhead from floor to scuttle, the front innerwing, the front inner wheel arch, front of the floor, jacking point and sill, and a section underneath the ABS pump.

The pictures dont show the variety of dents being pulled out of the floor and sills where various owners have jacked the car up (at least they knew enough not to try using the crusty jacking points hey!).


So, under the fusebox looked like this..



And inside the car, more gloop, Suspicious?



A little more obvious





More gloop in the engine bay



Which when chopped out, looked like this, mid repair



The offending article



To be replaced with this








From the underside you can see a large amount of metal went in, to repair the inner wing and the join to the fron bulkhead.




Inside the car, the front floor pan was also suffering, and this had spread into the inner sill.





So was again cut out



And new metal lapped in










At the front of the inner wing, it was looking suspect






So out with the old, in with the new








A rather nice previous repair on the inner wheel arch/footwell



With more suspect body sealer...




Hiding....




So chopped out and replaced




And made up some new Jacking points





Thanks again, ill keep you posted

My God - you are persistant (and talented!) This thread makes me realise that the rot on my E30 could be far worse - and gives me faith that there will be someone who can make a good job of repairing it - I just hope the end results look half as good as this!

Right then, over a few hectic months at work, i seem to have fallen behind with this thread, and work on the tech 2 has ground to a snails pace. Having said that, looking back through this topic, its made me realise how far along the car has come.

There is a lack of photos to upload for the time being, as i was using a camera phone that seemed determined to lose all my photos! Firstly i upgraded the phone, then it broke, then the replacement broke, then the replacements replacement had a software update that wiped its memory. So anyhow, you get the idea, photos for this project are like gold dust.

Im happy to say the welding on the car is done!!

Im also happy to say Santa brought me a new digital camera, bless his cotton socks, and so this is state of play as of this minute:























As you can see, whilst i searched to try and find genuine BMW rear arch repair sections, i prepped most of the car and bodykit for paint. The metalwork was riddled with car park dinks and small imperfections.

Eventually i had to settle on pattern arches, so it had these fitted both sides, and once the old arches were off i found sections of the rear inner arch needed replacement, so i fabricated these sections rather than buy the BMW arch tubs.

The rear pockets (battery tray and jack tray) which i thought were mint, were decidedly crusty underneath the gallons of PU sealer, and so i chopped these out and made some repair sections aswell.


The inner/outer sill were pulled straight with a slide hammer, cleaned to bare metal on the flanges and primed/resealed, and whilst i was under the car i folded up some metal to replicate the OE jacking points.

There was also rot around the front screen pillars and dash area, so this was chopped out and new metal spliced in.

Im going to try and find the photos of the inbetween stages and get them uploaded over the next few days, so keep your eyes peeled.

Oh and i got bored of the cold weather, burst water pipes and frozen toilet in the workshop, so bought this to cheer myself up:



Well, may aswell do it properly hadnt i?????

Cheers
Matt

Proper job.

Few pictures of the scabby bum end:

Im yet to find a bit that wasnt rotten

Thats one rusty e30 you got there pal. Good your restoring it though.

some good progress there,:)
it's amazing just how much rot these turds can hide, and until you start digging......

I wonder how many E30 owners think their car is rust free when it's secretly festering

e30topless wrote:
I wonder how many E30 owners think their car is rust free when it's secretly festering

All of them bar the ones that have had this kinda work done to them. Makes me worry actually... Need to strip down my chromie and have a look I think.