My 325i Cabby Project

[Gouki]

Here's my project. Picked up a '91 E30 325i Cabriolet in lagoon green a few months back. Wasn't my first choice of colour but its starting to grow on me and I had been on the lookout for one for months seen a few which weren't that great till this came up.

It has 4 former keepers, manual gearbox. It has an automatic hood, 12 button OBC, cloth interior and has just over 163,000 miles. Shoes are 15" BBS cross spokes. The car has every single MOT from the beginning. Has loads of history and reciepts for the car. It even has the original bill of reciept when this car was bought for £26,270. The first owner had traded in a 2 year old 325i SE against it and paid the difference!

Bad bits, it needs rear arch work, passenger side being a little worse off.
Both sills have rust, front wings have some rust on the lip.
Rear panel where the tow eye is has some rust.
Exhaust needs a new rubber to hold back in place, currently held by rope.
Electric door mirrors are not functioning.
Electric hood is out of operation.
OBC display panel is quite dim.

Plans are at the moment is to fix the mirror problem, new rubber to hold exhaust back in place, and get the hood converted to manual operation.

Here it is.

[blingsta]

nice mate... whats the bigger plans? tech 2 kit? or staying standard?

[blingsta]

oh, and good idea about reverting to manual roof... i just done that to mine aswell... soooo much better ...

[Gouki]

As mentioned there is rust issues so I will want a full respray done on the car once I've got the money together so that takes care of that and yep Tech 2 kit would be nice, leathers, decent set of wheels. All in good time

[Gouki]

As mentioned, my rear exhaust had been held on by some tight string to keep it up as the rubber mount had perished and split. Finally got my finger out and sorted it. I was warned pre hand that its tough to get it on the bracket and on the exhaust as there isn't much give and is hard to stretch so here goes.

Ordered an exhaust mount for £5 off ebay, old one on the left


Here's how the exhaust was held on!


Vaseline jelly always come in handy!


Started with putting it around the bracket thats attached to the car, not easy as the space was tight.


Next it was a case of lifting the exhaust up with the trolley jack and pushing to the left to get enough room to get one side on the exhaust bracket. Man it was tough and a complete bitch to do specially you haven't any room to move your hands about in and only so much you can pull apart with your fingers. Luckily my long screwdriver came in handy.


I was so glad that side went on as it wasn't easy at all, then got the other side to slide on after much swearing!


Now sits properly as it should be.


Next I'm gathering all the bits to convert my electric roof to manual operation.

[Ollie_bwoii]

Rubber hanger needs turning 45 degrees.

[capri_rob]

Did you try to fit the exhaust hangers in place with the exhaust still fitted ??

Its a lot easier if you undo the lower straps, the exhaust will drop enough to allow you space to fit the rubber donuts and upper hangers, trolley jack the exhaust back up into place then refit the lower straps.

[Gouki]

Rubber hanger needs turning 45 degrees.

Ahh gotcha!

Did you try to fit the exhaust hangers in place with the exhaust still fitted ??

Its a lot easier if you undo the lower straps, the exhaust will drop enough to allow you space to fit the rubber donuts and upper hangers, trolley jack the exhaust back up into place then refit the lower straps.

Yep I did! Wish I knew earlier, would have saved on all the swearing. Still its a learning experience and know for the future now

[dips346]

get a move on lol

[Gouki]

Over the weekend I decided to crack on with wiring up my sound system. Also had to get something in there as well as I had no working radio and god knows hold old the speakers were!

I wired up my old convertible from scratch before so have had experience on how to do it.

Bought two Vibe Slick 2000w amp wiring kits which have a 4AWG power cable, (only need to run the one). Going to run two RCA's, Remotes and loads of speaker cable!

Bought two pairs of Vibe Slick V3 13cm speakers. I went for the Vibes as they had a shallow mounting depth as the E30's don't have much room. Also will be amping these up in the future and they have a decent RMS rating of 70w and at £40 for a pair can't go wrong.

Headunit undecided as of yet as these new ones just look ugly! So in the meantime will be installing a spare Sony unit with USB which will fill the gap for now.

So started off with lifting the rear seat up and took both front seats out pretty straight forward and the side kick panels (A real pain with the clips):




Ripped the centre console out! Gave it all a hoover as well while it was all out.


Found some more rust!



Removed the battery and all the trim:


Then made an incision to feed my power cable through the bulkhead and wire fed through into the car:



Got the kick panels off and nice crusty old speaker was living there but not for long!


Ripped out the old speaker cables and installed brand new ones. Then started to fit speakers fronts and rear. I was very lucky with the rear as there is hardly much room to accomodate the speaker and was lucky enough to position it so that 3 screws can hold it on.




Next it was sorting out spaghetti junction with all the wires, 2 RCA's 2 Remotes, and a bunch of speaker cables! Laid them out through the centre.




Now to put everything back together!



As there was no ISO block connectors to start with I made my own:


Everything all connected, tested to make sure it all works! As you may have noticed there is a ISO connector on the right, this basically is my speaker cable from the boot to the front. What this means is when I do get the amps all I have to do is unplug the ISO speaker connector thats plugged into the HU and plug it into this. It saves me having to run two sets of cable from each speaker, and also if the amp ever blows or malfunctions all I have to do is plug it into the HU iso block again to get sounds to the speakers.


Now put all back together and suprisingly done well not to lose any screws either as it seems to happen to me a lot! Temporary headunit now in place. Played around with it and have to say the speakers are performing very well and have very good clarity. its nice to have some sounds in the car to keep me going!


Job done! God I love working on these old cars! More updates to come soon.

[andyp]

make sure that big grommet with cable in it is fitted back in right, it will need vasaline [as pacerpete will tell you] to slide back in easy, deff crying out for a leather trim

[Demlotcrew]

Ill let Pete take the credit for the Vaseline

[Gouki]

make sure that big grommet with cable in it is fitted back in right, it will need vasaline [as pacerpete will tell you] to slide back in easy, deff crying out for a leather trim

Yeah was bitch to put back in Andy but all good now and defo need leathers, all in good time my friend

Ill let Pete take the credit for the Vaseline

Lol, hi Andrew!

[Mahmood]

I see you're back in the E30 fold. I'll follow this with interest

[dips346]

I see you're back in the E30 fold. I'll follow this with interest

where the hell have been sir ?

[Mahmood]

where the hell have been sir ?

Ha ha...not wanting to hijack this thread but I have been working in various countries. Now in London for while. No E30 though.

[Gouki]

I see you're back in the E30 fold. I'll follow this with interest

where the hell have been sir ?

Innit! Old skool members are back! lol.

New update first the boring bit I know most of you are going to flick through my waffling until you get to the leathers so here goes!

Car needed a major service as oil hadn't been changed for a few years as well as the cambelt. Decided to replace a lot of things which were worth doing.

So using ECP's handy 30% discount a while back I bought and replaced the following:



Oil 10W40
Oil Filter
Fuel Filter
Coolant
Spark Plugs
Contitech Cambelt Kit with Pulley
Water Pump
Viscous Coupling
Rotor Arm
Distributor Cap
Auxillary Drive Belts
Wynns Engine Flush

This was the state of my cap, all warn out. Anyone that has never changed one on theirs I'd strongly advise to do it!



Rotor arm seen better days, definitely worth replacing:


These probably have never been replaced as the build dates for the cap was 1991 and the rotor 90!



Old water pump, coupling and pulley.




Cambelt replaced in time as this was showing signs of wear and had not been replaced for a long time.



Aux drivebelts were the worst each one showing considerable cracks all the way around the teeth.



Next I managed to source an original set of beige leather seats to replace the old. They are also heated but haven't wired these up as of yet and can be done later.

I need to source a drivers side right bolster as this one is ripped so if anyone has one spare let me know.

Some pics with the roof down! Goes perfectly with the exterior I think.

More to come!