So in 2010 my early mid life crisis kicked in. We bought a new pad and it had a garage so it was time to scatch my itch for a e30. I always loved the looks of a cabby but never had the time before to feck about with old scrap.
Seeing as scottish weather likes to turn most E30's into the brown rotting stuff E30's available were in short supply and this was the first one I saw that had no immediately visible rust, I was nieve and most imporatantly the car was realativly cheap.
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The picture makes it look better than it was.
It came with:
> Knackered out suspension on a -60mm drop
> Bad boy and ear numbing DTM powerflow exhaust
> Missing spare wheel
> 14" BBS on varied ditch finders and tyre sizes.
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> Stereo completly absent and a fire hazzard of wiring
> Matt black painted hoseshoe
> Dull and generally poor paint
> Broken Locks and Central locking
> Flaky instruments in the dash cluster
> Was filthy and the glove box had plenty remnants of a previous owner that enjoyed the herbal.
> Knackered roof with bodged rear screen and a cracked frame
> Just swapped 2.5 Lump as the last owner seized the original engine.
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On the plus side there was loads of history with old MOT's tax discs, reciepts, service history etc etc.
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On the way home from bying the car it broke down 60 miles from home with a snapped fan belt and made its final leg of the journey on the AA mans flatbed.
Once home I really wanted to use it, so replaced the fan belt and got started on cleaning her up.
Before giving her a machine polish:
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Spent the best part of two weeks on and off cleaning and polishing and the results were not too shabby:
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picked up an ebay bargain set of wheels for £78:
Had them professionally refurbished:
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Shod with 4 new Avons and fitted to the car, also replaced the shocks with boge turbos, -35m springs, new BMW spring pads, Dust covers and bump stops.
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Picked up a good second hand roof from Z3I and got rid of the DTM exhaust for a new mild steel one:
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Over this whole time I cracked on with the oily bits and have changed all the fluids, radiator, sensors, filters, belts and water pump.
The engine bay still looked pretty dirty but the car ran much better (at least for a while)
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The cab has now been off the road since last september and is currently in many pieces strewn accross my garage. My son was born in february which has ground progress to a halt but currently the inlet side of the engine has been stripped and all new gaskets, orings, seals, vacumn pipes nuts, washers, rubber fuel lines etc were ordered up from BMW and are ready for the re-assembly.
The injectors have been sent off to injectortune for a refurb and the inlet manifold \ rocker are currrently being painted so I can get it all put back together.
MOT is due in May and I need to tackle the prop donut and centre bearing before then along with the above and the old girl should be fit to drive for another summer.
She is far from finished and long term will need the body work sorted out as although there is no rot every panel needs paint and dings removed. Its a bit of a 5 footer of a car but its more of a hobby for me and if it takes me 10 years to finish it then so be it.
More to follow
