E30 Zone

Heres a few pictures of my 89 316i when i picked her up september last year! i drove the car like this throughout the winter and after many COLD (-15) evenings the poor little m40 engined developed no end of problems.
I couldnt justify spending the money on the little 4 cylinder so i decided to save up and go m50! Work is currently in progress..

good engines the m50's

few updated pics from sunday had a LONG weekend!










alot more to do but its a start

Gone to get popcorn

My friends in Bejing are waiting patiently

pacerpete wrote:My friends in Bejing are waiting patiently

lol

Time for a clean up

Good effort!

Where are you based? I'm in Lowestoft and it's about time that there were some close by 'zoners

Jamie, that could have been such a good sleeper, in it's original guise, colour.
Not knocking you, your car, your choice etc

im not to far from you goosiegander, I'm down near Bury St. Edmunds!

The car in the pictures looks better condition than it was.. very nasty dents in all four doors rear valance still has to be replaced due to excessive rust and the roof had a nasty dent up and out somehow. also it was fitted with a copy tech 2 spoiler and i prefered the cleaner original look! although I'm keeping the tech2 skirts

i just wasnt happy with all the imperfections! and if i had left them it would have bugged the hell out of me but its now going gloss so will be a completely different colour bare with me it will work

just finished the "night shift" lol tarted the m50 up

cracking

This bonnet is killing me!! someone must have danced on the bloody thing at one point..

Nice!

I'm trying to do a build thread in another post but will update on here quickly for those of you who are interested

Okay so alot of you are going to think im working in a back to front order.. which I am! but my original plan was to only cut out the valance.. (behind the bumper and weld in a new piece... that way I could mask up and spray the rear valance once it was done.. But after closer inspection I realised it would be a lot nicer job to replace the entire rear panel. Considering there was odd bits of rust throughout it! (also the fact that I'm changing the paint finish to gloss)

Anyways heres what I'm currently up to after work..

ordered a genuine bmw rear panel through cotswold which recently turned up.. I could have gone with a cheaper euro part copy, at a shade under £250 it wasn't the cheapest.. but then atleast i knew it would fit without to much modification



Heres the reason for all the fuss! bit of nasty rot and a rather big dent (a present from the last owner)



So the only thing to do was perform some surgery on the poor dear







After getting most of the original rear panel off I noticed the rust had gone a bit deeper.. So spent the rest of this evening cutting it out and patching her up











It got dark quicker than I anticipated so will have to resume work tomorrow!

Once I went over the shoddy late night welding and ground it down it was time to get back to the tedious trimming!

I spent alot of time trimming away the old rear panel piece by piece! orignally the rear panel must go in first in the factory as the two quarters overlap it! (which made a tricky job of getting it in!)

In the end it came down to patience, carefully grinding away the old metal and trying not to cut out any of the quarters!

I must say the most time consuming part of the job was removing the old rear panel that lapped behind the quarters.. as it was spot welded and braised I cut along the visible joint line from the outside expecting the lap to simply pry off.. but no! the whole thing basically had to be grinded away from the inside with the 4" an almost impossible job on the nearside as the little boot pocket is half the side of the offside!



Originally the panels were spot welded but only having a mig... and the fact that its hard to judge just how much you need to trim off rather than spotting it or tacking from the inside I decided to weld the entire join from the outside.
That way I knew it would be on there for good! and was alot easier than trying to get into the bottom corners with the gun!

Now that the welding is done Its just a quick blast of primer, some seam sealant stuff! and we should be good to go with a rust free e30





I was uber worried the lights wouldnt fit right or something but they both fit spot on really chuffed!

its dads joinery workshop! I get to stick the e30 in there every now and then when the weathers iffy and theres something to do!

Here we are almost 2 months on and not a lots happened! due to now working as a subby and the sudden bad weather change the car has gone backwards almost.. with little spare time and driving rain!
thankfully i've not got a nice space to keep it for the winter and i can start to crack on with it once more




after all the welding was done (which took alot longer than anticipated) i moved on to filling and blending the panel in (which i'm currently still doing) the car itself is being rubbed down completely and re primed before i give it its final colour change hopefully should start to look alot better in the christmas holidays or sooner

sent the m50 rocker to a mate to be blasted came back looking alot happier..


Got hold of a second hand single washer bottle.. the old twin bottle used to leak and i did away with the head light washers way back! might spray this black with plastic paint? also started smoothing the bay up a bit


to be continued..

Skills dude!

I'd love to be able to fabricate!

I'd love to be able to do what you do! s50 is a thing of dreams!! and i read your build thread!! you can fabricate just fine!! Believe it or not all the welding on this car was my first time ever with a mig!

My pride and joy coming together!!

Nice mig'in lad! Could do with some serious fabrication team to mig up my no.45!

welders back out again... was poking around the inner arches cleaning them up with a wire brush (as they are all getting a blast of stone guard) and came across this...



The rather poor repair from a previous owner.. I went in carefully for an inspection with the wire brush and all of a sudden a black hole appeared out of nowhere



I immediately checked the other side but luckily it was just a one off!

needless to say my paint deadline has been pushed back more practice with the welder i guess

MMMM, rust ! Go on, be brave, get them skirts off and start digging !

pacerpete wrote:MMMM, rust ! Go on, be brave, get them skirts off and start digging !

You've hit the nail on the head.. I now wonder why the previous owner fitted the tech2 skirts! I really like them and definitely would want them back on but I'm now contemplating removing them to inspect.. wise move?

Very wise move , especially if you take pics of the carnage

Get the kit off and get the pics posted

Not just saying it, I did it to my sport.

I'll report back tomorrow! wish me luck

thats nothing bud , you should see how much metal i had to put back in the arches of mine.

id take all that area back to bare metal though as it looks like its coming through abit further up aswell,

came in tonight and thought the bloody dog had pissed in my car ..

Unfortunately but then, kinda fortunately at the same time
it was just a roof leak!


One more thing I need to do at the weekend lol



But thats where the bad luck stopped today, whipped the side skirts off and everything was nice and solid!



The only real damage they were hiding were a few dents and scratches!! result!

after poking around under the drivers sill I did find a little hole though, nothing major!


Best of all The skirts were genuine bmw parts unlike the dodgy spoiler I took off



Going to give them all a rub down and blast with stone guard.. then when all the welding and undersealing is done they'll pop back on!
Life is good..

Result!!

nice work

keep the updates coming

quick update before I have tea! will be straight back out afterwards

Got the grinder out to inspect the damage.. wasn't really alot worse than first thoughts..


trimmed back the lip on the arch! going to cut them back to match the fronts as I didn't like the unevenness of the folding + it will gain me some wheel clearance for whatever width I eventually go for..

Once the arch was cut back a bit I started tackling the flimsy remains of my arch lining.
Decided on this triangle shape as all the rust was cut out and it looked the best way to piece it back!






Made my replacements, but then decided against cardboard as it wasnt really up to the job.. ;)



This piece was a nightmare to make and shape!





But in the end it all came together! pretty pleased as I really have alot to learn when it comes to welding!

Even the Girlfriend contributed!

ground it all down and had the genius idea to wax oil inside my oem skirts!


Simply insert nozzle into after market side skirt hole and spray in various directions hahaha!!!





And another hole bites the dust!!


Also started trying to sort out my washer bottle mounts, seeing as I cut the old part out when on a smoothing mad run!


.. Tomorrows another day!

Quick update! done a fair bit more welding to it and alot of sprucing/reviving old parts..
with help from my three friends \/\/\/



Underneaths a bit happier..

Got some oem style stickers for the bay identical if you compare to the original stuck on my phone


And some pedals..

I was a bit unsure about buying these! coming from hongkong and taking like 2 months to arrive, didn't want the chav look.. but I really like them (note that only the throttle is fitted lol)


A few nights after work I turned my attention to a bit of cleaning, popped the injectors out cleaned them all thoroughly and repaired and resprayed the rusty fuel rail (one of the nuts for the plastic trims had snapped off)


Next thing to feel my cleaning wrath was the sump!


Originally I was going to clean it up and paint it black but it came out so good I just decided to leave it! its almost polished


Got rid of as much old sludge as I could..
End result..



Also Bought some fuel pipe and fittings, and a mocal rally fuel filter maybe a bit extravagant at £45 but then again its cleanable so I don't need to buy a new one ever again! and its shiny.. lol



Now for the big news!
Been looking for wheels for what seems like forever! but finally found my dream set! I know for alot of you they will not be to your taste and are very over used..
But plain and simple I just love them! regardless of price and popularity I couldnt not have them on my dream car!!
Rs 001 15x8.5 rears and 15x7.5 fronts! They fit like a dream!





Drove 150 miles each way to pick them up today! needless to say I cannot wait to get back into it now and start wrapping the paint prep up!