Another 325i.

[driftwood]

Thought I'd put this thread up to motivate myself. I'll add to it over the next few days till it's up to date and then hopefully once a week/month/year as little bits get done.
This is my 325i.

It was somebody's track day car that I paid waaaay too much for on Ebay. It was supposed to be pretty much rust free, I'd be able to take it to a track and use it straight away....
I've had it since March 2012 and it was a sort of birthday present to myself, having recently parted with an unfinished Mk1 Escort restoration. I got rid of the Escort because I'd had it 3 years and had made f*ck all progress due to the scarcity of decent body panels at a price that wasn't taking the p*ss.
It, (the beemer), came with a badly fitted roll cage, a stripped interior for that race car ambience, a quickshift from some other beemer, a healthy sounding motor, an l.s.d, a set of mims alloys and the awesome green colour paint. I have no Idea of the shade and don't care but it is original. Probably. I love the look of this car.



Mmm. Race/lunched interior. Note sponge needed for bailing out the car when it's raining due to leaky race spec yellowing plastic rear quarter windows.



Work starts after an unexpected bout of enthusiasm. I have no garage to work in therefore I have to wait for good weather. Last summer was a wash out so not much got done. I started to do what every new owner of an E30 does - look for rust with a view to cutting out the rot and magically replacing it with nice fresh metal. I mean, how hard can it be?



Oh dear.



Er..



Got adventurous



Hmm.



Doesn't look that bad, does it?



Dude, where's my floor? It's amazing how far rust spreads, especially if not dealt with properly.



This is the battery tray near the inner wing, or would be if my battery wasn't boot mounted.



View from inside. Not good , but at least the area around the windscreen is solid.



Ffs. More rust. It's everywhere.



Not sure if you make this out, but it's a view of the r/h inner rear arch and of the "repair" I discovered. It comprises of some lovingly crafted tin plate, carefully mashed into shape and bonded to the car with a patented combination of pigeon faeces, sycaflex, filler and stonechip. I think it's known as "bog" up north.



Random picture of some wheels. Every owner's thread has them, I'm not going to buck convention.

[driftwood]

More photo's




It's amazing what a bit of fibre glass and filler can hide. A small, dent and a load of rust. This seems to be a common rust spot for E30's.




Went mad with the grinder. The only way to deal with rust is to cut it out. Or so I'm told. If I'm lucky I might have some car left.




I thought one of these might be handy. It's a pity it doesn't come close to being accurate. Waste of money. Maybe the facelift has a different shape?
It's at this point I started to think I was going to have to sell the car on. I didn't want another failed project due to crap panels. For some reason, (the missus calling me a tosser), I decided to have a go at making my own panels. If I got it wrong it wouldn't matter, the car was bought for thrashing and I'm bound to stack it at some point. Also, the car isn't rare or historic so I had nothing to lose.




This is the r/h lower rear corner. It came out ok-ish. Not perfect but, for a first attempt, fine. It's not a concours car. It's not even a restoration.




Lower r/h corner of rear panel. It'll do.




Both parts stuck on with magic metal glue. Mig is not a piece of p*ss like everyone makes out. Also, zinc weld through primer doesn't. Things also move about when heated, hence the poor panel line up at the bottom of the corner piece. The original rear panel has a bow in it which I couldn't reproduce so it looks a bit flat. Never mind, at least I've filled the void.




Another view.




And another.




Jeez... Are all E30's like this? I removed the inner arch "repair" panel that had been hiding this.




Starting point for the driver's footwell/floor repair. This is not easy to make.




Bottom of the A post.




In position. One of the problems I had was not having an example of a solid original car to copy from.




A post and inner sill patches held on with grips and not lined up.




Good enough. Waiting for the floor panel patch.




And there it is.
More updates to follow. It's definitely motivating me to do more. I spent a whole hour working on it today. Oh, by the way, my car is an "it". It's not a "he" or a "she" and it doesn't have a name. That would be weird.

[Sanchez]

That could be classed as "pretty much rust free" in some eyes.(not mine though)

That is Malachite Green paint code 205 i think. T'is a nice colour with beige leather n a nice polish.

[driftwood]

I don't know what interior it originally had. By the time the car got to me, it was long gone.
I like the colour. I might even get some spray paint from BMW rather than Halfords when finish.

[driftwood]

More.




Big hole in my rear.



Rear panel repair patch.




Stuck on.




Inner wing/bulkhead/battery box repair.




View from under the bonnet. I have to trim the hole for the battery cable grommet.




Front of driver's sill at jacking point.




Rust hole gone. Nice.




Front floor/A post repair. Yes, the welds aren't too pretty but I really don't care. I could grind them down but what's the point? If I made everything too nice I wouldn't drive it for fear of making it dirty.




Test fit of a 2nd hand wing. It's been painted black and been done nicely. Shame my car is green. I might paint the wing green to match the car. I might not.




Random work in progress shot.




Massive gaping hole. I'm in the process of repairing this one at the moment. I could just buy a new wheel housing and cut off the bits I need but I'm having fun whacking bits of metal about.




This is my wiring loom. It's all over the place. I'm trying to make it look a bit tidier and remove stuff that's not required, of which there seems to be rather a lot. I'm also relocating the light switch/fog light switches to the middle of the car. This is being done because the roll cage is tight near the dashboard. I need to knock up a centre console to house the switches and window switches.




These are the repair patches I've made for the inner arch. I've used the outside of the arch as a guide. I have a lot of metal to chop out.
More updates when I've done some more. I think I'm up to date now. As you can see, the car isn't too bad. If I could work on it full time it would probably take about a month to finish. Having said that I haven't started looking at the nearside....

[Alex]

Looks like fun

Nice fabrication

[driftwood]

Looks like fun

Nice fabrication

It will be when it's eventually finished...
Thanks. Am investing in more body work tools but practice is the key. I'm getting lots of it.
The plan is to get it road legal as soon as possible and in a condition where I won't have to worry about rust for a while. Modifications and tarting it up will follow.

[driftwood]

Looks like fun

Nice fabrication

It will be when it's eventually finished...
Thanks. Am investing in more body work tools but practice is the key. I'm getting lots of it.
The plan is to get it road legal as soon as possible and in a condition where I won't have to worry about rust for a while. Modifications and tarting it up will follow.

[B7]

Agreed, those repair panels are good. Nice work and respect for saving it.

If it had been mine the shell would probably be on a one way trip to China by now

[Sanchez]

Looing good paint wise ive just bought 2 400ml cans for 20quid from paint4u.

http://www.paints4u.com/ProductDetails. ... uctID=8812

Not used it yet but heard lots of good things about them.

[driftwood]

I probably shaved with a recycled e30 this morning. The shell really isn't that bad. If I had to pay someone to do the work, it probably wouldn't be worth it but it would still be cheaper and probably a better car than the mk1 escort I sold. I am enjoying doing the work myself.

[driftwood]

Yep, I'm still working on my driveway ornament. I did come close to breaking the car last month as I haven't had the time to work on it but as the weather has been pretty good recently I've managed to find some motivation and do some more fabrication of panels. I got fed up with trying to make a new inner arch from scratch. After attempt 15 or 16 (could've been attempt 20, not sure) and getting close to getting the right shape and fit but not close enough, I decided to cheat.


Not an original idea I know but I thought if I bought an outer arch repair panel I could make it fit on the inside and save myself the hassle of beating bits of metal into shape.


Chop chop.


This bit will form the rest of the inner arch. It means that the wheel arch will be "tubbed" and give maximum tyre clearance. It may not be "stock" but I really don't care - it won't be seen.
I'm hoping to carefully graft it into the car this week using the "magic metal glue" machine. Wish me luck.

[Speedtouch]

Nice work. Your rear panel is worse than mine, which made it to the Zone Wiki's hall of fame on rust spots (see 'Boot Lid'):

http://www.e30zone.net/e30zonewiki/index.php/Rust

[driftwood]

My shell isn't too bad. I'm sure that a normal person would have binned it a long time ago. It's been sat so long that NASA use it as a landmark.