I'm a newbie here, just bought my first BMW after having a classic Mini as my first car for three years, and a Citroen BX as my current daily for the past 4 or 5 months - so you can see I like my cars old/retro. Just wanted to get a project thread going to keep a track of progress and don't want to forget where I started from!
Let me say that I have good mechanical knowledge of engines and am a confident DIYer mechanic, but I've only just started reading up about the E30 so please forgive me if I say anything stupid!
Also, apologies in advance, I do appear to have waffled on a bit
I bought this off a fellow Zone member, spiny, after him losing motivation with fixing the car up after a "little" problem occurred sometime last summer. From what I've gathered, the cam belt was due to be replaced, but for one reason or another it always ended up being a "next week" job. I'm sure you can see where this is going... In the end, the belt didn't go completely but rather sheared in half down it's length, with the front half flinging off around the pulleys and the half that was left jumping a few teeth. Unfortunately it was enough to mash a few valves, and so for the past year and a bit spiny has been spending the odd weekend here and there dismantling the top half of the engine and repairing what was necessary. Now, after recently getting it all back together he was greeted with the lovely sight of coolant gushing from somewhere up front down the side of the block, an ever rising temperature gauge, and obviously an ever decreasing coolant reservoir. Which is where I step in.
Spiny advertised the car on Facebook last week, briefly explaining the situation and saying that he now wants to shift the car to someone else as he's had enough of it. After a few questions as to the spec of the car and so on, I was happy enough to take a drive down to his place and have a poke round the beast. He was selling it cheap, and even with the risk of a potential cracked head or maybe even the need for a new engine (very unlikely, but you never know!), I just couldn't say no.
This wasn't as easy as just bringing it home though, as I'd first have to convince my Dad to let me keep another car at his house! There's sensible space for 4 cars (2 in the garage and 2 on the drive): he keeps his car in the garage along with my Mini, and seeing as I've also got the BX as my current daily it took a bit of persuading that I really need 3 cars at the age of 20 when I have no job and no source of income apart from the government (Student loans
). However, I knew I'd won when he made the comment, "I've always fancied a Beemer on the drive". I'm sure he wasn't envisaging a 24 year old car that's a bit broken, but it's still a BMW! So, a couple of days ago I paid for it and got the car transported to it's new residence at my Dads house.It's going to need a lot of niggly things fixing, but the main issue is of course the coolant leak, which could get pretty involved. It's a project though, and one I'm happy to spend time and a fair chunk of money on to make it right - these are appreciating classics in my opinion! Nothing much is going to happen with this until the Easter holidays and then summer holidays, as I'm currently in my third year of a four year uni course and won't be able to work on it whilst I'm away from home.
Anyway, enough of the back story, and on to the car. It's fairly basic, spec wise, but it has had a few options ticked. It's got the standard cloth interior, front electric windows (keep fit rears), a 13 button on-board-computer (quite desirable I gather and unfortunately for me, quite broken as the LCD display has melted inside), an M sport steering wheel, and a few other things I've forgotten. It doesn't have a sun roof, which will make the job of re-upholstering the headlining much easier! Most importantly though, it's got the 2.5 straight 6 engine and a manual 'box - the only drivetrain I'd consider in one of these!
It's going to need a fair bit of attention cosmetically, there are a few bubbles of rust and plenty of odd blemishes in the paint, along with a couple of smallish dents. The bonnet has also had a nice bit of artwork applied to it, which unfortunately isn't to my tastes so that'll be going! Overall though, it's a solid base and should be a bit of fun for me next summer whilst on my last long uni summer holiday!
I only managed to take a couple of phone pics at the weekend, I was too excited playing with my new toy to be taking pictures of it
If all goes well and I can get it fixed up properly, I'll use it as my daily from August and try my best to sell the BX. It'll cripple me in fuel costs, but I'll be doing less mileage next year and I reckon it'll be fun enough to be able to put up with 20-25mpg! As far as mods go, I'll keep my eye out for any interesting factory upgrades/missing bits (leather seats, roller blind load cover, etc.) and I'd eventually I'd like to lower it a bit, fit the 17" Alpina copies I got with the car (result!), and fit a far more anti-social exhaust (this one has far too many mufflers for my liking...) so I can hear more of that wonderful engine.
Expect a few updates here and there, but probably not much until the summer. The first thing I've got to do is find where all this coolant is gushing from...