E30 Zone

Back in May, a friend of mine was dead set on getting himself an ek9. After months of searching, he found the perfect one in Norwich, a fair bit away from sunny Aberdeen! We began planning the logistics of getting from Aberdeen to Norwich, and possibly back again if the car wasn't up to the mark. Both of us were driving questionable winter cars at this time, so driving down was out of the window! A combination of flights and trains proved to be the only real option, costly as it was. This is where my e30 appeared out of nowhere!

Scanning through ebay one afternoon just generally looking at cars as i like to, i came across a nice looking e30 325 mtec 2. Badly photographed and badly described, but a short taxi ride from Luton airport, and a roadtrip in the two new cars back up to Aberdeen sounded like fun.
I sent the seller an email to try get some slightly better photos of the car, barely thinking anything would actually come of it.
I basically forgot about the car until i got an email a few days later, with nothing but a couple photos.



After seeing these, my mind started wandering. I looked at how realistic it was to fly to Luton, find somewhere to stay the night and then drive to Norwich in the morning, then carry on North upto Aberdeen. After a little research, id managed to find flights and accommodation for a quarter of the price that going straight to Norwich would've cost! After a few brief texts to the seller, we settled on a price and I got the flights booked.

A week or so after this, we (me, my friend Alasdair buying the ek9, and another friend, Becka) Set off to fly down to Luton. Got down there and got the taxi to the car (got the cost of this taken off the sale price aswell, winner!) Got to the sellers house to find the e30 tucked away in a corner under a cover, and i took this as a good sign, especially on a car i had flown the length of the country to buy sight unseen! (I did have Milton Keynes to Norwich train details, just incase)

Took the car out on a test drive, and fell completely in love. The car felt good, had been recently resprayed, and had a full history from '94 on. Cash exchanged hands-my funny scottish notes got a good laugh! And we then spent the night in an extremely questionable (but extremely cheap) hostel-type hotel.

In the morning after a terrible flea-ridden sleep, we packed up our stuff and headed off on the couple hour drive to Norwich to buy Alasdairs ek9.

Arrived at that sellers house and test drove etc, bought the ek9 and headed off to start the long drive home at about half 11.



After a few hours of non-stop fuel stops and cheesy roadtrip tunes, we realised that due to Beckas amazing co-piloting, we were now only 20miles away from Milton Keynes, where we had just left that morning! Nevermind, after a quick look at a map myself and kicking her out into Alasdairs car, we set off, in the right direction this time!

More to come!

Looking good so far.

That grey sport looks fantastic

I want one !!!

That looks stunning

Long enough old trip. It normally takes me 24 hours to get a car from England but the ferry accounts for a fair whack of that time.

I think you got the better end of the deal, what was your friend thinking! Best of luck with the sport!

jimbom30cab wrote:That grey sport looks fantastic

I want one !!!

No, someone has to step in here, no more for you!

WOW ! Buying a car from the Luton area and getting out alive !


PS Any pics of Becka ?

Pete, you have a text message

bab-91 wrote:Long enough old trip. It normally takes me 24 hours to get a car from England but the ferry accounts for a fair whack of that time.

I think you got the better end of the deal, what was your friend thinking! Best of luck with the sport!

jimbom30cab wrote:That grey sport looks fantastic

I want one !!!

No, someone has to step in here, no more for you!

I concur! Jim, you are becoming a pig with your nose in the trough. Give others a chance.

That is a very nice looking car - what are the specification and details please?

I have found a nice one in Northern Ireland.

jimbom30cab wrote:I have found a nice one in Northern Ireland.

Gert_8 wrote:

jimbom30cab wrote:I have found a nice one in Northern Ireland.

No you didn't. I can say that with 100% certainty!

Road trips like that make it feel so much more special when you get it back home don't they?

Get some more pics up asap it looks gorgeous!

Good luck with it!

Pics pics pics please

Great story....nice looking car too. Stick some more pics up!

Is anyone else hoping the OP woke up this morning and thought "you know what, i don't like e30s really, anyone want this sport for £2k" ????

jimbom30cab wrote:Is anyone else hoping the OP woke up this morning and thought "you know what, i don't like e30s really, anyone want this sport for £2k" ????

lol jimbo ur sick ...

That is the spit of my Tech 2 Sport.....nice buy!

Looking good man. Did you give it a thorough check before buying? Common areas to check are the stroop braces for any signs of excessive use, the doup valve (ensure no deposits etc). Double check if it's got a "spastic flap" sunroof that rust hasn't set in around the seals. The woven yab seat fabric is a common issue too.

More pics would be cool!

Any chance of some more pics and updates on this

The TV listings look cr@p at the weekend

Part 2!

After picking the cars up and taking a slight detour south for a while, we eventually began heading back up north!



Unfortunately, this is where the story takes a turn for the worse. 2 or 3 fuel stops in, I noticed A puddle quickly appearing around the passenger wheel area. Had a quick poke around, realised this was the runoff from the expansion tank, and the car was boiling off coolant! We waited for a while to let it cool down some, topped off the coolant and stocked up on water then carried on the long road home, chalking it down to being a long run for a car that had been sitting for a while.

The more we drove, the more often the temperature gauge started falling into the red, the more often we had to pull over to cool down and top up water, and a long day turned out to be very long indeed!

This carried on for most of the journey, overheat, pull over, top up, overheat, pull over, top up, not much fun running the heaters on full in 20+degrees! Especially for an Aberdonian! Then, when we were going through dundee, considering pulling over for the 1000th time, there was a loud pop, and steam started coming out from under the dash! Pulled over immediately, found out the top radiator hose had popped off! Went to tesco, got some cable ties, took jubilee clip off clutch fluid res and cable tied it onto the bracket instead, got the radiator hose back on with that jubilee, topped off coolant again and carried on.

We got to alasdairs at about half 3 in the morning, after setting off from milton keynes at 8 that morning!
The next day we spent a few hours washing all the bugs off the cars, then headed out to meet some friends and show off the cars. On the way over, my clutch started slipping, badly. No drive over 3k atall kind of bad. So i got the car to my parents house, and put it in the garage straight away.

A week or so later, i had another engine, a massive box of new parts, and a big bill racked up on the credit card!
We quickly set about getting the engine swapped with all the new parts fitted, had it done in a couple weekends and evenings, while i was working 12 hour shifts 7 days a week aswell i may add!









And then not very long afterwards,



Back on the road again! With a fresher engine, pretty much everything apart from head gasket done, aswell as new discs and pads all round!

Top work & wouldn't of expected it would of needed an engine & clutch! Great work!

Love the update, well done for keeping going with it, i would have called the AA in

Respect !!

jimbom30cab wrote:Love the update, well done for keeping going with it, i would have called the AA in

Respect !!

So would i, had i had the foresight to get a policy with them!

Nice one. Looking forward to more updates. Looks great by the way,

Time for a late update of this i think!

After doing the work above, i drive it from the end of may through to MOT time in September, only doing maintenance required work as and when.

Fast forward to September, and i was presented a fairly lengthy fail sheet by mr MOT. I cant remember all the fails, but a few of them were,

Rusty rear brake lines
Split flexi lines
Emissions (by a mile!)
Rust
Rust
Rust
Rust
Burst steering rack p*ssing out both boots
Rotten bushes-all of them
Burst shocks

I already knew about the majority of these, but i wasn't prepared for the full extent of what was hiding underneath the carpet.

IMG


It was a real make it or break it time, i had no idea what to do with it. Looking at the car i figured out it would take a good bit of money to put back together in a state i was happy with, or id stand to lose a fairly sizeable lump if i got rid. It ended up sitting in the shed for about a month before i came to a decision, and emptied my bank in a matter of hours.

I ended up buying a fairly long list of parts for it,

BC Racing BR Coilovers
Powerflex polybushes - standard purple for arms, black race for subframe+diff, didnt bother doing the droplinks
Lower arms
HEL Stainless braided brake lines
25ft Cupro brake line
2x new rear calipers
5x 1.5 x 625 x 625mm steel
Brand new steering rack
Tie rods
Track rod ends
Scorpion exhaust
A welder - having never used one before this!

I then set about spending the next few months lying on the shed floor with a grinder and a welder, hacking away until i recognised it as a car again!











I dont have many photos from the welding, and in most of them there are still rough bits and bits that hadn't been fully welded yet, but do not worry, it was tidied up and done properly!

And a proper after shot!

Now i understand your story lol. I bought a bmw 318is coupe from some beut up in mastrick years back which done the head gasket within 2 miles!

Road trips are awesome though! I took a train down to birmingham in 2007 to pick up my focus rs and the drive home was awesome!

Picked up my saph cossie from newcastle as well! love a wee road trip

Im from montrose btw! Nae far from aberdeen!

Definitely gives you an opportunity to get to know the car a little! You should pop down to crail on Sunday, fast ford feature day!

BurningAlive409 wrote:Definitely gives you an opportunity to get to know the car a little! You should pop down to crail on Sunday, fast ford feature day!

Im away to Edinburgh this wkd pity