E30 Zone

I finally gave in and bought an E30, after years of lusting after them. Its a late 325i SE, not in perfect condition, but what fun would that be
Had a 230 mile trip to get it home, which it handled without a hiccup (I was anxious of course). Took some hasty pictures today as I was still too giddy to focus on anything but driving it! It is lowered 40mm but looks lower in the first picture as my friends got back in to hide from the Welsh wind.





more to follow of the grubby interior and strangely coloured intake manifold....

Is that Bala Lake? Lovely car. I hope you enjoy it.

Gert_8 wrote:Is that Bala Lake? Lovely car. I hope you enjoy it.

thank you! bit further north, Llyn Padarn (Llanberis).

blue intake mani, the next big thing....



its on the list of things to sort out.

What the bob?never seen intake that coulor,what ya gonna do to strip it,sand blast?want to borrow a spare intake of me while you do it.and if i were you theres somone that clean and check the injectors for tenner each,but at least change seals on injectors,can buy on ebay,give me a shout i ya need a hand did mine month ago ,bit dawnting till you pop injector cherry.
Sean dont try to paint it in place itll make a mess

Search for " Injectortune" on the forum, he'll refresh your injectors good as new and return mpg figures you'll like!

Approx 7/10 day turnaround (if you can bear to be car-less that long). Highly recommended!

great news about the injector cleaning guys, thanks! Sounds like a plan Andy, a loner intake would save my bacon, and a hand with the injector pulling would be appreciated too. noooo don't worry I wasn't going to leave the blue octopus attached to clean and respray haha.
I'm gonna prioritise the timing belt/water pump change... and will hopefully be rolling an inner arch this week as one scuffs when the car is full. all were rolled well previously but seems this arch was changed and not rolled to match

Thats an absolutely GORGEOUS 325iSE mate, i wish you many a happy mile in it

I recognise the number plate. Did you buy this car from Luton??

SAP1 wrote:I recognise the number plate. Did you buy this car from Luton??

Yuppp, from a nice fella named Z! not exactly next door to me though. Originally a cornish car, it has been passed around a few times!

Had a fuel leak that was going to give me nightmares so snooped around this evening. Found the black hose in the right corner of this pic was slit at the jubilee clip. trimmed and re-attached for now. Hoping this was the only issue............

Oh okay I this car used to live on Austin Road in Luton only about 5 mins away from me. He seems to be a BMW enthusiast I've been a few nice BMWs on the owners drive.

Mr-Lachs wrote:Thats an absolutely GORGEOUS 325iSE mate, i wish you many a happy mile in it

Thank you! She aint perfect but will be loads of fun and lots of learning

SAP1 wrote:Oh okay I this car used to live on Austin Road in Luton only about 5 mins away from me. He seems to be a BMW enthusiast I've been a few nice BMWs on the owners drive.

Yeahh he is genuinely BMW crazy! Great guy, should go have a chat with him sometime. A few newer M's floating around

willnz wrote:Perished/split fuel hoses are an issue in e30's. Many a fire from them.. Ones in the engine bay are of particular concern.

I would carefully examine all hoses, bend them sharply and look for surface cracking. If you find any, replace! Use OEM hose, most other brands do not seem to last at all.

good call, most around the tank/filler were changed by the previous owner but this vent line most likely wasnt.. or was a cheap replacement that gave up.

Will be buying a bigger book tomorrow to extend the list

SeanOB wrote:

Mr-Lachs wrote:Thats an absolutely GORGEOUS 325iSE mate, i wish you many a happy mile in it

Thank you! She aint perfect but will be loads of fun and lots of learning

That's the spirit

This ain't much of an update and is nothing compared to some of the amazing builds I have seen on this site. But I figured I would do a quick one anyway if anyone is interested.

I got this car to learn how to fix stuff and then hopefully go driving. Maybe even overtake an Audi TT one day.

I have absolutely no previous mechanical knowledge. My Dad used to race old datsuns and fords, but I didn't listen when growing up, stupidly. So now is my chance. Anyway...

Naturally I decided I would do a timing belt change as I got the car. I did a lot of reading on this and other forums before I was confident enough to go messing around in there, but I am glad I did it myself. Belts, tensioner, pump and cam seal replaced. fresh coolant and my first attempt at bleeding the system.


It took me an entire weekend, and I was mostly confused the whole time. But I got my hands dirty and was happy.

New fuel hoses are on the way for the engine bay and will pass some judgement on the fuel filter and hoses too. I have had a few hiccups, but the first bit of maintenance has gone well! Alternator adjuster is turned to goo annoyingly but sounds like thats a typical issue. The bolt that holds it on is good and stuck though, so can't change it just- so.

Here she is:

Looking good

SeanOB wrote: fresh coolant and my first attempt at bleeding the system.

Make sure you get this right! (heater full on, monitor the heater output and temperature gauge as it warms up.)
Getting this wrong can be expensive.

Brianmoooore wrote:

SeanOB wrote: fresh coolant and my first attempt at bleeding the system.

Make sure you get this right! (heater full on, monitor the heater output and temperature gauge as it warms up.)
Getting this wrong can be expensive.

thank you, I took my time and waited for the heater to kick in and kept checking the bleed valve on the thermostat housing. drove around a bit and kept stopping if the temp bumped up.. bled a bit, rinse and repeat. seems to be good to go now

I then also forgot to secure the front most, long hose to the metal bracket above the cam sprocket... so it got friendly with the fan and cut itself up. fixed now and bled again. lesson learnt

my main issue I need fixed, aside from the new fuel hoses arriving soon, is a stutter as I rev off of idle when cold. Will keep reading and asking around, but has anyone tackled this one before ?

sadham wrote:Looking good

thanks. interior needs help tho

Never bothered keeping this updated as I didn't think my random fettling qualified as a 'build'. Hopefully my little contributions will be useful to someone, even if its just encouragement, as I definitely get more done on my car when I see the great work people here have been doing.

And maybe making a habit of posting my progress here will help encourage me to keep at it.

Not that I have had any regrets about getting the e30! Quite the opposite.

I have actually just been too busy driving it!


I have put a decent 7700+ miles on it in my 2 years of ownership. Using it every week has really helped I think. Even when I go on holiday I just give it to my friend to use with strict instructions to NOT baby it.

The repeated thrashing has also been very helpful in discovering faults

I redid the timing belt again after a while as my camshaft seal was still leaking. Went for all OEM dealer parts this time, including the actual metal carrier. Sorted! While I was in there I remembered that during my first timing belt change I had put the belt back on with the pulleys lined up exactly as I had found them, due to fear of all things mechanical.

Second time around I had a better look and realised the crank pulley was one tooth behind its mark, so the poor old thing had been running retarded all that time.

Running with proper timing, plus having the injectors rebuilt by injectortune, alongside new dizzy cap & rotor and coil made it run considerably better, as you would hope.

But it still had issues at random. A bit of digging pointed me to the C191 plug. What a pest. I decided to rebuild it and saved the part numbers and stuff in here:
http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... highlight=



I was terrified of cutting into the wiring, but it really wasn't that bad. It was made much easier by putting the front of the car on home made ramps so I wasn't as hunched over while doing this fiddly job.

Oldblue then ran super rich for a week... I swapped out the blue temp sender after doing all the tests, but she still stank. Luckily my local mechanic who I give my daily swagger-wagon to loves ole BMWs and happily sorted the idle mixture for free one evening. I suspect someone had messed with this before instead of replacing the ignition parts or checking the timing.

Now this thing runs! It may not be rapid by modern standards but is definitely fast enough to be fun.

Which I intend on improving on of course. M20B28 parts are being collected and I am hiding them throughout the house so my girlfriend doesn't realise how much I am spending


will update with a few more things I have done later on, plus the bigger list of stuff to get done!

There's job satisfaction right there. Great work. Find a problem and find the solution(s) and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

been cleaning up an intake mani to replace the horrid blue one. Progressing to the right slowly with sanding then polishing wheel.


also had to replace the attempted light-up gearstick that was in there, it was quite grim

good stuff

Any updates?

Got the ole brick through an MOT with no problems!!

check out this relic that is sitting at my local mechanics


I was so glad when I first saw that, and learnt that he used to have an e30 and work on them a lot 'back in the day'

Before I sent it there for the MOT I had a good list of things I knew would need sorting.

I got some new lowering springs as the old ones were really tired and the back was sagging bad. Adding thicker pads in the back and e90 drop hats to the front has levelled the car out a lot better I think:

Not a great pic but you get the idea.

While I was there I put in new ARB bushes and tie rod ends, which were a real pain to get out.
But after that weekend of hard work I had a new clonking that I hoped was just a bad 'lollypop bush'. Fighting those off while the control arms were on the car was not fun and required a hydraulic puller.


Turned out that was not the actual problem . I eventually traced it the right control arm main ball joint. Wish I had just done all of this when I first did the springs and top hat, but oh well, after taking the front suspension apart 3 times I can at least say I know where things go now

fresh goods installed after a solid 8 hours fighting old metal out of its well established, crusty home.

Which pads did you use at the back? Thickness and part no. would be a great help.

SeanOB wrote:Never bothered keeping this updated as I didn't think my random fettling qualified as a 'build'. Hopefully my little contributions will be useful to someone, even if its just encouragement, as I definitely get more done on my car when I see the great work people here have been doing.

And maybe making a habit of posting my progress here will help encourage me to keep at it.

This is the spirit to have, you would be surprised at how many people will get encouraged by a non mechanical person doing all these big jobs on their car!

I love to see it because it shows if you put your mind to it with a bit of patience you can achieve what you set out to do!

Keep up the good work mate!

SeanOB wrote:Never bothered keeping this updated as I didn't think my random fettling qualified as a 'build'. Hopefully my little contributions will be useful to someone, even if its just encouragement, as I definitely get more done on my car when I see the great work people here have been doing.

And maybe making a habit of posting my progress here will help encourage me to keep at it.

This is the spirit to have, you would be surprised at how many people will get encouraged by a non mechanical person doing all these big jobs on their car!

I love to see it because it shows if you put your mind to it with a bit of patience you can achieve what you set out to do!

Keep up the good work mate!

TurtleDesignTech wrote:Which pads did you use at the back? Thickness and part no. would be a great help.

Sure! Cotswold had all of these in, I went for the biggest lower spring pad:
10mm, part# 33531136387
There are also 7.5 mm options (33531136386) and the stock 5mm (33531136385).

Also get top ones while you are at it, I could only find one size: 33531128610

edit: by the way, I am using SPAX 40mm lowering springs front and back, so an additional 5mm raise in the back and a 10mm (max) drop in the front worked for me.

Cypriotgeeza wrote:

SeanOB wrote:Never bothered keeping this updated as I didn't think my random fettling qualified as a 'build'. Hopefully my little contributions will be useful to someone, even if its just encouragement, as I definitely get more done on my car when I see the great work people here have been doing.

And maybe making a habit of posting my progress here will help encourage me to keep at it.

This is the spirit to have, you would be surprised at how many people will get encouraged by a non mechanical person doing all these big jobs on their car!

I love to see it because it shows if you put your mind to it with a bit of patience you can achieve what you set out to do!

Keep up the good work mate!

Thanks man! That is encouraging that my ramblings might be motivational
Its funny how easy it is to forget how far a project has come, when so busy looking at what needs sorting out next!

I really want some more welding practice, but eventually I need to sort out the space behind the back left wheel well where the jack goes, jacking points and a chunk of the outer sills, front left wing is junk and the headlining needs to come out so I can fix the pesky sunroof drains.

Think I will build a garage first!

@SeanOB Thanks for a very detailed response. Much appreciated.

Still driving the wheels off this old brick.

Here is a stupid video of my nose, a peel out, and my friends very tidy Volvo Amazon. Yes, I managed to hit every leaver in the process except the gear stick.
(can't imbed it to play here for some reason)
peel out HD by 5EAN11, on Flickr

Been trying to hoard money so I can build a garage at our new place, so avoided doing any more costly jobs on the car for a bit. But there are still some little jobs you can tackle on a budget to make the car nicer. I did a few things over the summer:

Like this weird dent, glad thats gone.
DSC08898 by 5EAN11, on Flickr

DSC08902 by 5EAN11, on Flickr

The license plate filler panel was all flakey, so sanded it down, primer and correct colour reapplied
IMG_2920 by 5EAN11, on Flickr

Ditto for the little spoiler, no idea what the heck took a bite out of the original one But a fresh one tidied up fine after some prep:
DSC08893 by 5EAN11, on Flickr

IMG_2875 by 5EAN11, on Flickr

Oh, also just put in some HIDs, hot damn, what a difference. Went for a night drive last night on the tiny, twisty roads on Anglesey, and it was actually FUN not terrifying now that I can see the road.
IMG_4424 by 5EAN11, on Flickr

Highly advised, if any of you haven't as yet.

SeanOB wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 26, 2019 3:52 pm

Oh, also just put in some HIDs, hot damn, what a difference. Went for a night drive last night on the tiny, twisty roads on Anglesey, and it was actually FUN not terrifying now that I can see the road.
IMG_4424 by 5EAN11, on Flickr

Highly advised, if any of you haven't as yet.

It really is an excellent safety upgrade, but unfortunately, it's also now a MOT test failure in the UK, so try to keep it easily convertible back to halogen bulbs for the test.