E30 Zone

After six year of enthusiastic driving up and down motorways I needed a new windscreen to replace the crazy version. RAC supplied a brand new top tint windscreen for no extra cost - I like the top tint and had one in an old Astra and always missed it and only £50 thanks to my insurance company. Renewed on a classic policy for £299 and was happy with that.





Thanks to the E30zone for supplying some new toys.

Got a tech 1 wheel - love the groovy thumb grooves and the general lightness of it - cheers Ant.




Plus a front lip spoiler -




Need a mint, front near side wing in malachite green if anyone has one please(willing to collect). The curse of rust has arisen under a loose mudflap on the corner of the wing

I suppose it's time to take the mud flaps off as it's too hard to clean behind them with a lowered car. Rust is only behind one mud flap at the moment. There's been a huge tin of waxoyl that used to be my granddad's, so it must be 15 years old. Anyway I'll give it a go and give those arches a good clean out with jet spray, respray stone chip where required and waxoyl to, hopefully, postpone more rust.





Straight after this I went for an MOT.

They failed it on 'emissions and lambda - you can tell it's not running happily I'm afraid sir,':bla: . The guy at the garage chokes out this nonsense rapidly, as if his life depends upon it. They are all just trying to do too much and can't see their arses from elbows. They even phoned VOSA to check out the MOT machine and still don't spot their mistake.

But 'it doesn't have a catalytic convertor,' I insist.

The mistake was the guy doing the ticket simply pressed the wrong button at the start of the test. And I hear faintly in the background noises of mechanics' blame,
'that was your fackin fault, you must have set it up wrong!'.

So it passes, eventually despite the errors and the rambling! As a point of interest in relation to a recent thread, the CO was set up by Ant at A-Tech using just his nose to gauge the mixture and he adjusted it spot on according to the MOT print out!





So this season I'll be wearing a top tint and no mud flaps

car looks beautiful mate, really nice example

Toby its come on a fair bit since I last saw it. And it wasn't as if it was shabby back then. Like the new additions, lip spoiler, seats and possibly SE skirts. Looks really really good

Cheers guys. How's the Audi wrongness going Jon?

Toby, That is looking stunning. Well done on keeping in such great shape.

Looks facking fantastic. What a lovely car. Perfact imo.

BSS325i is breaking a malachite 2 door at the moment. Want me to check the wing out for you? Cars near gatwick

looks top dollar mate, really nice job

Infact. I'd vote this car of the month

looks great, i opted for the flapless op. (ooo eeer!) on my tour.
mud flaps? more like mud traps! ive got quite a bit of rot where mine were.
ive got that is spolier too. mines a replica fibreglass jobby.
loving the colour, whats it called?

B7 wrote:Looks facking fantastic. What a lovely car. Perfact imo.

BSS325i is breaking a malachite 2 door at the moment. Want me to check the wing out for you? Cars near gatwick

That would be useful and very kind of you, cheers.

E30BeemerLad cheers for your vote.

d6dph I haven't yet worked up the motivation to clay bar the thing although I've seen impressive results on your car. I've got some wax now so at least that's a start.

It's not been a cheap year, still got to tot up the receipts for the insurance company and must be well over a grand but I'm pleased with it and very grateful on your comments about the car. I was at a stage a few years ago where I had a choice to let it slide and run it cheap or sort it out as it already had so much replaced anyway.

This rust proofing thing is new to me. Any advice gratetfuly received.

This is how the car used to look. Note the uncanny resemblance to my avatar

Very nice how low is your car, looks very good.

looks good wenever a car fails on emitions just give it a blast down the motorway in 4th that always done the trick

jesus
never seen such a mint touring, awesome man

bmwscorpion wrote:Very nice how low is your car, looks very good.

35mm lower than standard

clean as a whistle,id say you could eat your dinner off it,really liking the colour!

yeah the colour is loverly

Malachite is a great colour especially when new and the gold flecks in the paint show up. There's been a fair bit of new paint on the front about four years ago. I had to replace the whole tailgate due to rust last year so there's new paint on that too.

Some interior shots...


This is a great mod suggested by Brianmooore - adding a E30 saloon boot light to the front of the touring by putting it in the blanking plate which goes over the sunroof motor. It was simple, free and so useful. Thanks to mr darksounds for the boot lamp.






I added a cheap 'interior light soft fade dimmer' from a car accessory shop. I've had this for over a year and it has worked really well.

Explained here
http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... le=posting

Malachite can look so different when viewed in different light conditions.



Now changed to diy smoked indicator lenses from mr mancs_joker which makes the front bumper look better, I think.








Also fitted an interior light switch on the dash using a spare heated rear window switch. Not very interesting but it's handy for reading maps etc. and cheaper than a map-light mirror.

Looks fantastic dude! Keep up the good work and effort that is keeping it soo clean

looks mint

Cheers guys. Still haven't rust proofed it though...

Great looking car - Impressive.

That is lovely, and an inspiration to get my own car up to scratch.
Don't be scared of the clay bar, it doesn't take as long as you think and really makes a difference. Infact I did my bonnet and roof between showers yesterday and I'm just about to go out and do the rest. The good news is its a job you can do in slow time if you're about to go out for a drive. It also motivates me when my arms are falling off from polishing/waxing

Cheers guys and I'm still tinkering.

Now with smoked side repeaters.

I think the clear ones suited the car better tbh Orange.. cough. Still looks schweet though

Oakey I think they were simply better photos of the car with clear indicators. I do prefer the smoked.

Will try the clay bar one day, thanks for your advice Morat.

I

Me and my mate going round Brands Hatch on the 25th Anniversary Celebration of the E30. What an excellent day that was. What a nice surprise that photo was.

Malachite is a great colour Hopefully going to get mine to this standard, good work

oakey wrote:I think the clear ones suited the car better tbh Orange.. cough. Still looks schweet though

keep them black suits the car better

e30325itourer wrote:

oakey wrote:I think the clear ones suited the car better tbh Orange.. cough. Still looks schweet though

keep them black suits the car better

Black black black. Also got some light smoked in-pro indicators delivered yesterday but can't be arsed with those now and I'll keep those as spares.

Some trim bits arrived from SPADGE today so I need to fit them.

Got to get more stuff repaired soon too like propshaft centre bearing, repair the headlining, try different springs, etc etc. Looking forward to some changes.

Thanks for your interest and input guys, much appreciated.
I love my fekin' car even though it's winding me up at the moment.

tom325sport wrote:Malachite is a great colour Hopefully going to get mine to this standard, good work

Cheers. Is yours a malachite too?

have you got three E30s?

I wish I had more than one

Yeah my touring is malachite.

No just the one, the others are my old one's. I think i'm getting through the whole fleet!!

toby what you doing with the mud flaps you took of need 1 for mine mate

Little update;

I'd like to gather all the threads I've done into one. Meanwhile, I replaced the osr door as some twat stoved it in while the car was parked up (left no note). Many thanks to Sanchez for sorting me out a new door.

Had a service done, plus clutch and slave cylinder, welding in passenger footwell, replaced the rusty wings and pulled the headlining ready for a recovering.

Crusty


Pattern wings just about fit OK


New door is a good colour match


I'm trying an unusual approach with the headlining and haven't even taken the sunroof out. Really please that it looks totally rust free in the sunroof area - looks absolutely mint!