Diamantschwartz E30 cabrio project (damaged repo)

[RobbieT]

The need for a project car has simmered in the back of my mind for years now, a previous Mk1 Golf project failed due to moving area and losing my garage so that was sold.

I was looking through a car auction catalogue and came across an 'E' reg black 320 manual cabrio going through as a non-runner and thought i'd give it a look. It turned out to be a reposession for non-payment of parking fines and had some front end damage but beneath the shit i think i saw a nice car (or had the dream goggles on, one of the two) . I thought i'd chuck a couple of bids in and it ended up being mine!

As i got it:





Front end tickle



Front end and wing damage





Now because this was a reposession there was obviously no keys for the car, also there was a steering wheel disklock on

This required a bit of the following:

Steering lock delicately removed



Door barrel removed for key to be cut





Got my key man to cut a key, he gave me a few choices to select from. For some reason, they all fit so i have gone from having none to 6 keys for the car!



Whilst this was being done i had a good look over the car.

The good:

Interior in not bad nick



Roof looks to be pretty recent



Apparently only done 97k (obviously nothing to back this up with)



The bad:

Rear quarter is a little curly



The downright brilliant:

Opening the boot, i found this little lot of "spares"



There is a black leather rear bench, pair of headlights, headlight grilles, brand new front bumper, brand new centre bumper insert, brand new grille, brand new BMW bumper fitting kit, 2x valance top rail panels, lower dash trim and a box full of bits like switches, alternator, fuse box, fuel pump and more. Winner!

After pulling off some caps and looking knowingly at the dipstick it looks like it's recently been treated to an oil change, coolant change, new PAS fluid and a brake fluid change too. At this point i started to feel a bit bad for the previous owner as it was clear that he obviously had plans for this old girl before it got lifted. After about a minute i thought "Fcuk it, he should have paid his parking fines!" (sorry if previous owner is on here )

With some electricity added i turned the key in the ignition, not sure what to expect. Na na na na brrrrrrrrmmmmmm she said and idled beautifully. Get in!

Next installment soon

Rob

[verde]

Haha i like the E28 front end conversion ( home made shark look )

Its cool your saving it

[Rascal]

Bet that was like christmas opening the boot...shouldn't take too much to bring it back...good luck !

[RobbieT]

Cheers guys, i've no doubt the parts in the boot are worth more than i paid for the car!

Without doubt, i want to eventually get the interior retrimmed in champagne leather so the black leather bench will go for sale i think.

[pacerpete]

I have all the panels to repair this in diamond black

[RobbieT]

So with the car running i got her into the workshop, and that is pretty much as far as i got for a while as work got well and truly in the way.

Eventually i went about taking off the front end to see how bad the damage was:

Bumper off



Bendy valance and chassis leg end



Valance off





That's definitely a bit out of shape



So out came the slide-hammer and the chassis leg ends were given some gentle persuasion into my way of thinking (straight). They are, as you would expect, pretty bloody solid so much so that i broke a slide hammer in the process (no pictures of that).

With the valance off i could see how curly the valance was and thought i have a go at panel beating

Quite bendy (hard to see in pictures)



Caution- professional at work



Looking better (still hard to see in pictures)



Bent bracket



More precision bodyworking techniques



The dent on the front of the rail behind this bracket is still there because it's impossible to get in behind to bang it straight.

So i threw it back at the car and it stuck



Then i toshed some random black paint over the bare paint bits and screwed the bottom lip back on. Looks alright in the picture




Next up i went about sticking the new bumper brackets on but the bolt holes were not playing ball. The big muthafunk slide hammer i now had wouldn't fit into the hole to straighten these out so i had to improvise

Long bolt with nut on it for increased surface area to whack



This started to move it a bit closer to true but also dislodged the captive nuts behind the chassis leg end, d'doh! However, all was not lost as this meant there was more wiggle room to get the bracket seated

Voila!



And the other side



I'm not bothered about that nasty bit to the left of the bracket as it's not visible when the bumper is fitted


Shameless 'i've got 2 sheddy E30s' shot



The cab's little-big brother (please note i did NOT put that pipe in the grille )




New centre bumper section lashed together with the old bits



Slung it on the car



Oh, something is a little bit pissed!





So that means that either my valance is still very curly and/or the bumper bracket needs some more gentle persuasion. I've put a wanted post up for a replacement valance as i might as well get a better one than make it nice on top and still have a bent grille rail. I'll get onto the bumper brackets again when i know the valance is good.

[RobbieT]

I have all the panels to repair this in diamond black

Cheers Pete, i got your PM. I will be having that valance definitely, i'll let you know on the springs

[RobbieT]

I thought i'd replace the damaged headlight for one of the spares with the car, but immediately noticed a problem

Different plugs, hmmm



Different sidelight locations

Original


New one


I had a go at swapping some bits around and remarkably the main beam plug fitted fine. Unfortunately the dipped beam unit wasn't playing ball so i was left with this



Mine is an 88 so it has the smiley face lights, i guess i'll have to source some replacements or will bullseyes fit?


The sport hasn't been used for a while to say the least, as illustrated by my helpful employee



Anyway, you may have gathered all this malarky hasn't all happened in one day i've been doing bits and pieces when time allows. One thing i did find the time for was wasting endless hours on ebay looking at things i shouldn't spend my money on, such as:





They're Ronal LS 7.5x15" and should look a bit better than the pony 14's that are on there at the moment.

That serious lack of any interesting progress brings us up to yesterday, i can't promise this journal will pick up any pace or indeed any sort of skill either but i'll plough on anyway.

Stay tuned folks!

[Rav335uk]

Put the origional Headlights back.
They're the correct ones.
The other "New" ones a crap earlier type.
If the plastic bucket is all that is broken, you can replace them easily.

[Duke137]

Nice little project

[RobbieT]

Put the origional Headlights back.
They're the correct ones.
The other "New" ones a crap earlier type.
If the plastic bucket is all that is broken, you can replace them easily.

It is just the plastic cage/bucket that is smashed, i'll keep an eye out for one (the other side is still intact). Cheers fella

Thanks Duke, i'll get some more pictures when she moves to her new home nearer my house and work can hopefully get a bit more of a wriggle on!

[oomz1975]

I love projects like this, keep up the good work.