E30 Restoration

have2flushtwice

she is looking well now. all the same the entire project must have put a serious dent into the bank a/c?

kdevitt

Cost a fair bit alright, and its likely to cost more again. Had it in with Spirit Detailing last week and the paint job is so bad it can't be worked on - apart from being prepped arseways, they didn't put enough paint on so it needs another full respray.

Kind of fed up of it to be honest! Am likely to do some more extreme work on it now

miller50841

Hi kdevitt I also have a 323i convertible 85 and put the black and silver plates on which look amazing.

The car looks amazing and sorry to hear the work you got done wasn't up to standard which is bad for the ones that done the job as bad publicity is not good.

I have the tech 1 kit on mine but the 2 end caps on the rear bumper (black plastic caps) which face into towards the front and wheel arches are missing and wondering would you know of anywhere to get them or get made up seen as you got so much for yours.

carlosfandango

kdevitt wrote: »

Cost a fair bit alright, and its likely to cost more again. Had it in with Spirit Detailing last week and the paint job is so bad it can't be worked on - apart from being prepped arseways, they didn't put enough paint on so it needs another full respray.

Kind of fed up of it to be honest! Am likely to do some more extreme work on it now

Keep the faith man. You won't be looking to recoup your investment in this car so just go for it & enjoy it. It's a really lovely car & the end result will be magic. The lads that painted it were numptys but it's your's now & it will only get better from here on in.

Chin up!

CFD

kdevitt

miller50841 wrote: »

I have the tech 1 kit on mine but the 2 end caps on the rear bumper (black plastic caps) which face into towards the front and wheel arches are missing and wondering would you know of anywhere to get them or get made up seen as you got so much for yours.

They're still available from BMW as far as I know - you can get spurious ones from the likes of schmiedmann.com I think, but quality isn't great.

The ones from a non mtec bumper can be modified to fit as well iirc.

kdevitt

carlosfandango wrote: »

Keep the faith man. You won't be looking to recoup your investment in this car so just go for it & enjoy it. It's a really lovely car & the end result will be magic. The lads that painted it were numptys but it's your's now & it will only get better from here on in.

Chin up!

CFD

Yep - have really hoped that a proper detailing could rectify a lot of the issues with the crappy paintjob, and that it would minimise the amount of paint work required. Wasn't to be!

renofan

kdevitt wrote: »

Yep - have really hoped that a proper detailing could rectify a lot of the issues with the crappy paintjob, and that it would minimise the amount of paint work required. Wasn't to be!

Could you enjoy it for a while or is the paint that bad it has to be done asap? Shame to hear but she looks very well in the pictures.

kdevitt

renofan wrote: »

Could you enjoy it for a while or is the paint that bad it has to be done asap? Shame to hear but she looks very well in the pictures.

Respray can wait for a while. The front bumper was resprayed recently by Carcraft who did a great job - it had started peeling badly. Same has started happening with the rear bumper too though, but that can wait for the respray.

Will need to buy all new window seals again though - the halfwits butchered the last set of new ones I provided for the last respray.

Pictures look ok alright - but up close you can see it wasn't prepped right, and it looks pretty dull.

renofan

That's a real shame. Hopefully you get it sorted in the end. It's great to see another E30 saved.

Mac 3

miller50841 wrote: »

Hi kdevitt I also have a 323i convertible 85 and put the black and silver plates on which look amazing.

The car looks amazing and sorry to hear the work you got done wasn't up to standard which is bad for the ones that done the job as bad publicity is not good.

I have the tech 1 kit on mine but the 2 end caps on the rear bumper (black plastic caps) which face into towards the front and wheel arches are missing and wondering would you know of anywhere to get them or get made up seen as you got so much for yours.

Is she a Baur ?

miller50841

Mac 3 wrote: »

Is she a Baur ?

Yes it is & white.

Madman2

Shame to see your time with it is done Ken, i hope you get a buyer that teats it the way it's deserved

kdevitt

Madman2 wrote: »

Shame to see your time with it is done Ken, i hope you get a buyer that teats it the way it's deserved

Its unlikely to be going anywhere soon! I got offers of what I was asking, but they included other E30's as a trade-in which I wasn't interested in.

Looks like the M3 will be going instead.

Managed to get the handbrake switch fixed over the weekend too which was a bonus - had all the parts except for the spring, so needed to improvise and use one from an old biro.

Also got the brake light switch replaced - read up that it was a nightmare of a job, but was finished within 5 minutes. Brake lights were staying on when I hit the pedal - which isn't ideal!

mike65

That's a peach of a car.

Sleepy

Beautiful restoration job, just stumbled across this today. Fair play kdevitt, would love to do something similar some day!

kdevitt

Haven't done much except drive this lately!

Managed to pick up a full OBC pretty cheap which arrived on Friday. Will be an entertaining way to spend a few hours.



Also finally got my hands on a manual box! Just need to get a flywheel and clutch kit now.

unkel

kdevitt wrote: »

Haven't done much except drive this lately!

The proof of the pudding and all that

kdevitt

unkel wrote: »

The proof of the pudding and all that

Thats very true

Its a very usable 'classic' to be fair though - starts every time without any trouble, and is generally reliable.

Some pretty squeeky belts under the bonnet at the moment which make the first 5 mins of driving a bit irritating, needs a new distributor and the drivers window realigned and thats it. Anything else is me farting around.

Madman2

Have fun fitting in that obc, i have one sitting here 2 years that i can't bring myself to attempt to fit:o

kdevitt

Madman2 wrote: »

Have fun fitting in that obc, i have one sitting here 2 years that i can't bring myself to attempt to fit:o

Should only be 30 mins work or so start to finish? Drop glovebox, remove instrument cluster and steering housing and just plug everything in?

Did you give up on it or just not want to face it? Have plenty of small jobs which I just don't want to do - have rear pop-outs sitting in the back of the car for weeks now.

Walshey96

Absolute cracker of a car. Great work you done on it. Fair play.

Madman2

kdevitt wrote: »

Should only be 30 mins work or so start to finish? Drop glovebox, remove instrument cluster and steering housing and just plug everything in?

Did you give up on it or just not want to face it? Have plenty of small jobs which I just don't want to do - have rear pop-outs sitting in the back of the car for weeks now.

Getting the sensor to the drivers arch requires patience from what i hear and yes didn't even try it yet:)

kdevitt

Madman2 wrote: »

Getting the sensor to the drivers arch requires patience from what i hear and yes didn't even try it yet:)

Did more or less the same on the E36 - should be ok! Bit of clothes hanger and some sellotape for feeding the wire makes life a bit easier.

kdevitt

kdevitt wrote: »

Haven't done much except drive this lately!

Managed to pick up a full OBC pretty cheap which arrived on Friday. Will be an entertaining way to spend a few hours.



Also finally got my hands on a manual box! Just need to get a flywheel and clutch kit now.

Got this OBC fitted this morning. Its a very straightforward job for anyone attempting it - but definitely one which would be easier second time round!

I got delayed due to the lights being out on the LCD - ended up soldering in some new LED's but no joy. So it'll all need to come out again once I get a new lighting strip. Unfortunately the two bulbs are approx EUR80 from BMW, so will try and get my current one up and running again another time.

Turns out the temperature sensor was missing from my kit - but left the connector for it in place behind the glovebox so will attack that again another day.

kdevitt

Several hours spent yesterday with the porter cable made a massive improvement to the paint. Popped along to C&C Cherrywood today - weather was shocking, but a nice photo popped up online soon afterwards.



Engine is burning quite a bit of oil now unfortunately though - beginning to put together the parts list for the next job.

kdevitt

First purchase made in a while for this - free hug for the first person to figure out my plans!

jozi

Going M30 or hopefully S36/38? Do I get a free hug now

kdevitt

I may have to withdraw the free hug offer...

But M30 it is - its a period engine and should see a nice power gain.

jozi

kdevitt wrote: »

I may have to withdraw the free hug offer...

But M30 it is - its a period engine and should see a nice power gain.

I'm devastated!

I think I'd be much the same, for your own a m52 or s50 is a bit to modern looking. Did you not plan a stoked m20 before, what happened that idea?

kdevitt

jozi wrote: »

I'm devastated!

I think I'd be much the same, for your own a m52 or s50 is a bit to modern looking. Did you not plan a stoked m20 before, what happened that idea?

The stroked engine was more or less fully built - thought it would be in the car when I returned from Oz, but wasn't and no one would fit it as they didn't want to know about an engine they hadn't built themselves.

Cost about 3k to have done more or less, sold it for 650!