Body and Chassis

Time to focus on cleaning up the engine bay to receive the motor, and working my way towards paint.

I've decided to remove the AC system and all the lines for now. I'll come back later and maybe do the heater core, and a possible oil filter relocation. 

Also power washed the bay and the steering rack

I removed all the shitty looking (and heavy) sound deadener, but decided it best to keep the heat shields for obvious reasons.

      Removed the headlight assemblies and the grills. I've got some cleaning and freshening to do on the headlights, as well as putting some lamin-x on the high beams lenses. 

      For now I'm going to clean, scuff, and paint the grills

Center section done. I know you can buy these already black and fairly cheap, but this one I had was pretty beat up, cracked a little, and the chrome was peeling off. Might as well just paint it for now, especially since I was doing the side grills anyway

All dried, back on the car, and looking great! I love the small, quick to finish jobs that make a difference on a project. Everything else takes so long, and so much work, and you need these little victories

     Since I still want the option to street drive this for a little while, I'm going to order new turn signals and marker lights, as well as fog lamp block off plates from Bavarian Auto. 

     I have new hardware coming this week for the bumper cover, brake cooling vents, and oil cooler cover. Since that's all that's left with the exception of the lamin-x for the headlights, I could have the front end all back together by next weekend...ish...hopefully

Stay tuned...

 

Engine Progress

     Being that the original engine was shot, I sourced another m20 from a 1990 325i off craigslist. It only had 135K on it, and the dude even had a video of it running right before he took it out. Drove up to Maryland and brought it home in the pouring rain.

 

 

Got it up on the stand and started some cleaning and the removing of a few parts for powder coating.

 

     Going ahead and doing a new timing belt and water pump since I'm down this far and waiting on parts to come back from coating. Also putting in some new exhaust studs and copper nuts from Ireland engineering

 

Got a few things back, and I'm getting excited. It's looking good

 

     Got all my parts back, and they looked so nice I didn't want to put my old hardware back in so I went to ACE hardware and cleaned them out of metric stainless bolts. I had to actually hit three different locations to get all that I needed

 

     I went ahead and sent out even more little parts, including my motor mounts after seeing how nice it was all coming together. 

     Also, since spec e30 doesn't allow headers or any modifications to the motor to speak of, I decided to send out the original exhaust manifolds for ceramic coating.

      That's going to put the motor progress on hold for a bit, so I'm going to bide my time through body work for the moment. Also need to clean up the engine bay and decide what components to keep, and which to delete

Stay tuned...

Quick Overview of the Car

 

So here she is, a 1989 BMW 325i. I got it from the  original owner who purchased it in '89 with 7 miles on it. Needless to say, it has done so much more since then! She is reading 218K on the odometer, and threw a timing belt and essentially destroyed the internals. She needs paint, body work, and just about every piece or part touched up. I am not a shop, I do not do this for a living. This will be my trip down the road of a spec class racing build, while still maintaining a life, raising my children, and trying to keep my girlfriend around. I love feedback, and welcome comments, or even tips you may have to make my life easier. Thanks

Installing a Volvo lip on an E30

     The famous Volvo lip conversion on your bmw. If you're like me and don't have $130+ to shell out for the "is" lip every time you scrape a little on a speed hump, or take that line through the corner wrong, then let me be your savior. This is a very easy mod, very inexpensive, and looks factory.

I went down to my local scrap yard and picked up a volvo 740 lip for about $10

 

     I actually picked up two because they are getting harder to find. There are a few years of volvo that can donate this lip to your car :  88-90 760

                                                           90-92 740

                                                           91-95 940

                                                           92-94 960
 

     They are all the same really, and I highly recommend getting all the hardware that attaches them. It's a few screws and some pressure clips (these are the most important)

 

     First thing to do is the test fit the lip. Its Important to note that you will be mounting this lip UPSIDE DOWN from the way it was on the Volvo. If you still have the original bmw retaining clips on the car I'd leave them for now. They will help hold the new lip in place as you make your marks. Cut your wheels one way or the other for clearance, as the new lip is a bit longer than your valance. Use some tape to mark your center line on the lip and where it meets up to the valance, then repeat for each side to mark where your cut will be

 

     When you're satisfied with your marks remove the lip and score a line with an exacto knife or a razor blade. This will give the saw blade a track to follow, and clean up your cuts

 

     Next you can grab your blade and do some chopping. I used a medium rip sawzall blade by hand. It's cleaner and easier to go straight with than something powered.

 

     Simply cut straight through, slightly outside of your tape mark. We will go back through with a grinder and clean it up on the final test fit

 

All done here, got a little extra overhang and ready to refit

 

Looks pretty good so far. Time to remove the old bumper clips, and get it secured they way we want before cutting anymore off.

 

     The trick with these is to grab a punch of some kind (I used a small Allen wrench) Push the small circular tabs all the way in and out of the top. Then, with a flat blade pry down gently on the clip, and remove from the valance

 

Time to rehang the new lip, but now without the aid of the clips. This is where the pressure clips from the volvo come into play. 

 

     Line up your center tape and reach behind the valance and press these over the lip and where it rests on the valance. This should hold things in place very well for you line up the sides again, and tape off what will be your final cut line. I recommend using an angle grinder to bring down the last little bit of material smoothly, and evenly

 

     A very decent fit so far, and you can make adjustments later so long as you haven't removed too much material. Its also a good idea to find a few good points for running screws into the new lip. They will help secure it more so than the pressure clips alone, or the zip ties a lot of folks are using. After you've made whatever mounting attempt you are happy with you can remove the lip again and trim of the old mounts that were used to secure it to the volvo. Again I used the sawzall blade by hand

 

     Once this is done you can sand your edges smooth, scuff down the lip, and prime for paint. If yours is like mine there are the usual deep scratches and gouges in the plastic which can be fixed with a flexible bumper filler beforehand. Do not use regular bondo! It's too rigid, and will pop out the first time this lip flexes. 

 

Here it is all done and primed. Looks just like an "is" lip for a fraction of the cost!

 

     As some of you may have noticed, there is a "flare" to the sidewall of the lip. Some people don't mind the flare, some people don't care for it, I however think it looks good both ways. I'm going to add a tutorial for straightening the side wall soon for all of you that are curious. I'll get a few more pictures, and go back and mend any typos when I finish trimming out the front end, and get the bumper cover back on. Follow the rest of the body and chassis stuff in that section of the blog. Hope this tutorial helped!

First Things First...

This is the motor as it looked when I first opened the hood

 

 

     As you can see, they started the repair, realized it was hopeless, and sold it to me. Time to get that old block out and see what's up.

Hopefully your motor isn't this bad, but if its time for you to remove it then there's a few things that can make your life easier. 

*tip : removing the hood makes this SO MUCH easier!

     1) it's best to remove these as an assembly, that's motor and trans together through the top

     2) as much of the top end as you can remove while still in the vehicle, do it. 

*tip : take a few pictures as you disassemble to make reassembly that much easier later. ie coolant line routing, and labeling connectors.

     3) next you will want to disconnect your exhaust system, and remove the driveshaft. I recommend a service manual for steps on a proper removal (duh)

     4) disconnect the slave cylinder line and let it hang out of the way

     5) next be sure to drain coolant from the block as well as from the radiator. There is a block drain plug located on the back of the exhaust side of the engine. It's about halfway up the block, and pretty much the only removable plug in the area

     6) after that you are just about ready for extraction. Unbolt motor mounts, and trans mounts. Use common sense and go slow to ensure you have in fact disconnected all attached components, and the engine/trans assembly is sliding out freely. A load leveler really helps out here for the proper angle

 

 

     Out she comes. It's a very easy task on these, and can be done all by yourself in one afternoon using only hand tools. Two people is a beautiful thing though...

     Next, just set it down safely and get that trans, clutch and flywheel removed. If you're rebuilding then put it on a stand, if you're swapping then you can begin to remove and reinstall all the components you're switching over to the new motor.