E30 Touring resto - Pic heavy

[Jozi]

Looks like it's been over 2 years since I've posted an update! You missed nothing, as nothing has really progressed since the last post and probably won't for another few years (part time college to blame for that...)

Anyway, this happened a long time ago in 2012...


Rented a van earlier this year in Feb after a visit a week earlier (thanks Gavin for moral support)



Finish on a dusty bonnet


Unfortunately my patients had run out and most of the parts left (except the bonnet) are unpainted and back in the shed. I think the plan is to keep tipping away at her over the summer and eventually some day drive it to a paint shop to see about getting someone else to finish painting the remainder of the parts or worst case re-paint the whole car again.

She's not looking as bad now, I tried to wash it a little in the shed so some dust is gone since.


Interior

[lmerani]

bump, how's this coming along?

[Grime]

Crazy build build man. It's always the last 10% that's the hardest.

[Jozi]

Pulled the pair of wires for the gauges senders today and re-did them on their own with a new third wire added in for warning light.



And engine loom all taped up again with the extra wires branching of just before the ecu plug

[Jozi]

Not really made much progress, been working to much and not spending time at the touring since the summer.

At some point last year I started extending all the wires running around the engine bay, I wanted to hide them as much as possible but not go to crazy.

Using an old loom I extended all the wiring with the same color cable. Then came to my senses after realizing I potentially had up to 3x solder joins that could fail and went ahead and ordered a load of cables and various crimps so I could tack this mess:


In the end I pulled all the original cables going to fuses and replaced them with extra long new cables with the right ends crimped on and sloted back in place. A few cables ran into the car and those were solder joined inside the fusebox and had some heatshrink applied.

The plan was to separate all the wiring going to the passenger and driver side and route them both separately as can be seen below:


That was then stuffed through a pair of holes into conduit on the inner wings and routed to the front of the car where it exits under the front slam panel on either side





Conduit and 90deg elbow I used on both ends to protect it from the elements as much as possible (apparently the elbows are water proof)


This all took me months and many weekends, everytime I spent a couple hours at it most of the time was spent re-tracing my steps and making sure I didn't miss any cables or got things mixed up. Eventually I pulled it all through the conduit which turned out to quite difficult! I pulled out all the wires and after speakign to a friend he recomended I use wire pulling lube : That took a bit to arrive but it made everything about 100x easier. In the event I missed a wire I left one long redundant wire in the loom which runs to/from the fuse box so I could tape wire to this and pull it through if I have to (which I have with a few cables since).

I'm also fitting VDO gauges which needed wiring up neatly. Not liking many of the t-pieces and adapters and what not available I ended up drilling a hole in one of the vanos banjo bolts and threading it for the temp sender. The pressure sender is still on an extension/adapter but at least I now don't have another adapter on this for temp. Both wires were fed through the engine loom, crimped and I used some heatshrink to color code the wires, pics below of it in place:


And the bit of engine loom I fed both wires through:


Over the weekend I'll probably undo all the above after realizing the second terminal on the pressure sender is for a warining light, which I might as well also make use of.

Thats all for slow progress :thumb:

[Jozi]

Thanks guys, it's a lot of work but looks like it will pay off.

The picture makes it look a lot darker than it is, not that it's a bright place but there's enough light. I don't think the landlord would be to happy with a new window

[ELLeon]

This is definitely a clean build man, makes me want to do the same to my build. I just need the space to tear the car completely apart. Nice work man.

[FowlerE30]

Pretty crazy restoration man, thats a lot of work! This last pic makes me shutter though, thats a full on dungeon. Take a sledge hammer to that rock wall and knock some windows haha

[Jozi]

Not much of an update but have started unpacking all the boxes and sorting through everything and trying to keep it organised on the rack or in boxes. I might get it all put away over the weekend and then I can get back at working on the touring again.

[Jozi]

This thread is long over due an update! Not much has happened this year between it being to cold, no interest/motivation and not going home most weekends to work on the touring not a lot has happened!

The good news is the touring now looks like this:


Few bits stored inside for transport:


An E30 equipped Alfa 147:



A few weeks ago myself and a member e30owners got ourselves a shed, it's only about 15-30mins drive depending on traffic from where I live in Dublin. The past two weekends I've (with a lot of help from the brother) done a bit of tidying up around and gathered parts and so far done two runs with the Alfa stashed full of E30 parts. I still need to get the E30 trailered down (proving to be expensive or difficult) which I hope to sort this week or asap so I can get cracking on.


"Storage room" is slowly turning back into a spare bedroom:


Few pics I found which I hadn't up loaded yet from last December, some other little bits and pieces have been done but nothing major.

E30 323i (I think) flywheel I got a few years ago, had it skimmed ages ago, needed a little cleaning with a wirebrush.




There isn't much I can do with out the touring being here other than some small bits and pieces in preparation. Started polishing the glass this evening, plan is to get them nice and clean and then treat them with some sort of rain repellent on the outside and anti fog on the inside.


Once the glass is all polished and coated my first priority is to get it all fitted and wash her cause it looks nasty!

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You could ship your bolts of to a company who do electro plating. Theres a few in Ireland that do it and had I known how cheap it was I would have done this at the start! It's still handy though to be able to do my own bolts or brackets when ever suits me

[Pazi88]

Gotta love those plated bolts and other pieces. I was planing to that also in my build, but I just bought new bolts. Too bad that some of the bolts from BMW weren't anymore with yellow zinc plating....

[e30boy]

more updates plz!!!! i love this build

[Jozi]

Thanks guys. I think I might have missed this years show but I'll be ready for next year for sure!

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Things have been quiet on the touring front for the last while. After a few setbacks and holdups I finally got bolting up some of the vapour blasted parts. While those were being done I also had what ever brackets and nuts/bolts I could find sent of for powder coating and zinc plating (the later being one of the holdups...)

Still piecing things back together bit by bit, loom is just loosely sitting on the engine


Never mind the grubby bolts for the damper thing, they will be replaced with shorter ones after it gets a clean up.


All the alloy bits came up like new


I thought the PS pump was black it was that dirty when I got it


New water pump and stat housing also got a quick clean as they had gone white from sitting up the last year


Replated studs



Some of the other bits I had plated




Also undersealed the front crossmember with Bilthamber UB. I previously used this in the arches and brushed it on, for what ever reason I didn't think of it at the time but using a roller gives it a slightly nice looking finish.



Anyone know where these two studs belong?

[Burner]

This build is awesome! Keep it up! I hope to see it in real on one of the shows soon...

[E.Three.0]

This is so amazing, 2nd time reading all the way through it, and i cannot wait to see the finished product.