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Hey guys,
I'm new to the forum but have been lurking for a while. I know you guys don't want to read a story so I'll keep the intro short and get on the the important stuff.
I'm just an 18 year old kid that has a love for cars. First car was a Toyota FJ cruiser, then wanted a better offroad vehicle so I bought a 2006 jeep wrangler LJ. Modded that a lot and still love it to do death but gas was killing me and I wanted something low so e30 for the DD it was.
Enough background and to the car. It's a 1986 325e sedan and the color is bahama-beige. Never seen another car this color and I absolutely love it.
The car runs and shifts fine but needs a lot of body work which is no big deal
because my Dad grew up as a fabricator so it's time to teach me.
Hope that intro wasn't too long and don't blame you if you didn't read.
I have no idea what I'm going to do with it but I'm just going to go with the flow.
The day I brought her home. You can see the awful paint and bodywork that needs to be done.
Then I got started on some body work, got the hammer and steel block out and used that to get rid of all the dents on the hood and trunk.
While I was doing that my buddy wired up the head unit only to find out the fuse was blown. Apparently so was the speedo fuse so hopefully that will work now. Anyways, got the fuses replaced so the stereo works now. Also, my ghetto antenna. New trend?
:
Then it was time to move on to the big stuff and Dad got out the porta power. He showed me how to use it and we got to work on the right rear quarter panel dent. Just got the big part of the dent out and will finish all the more minor stuff in the quarter panel over the rest of the week.
Then put her on jacks and sat like that for a while.
Next, removed the back seat to plan the wiring for the rear speakers.
Then I just took off the fog lights that didn't work. One of the nuts was too rusted to get off so I had to cut it off.
Next it was time to do the bumper tuck. Looked up the how to thread and saw that it was a piece of cake. The 86 front bumper is mounted a little different than the 88' on the thread. There is no hole in the bottom of the bumper that goes to the bolts. Instead, you have to reach up and unbolt the bumper shocks from the body. That was a tight fit but got it done. Got the shocks off then went to drilling.
Got through both layers pretty easily so I was pretty happy this was turning out well. I was curious to how hard it was to compress them so I tried hitting them with a hammer and that didn't work so I got out the jack and tried using the car as my compressor. Well I just used the car and a jack extension because it lifted the car 3 inches without budging the shock. This little SOB deciding to be the biggest pain and after trying and trying I still couldn't get either one of them to compress. My Dad got home and couldn't figure it out either so he got the sledgehammer and after about 5 hits finally got it to compress.
Now I thought the hard part was out of the way but with the 86 bumper design the way it is a pain to get the bumper back on. I just decided to leave the bumper off for now since I have to have it off to do some body work anyways.
Found this on the camera while uploading pics, guess my friend thought he was being funny.
ohhhh and I test fitted the new shoes. Am I doing this right?
Next, pull a part and picked up some trim pieces and door latches. Then went to a part out car and got a shift knob, shifter boot, and window sealer/trim whatever you call it.
Anyways, here are a few pics, nothing special I just like to track what I've done.
Finally got around to installing the new windshield. Taking it out was easy, putting it back in...not so much. Random pic without a windshield.
Then got the door latches installed. I still need the trim piece to go around it but it's better than what I had before which was no handles at all.
And then I had both cars in the garage unable to drive. Cracked my transfer case in the jeep. :cry:
Then I got lazy and didn't really keep up with taking pictures of the build. I got the front windshield in and the sealer on the front and rear. Ripped out more interior trying to fix the stupid window motors that aren't working. Still haven't figured those out yet.
Then one night some friends and I got bored so we took the hood of and stripped the paint and sanded it down and started to rust it.
First attempt didn't go too well, didn't get all the primer off so I had to resand everything down.
pic of first attempt.
I have the hood almost completely rusted where I wanted. I'll post pics later.
Then I painted the grill with satin black krylon fusion.
Then I got a good deal on some JOM "coilovers" (no idea why they call these coilovers) but they lower the car a lot and are cheap so they work for me. I got those installed tonight. Sorry no install shots, I was too excited to finish to stop and take pics.
All done with 12 threads left to go on the front and running no adjusters in the rear.
I also got this air dam. Has a couple cracks I need to fix then I need to decide on paint. Cheap out and paint it black or get the bahama beige paint.
Tomorrow the plan is to steam clean the whole car, test out the "coilovers" and make adjustments, then mock up the front air dam.
Thanks for reading and follow along!
I'm new to the forum but have been lurking for a while. I know you guys don't want to read a story so I'll keep the intro short and get on the the important stuff.
I'm just an 18 year old kid that has a love for cars. First car was a Toyota FJ cruiser, then wanted a better offroad vehicle so I bought a 2006 jeep wrangler LJ. Modded that a lot and still love it to do death but gas was killing me and I wanted something low so e30 for the DD it was.
Enough background and to the car. It's a 1986 325e sedan and the color is bahama-beige. Never seen another car this color and I absolutely love it.
The car runs and shifts fine but needs a lot of body work which is no big deal
because my Dad grew up as a fabricator so it's time to teach me.
Hope that intro wasn't too long and don't blame you if you didn't read.
I have no idea what I'm going to do with it but I'm just going to go with the flow.
The day I brought her home. You can see the awful paint and bodywork that needs to be done.
Then I got started on some body work, got the hammer and steel block out and used that to get rid of all the dents on the hood and trunk.
While I was doing that my buddy wired up the head unit only to find out the fuse was blown. Apparently so was the speedo fuse so hopefully that will work now. Anyways, got the fuses replaced so the stereo works now. Also, my ghetto antenna. New trend?
:Then it was time to move on to the big stuff and Dad got out the porta power. He showed me how to use it and we got to work on the right rear quarter panel dent. Just got the big part of the dent out and will finish all the more minor stuff in the quarter panel over the rest of the week.
Then put her on jacks and sat like that for a while.
Next, removed the back seat to plan the wiring for the rear speakers.
Then I just took off the fog lights that didn't work. One of the nuts was too rusted to get off so I had to cut it off.
Next it was time to do the bumper tuck. Looked up the how to thread and saw that it was a piece of cake. The 86 front bumper is mounted a little different than the 88' on the thread. There is no hole in the bottom of the bumper that goes to the bolts. Instead, you have to reach up and unbolt the bumper shocks from the body. That was a tight fit but got it done. Got the shocks off then went to drilling.
Got through both layers pretty easily so I was pretty happy this was turning out well. I was curious to how hard it was to compress them so I tried hitting them with a hammer and that didn't work so I got out the jack and tried using the car as my compressor. Well I just used the car and a jack extension because it lifted the car 3 inches without budging the shock. This little SOB deciding to be the biggest pain and after trying and trying I still couldn't get either one of them to compress. My Dad got home and couldn't figure it out either so he got the sledgehammer and after about 5 hits finally got it to compress.
Now I thought the hard part was out of the way but with the 86 bumper design the way it is a pain to get the bumper back on. I just decided to leave the bumper off for now since I have to have it off to do some body work anyways.
Found this on the camera while uploading pics, guess my friend thought he was being funny.
ohhhh and I test fitted the new shoes. Am I doing this right?
Next, pull a part and picked up some trim pieces and door latches. Then went to a part out car and got a shift knob, shifter boot, and window sealer/trim whatever you call it.
Anyways, here are a few pics, nothing special I just like to track what I've done.
Finally got around to installing the new windshield. Taking it out was easy, putting it back in...not so much. Random pic without a windshield.
Then got the door latches installed. I still need the trim piece to go around it but it's better than what I had before which was no handles at all.
And then I had both cars in the garage unable to drive. Cracked my transfer case in the jeep. :cry:
Then I got lazy and didn't really keep up with taking pictures of the build. I got the front windshield in and the sealer on the front and rear. Ripped out more interior trying to fix the stupid window motors that aren't working. Still haven't figured those out yet.
Then one night some friends and I got bored so we took the hood of and stripped the paint and sanded it down and started to rust it.
First attempt didn't go too well, didn't get all the primer off so I had to resand everything down.
pic of first attempt.
I have the hood almost completely rusted where I wanted. I'll post pics later.
Then I painted the grill with satin black krylon fusion.
Then I got a good deal on some JOM "coilovers" (no idea why they call these coilovers) but they lower the car a lot and are cheap so they work for me. I got those installed tonight. Sorry no install shots, I was too excited to finish to stop and take pics.
All done with 12 threads left to go on the front and running no adjusters in the rear.
I also got this air dam. Has a couple cracks I need to fix then I need to decide on paint. Cheap out and paint it black or get the bahama beige paint.
Tomorrow the plan is to steam clean the whole car, test out the "coilovers" and make adjustments, then mock up the front air dam.
Thanks for reading and follow along!
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