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This is the story of me and my E28.
I first saw it in March of 2011 sitting on the side of a road with a "for sale" sign in the window. I couple of weeks passed and I drove down the road a few more times until finally one morning I had to stop. It had lots of rust, it had a few dents and dings, and it was an automatic. I was discouraged, but I took down the number anyway.
A few days went by and I kept thinking about that car. One night when I was on my break at work, I decided to give the guy a call.
I went and test drove the car and for some reason, I fell in love with it. The automatic didn't shift on it's own, which meant that I had to manually go through 1, 2, 3, and then to drive. The thing was loud. I figured there was a hole in the exhaust somewhere. The seats were all torn up and the dash was cracked. I found even more dents and more rust. It was pretty bad, so of course I wanted it. I told him I loved it but that I had to wait until I sold my other car, which was a mk3 Jetta. I was a 17 year old highschooler at the time so I didn't have much money. It took way longer than I thought it would take to get rid of my Jetta, and I think he sort of gave up on selling the car, but I'd call him from time to time to see if he still had it. In early June, I finally sold my mk3. A few hours and a few hundred dollars later, the bastard was in my driveway.
These are the first pictures I took.
Like everyone else, I don't like the big American bumpers, so I took them off. This revealed the front valence thingy which was horribly mangled and falling off on the driver's side due to rust. So I took the valence off too. I had a spare mk3 bumper cover sitting on the side of my house and I tried to fit it just for fun. I was amazed to see that it fit almost perfectly. I took a cut off wheel and trimmed it a bit to fit the wheel wells, and drilled some holes to attach it. The turns from the e28 bumper fit pretty well with a little modification. I could have used mk3 turns but I didn't have any at the time. I like the way this looks.
I brought that e30 home the same day for parts. Everything was messed up with it, but it had everything I needed for a manual swap. And that bus was my bedroom for the spring/summer. The motor was out and being rebuilt so I removed the seats and threw a mattress in the back. I ran an extension cord and a cable to it and had a TV, stereo, and a PS2 on a shelf I made in the front seat area. It was great.
Back on topic.
One full day of owning the car at stock height was too much for me to handle. So the second day, my friend and I put it on the ground. But first, I had to take care of the rusted out shock tower. I didn't have any welding skills at that time. Luckily, I'm friends with a monk named Brother D. He lives at a monastery outside of town and he's in charge of the metal shop. He welded up a reinforcement plate for me. He's a great guy. Shoutout to Brother D.
I looked through Rusty's build thread to see how much Mr. Burroughs ended up cutting from the springs before Rusty was bagged. I liked the height so I decided to cut off the same. It was a long few hours of fighting rusted bolts and old junk, but I couldn't stop smiling when we were done.
The next morning.
I borrowed a Thule roof rack and did a mini photo shoot.
A few of us got together for a little cruise/shoot.
This park has a stream going over one of the roads, so we drove through it. I lost traction and almost slid off the side of the road where it's a few feet deep, and my friend with the Accord soaked the filter on his CAI so he held it out the window on the way home to dry it out. It's all good.
You know how everyone says that when they walk away from their car they just have to look back? Well yeah, I also have that problem.
I ended up trading a muffler for the roof rack I test fitted earlier. I built a little wooden basket for it. Which actually got used a few times. It wasn't entirely for looks.
By the way, that mustang dude parked on the wrong side of the pump. He got out and realized his tank was on the other side and had to turn around
The exhaust dragged all the time, it was the first thing I had a real problem with. It was pretty rusty at the point where the down pipe curves back right at the front of the car. It caught on the road and got ripped off.
Me and a girl to whom I gave the loving nickname of 'Chode' decided to have an arts and crafts day. We built a paper mache volcano to blow up with fireworks. Well, things got a little out of hand and we decided to paper mache a page of the newspaper onto my hood. Later that night we went to get ice cream and it fell off, but it inspired me. The next day my sister and I went through hundreds of old newspapers. We cut out the colored pictures on the front pages. It probably took around 6 hours. We mixed up some flour and water and went to work. I tried to wipe most of the mix off so that the pictures were more visible, and once it dried I scraped a little more off before I put cement sealer over the whole thing.
I also threw some comic strips on the rear.
I lost my license for a month at the end of the summer for a very stupid reason. I had a 30 day curfew on my license because I got a speeding ticket. I had to leave work a little early to get home on time, so I had it perfectly timed out so I could leave work as late as possible. Well, one night I was driving home with like a minute until curfew and I got pulled over for loud exhaust. I was like half a mile from home but the cop still got me for violating my curfew restrictions. The city probably was tight on cash or something. But anyway, I figured it was a good time to start on the manual swap. Between school, work, and having a girlfriend, I had like 4 hours of free time every weekend, so it started out really slowly. I pushed it outside and it sat all winter so that my dad could park in the garage. The next summer I bought an e36 M so I pretty much lost all interest in it. I'd do some random stuff from time to time and I ended up removing most of the interior. I love simplicity and I love it when people think my cars look like shit.
I took the motor out a few different times.
Figured out where I was leaking fuel.
I messed around with some walmart fog lights, but they were ugly so they came right off.
Added a pedal and tried to figure out all that wiring.
Test fit some wheels from the M3
Oh and I went to the park with my little cousin and he found this for me.
I moved into a shed at the end of the summer of 2012. I thought I'd have plenty of time and space to work on the car, but I ended up spending all of my time working on Volkswagens. So it continued to just sit outside. Eventually during the winter I brought it in. I had to figure out a few wiring issues and go through and clean the injectors and stuff, but I got it running again. I attached the front half of the e30 driveshaft to the back half of the e28's and luckily it was the right size. I wasn't sure if that was going to work or not.
In spring of 2013 I joined the Navy. I came home for 2 weeks in October and took all the spare parts out of the back seats and trunk, and I took some pictures.
As I type all this, I'm also eating cereal, and sitting in my room, in Japan. I'll be over here for the next few years, "protecting the world from terrorism". I'm always thinking of things I could do with my rusted, falling apart E28. It's the worst feeling realizing that it'll be so long before I can work on it again. Luckily, my Dad is holding down the shop so I have a place to store the car. I've had a couple people offer to buy it, but I can't figure out why anyone else would want it. I wouldn't be able to sell it anyway. I'd be too jealous. Honestly I'd scrap it before I sold it to anyone. I almost did take it to the scrapyard when I was back home, but I just couldn't do it.
I don't know how to describe the bond I have with this car. I feel like we have some kind of special connection. I've had a few other cars and after a month or two I get bored and just don't like them anymore. So I sell them and move onto something else. Maybe it's just because I've done so many little things to this car, or all of the ideas I have for the future.
I first saw it in March of 2011 sitting on the side of a road with a "for sale" sign in the window. I couple of weeks passed and I drove down the road a few more times until finally one morning I had to stop. It had lots of rust, it had a few dents and dings, and it was an automatic. I was discouraged, but I took down the number anyway.
A few days went by and I kept thinking about that car. One night when I was on my break at work, I decided to give the guy a call.
I went and test drove the car and for some reason, I fell in love with it. The automatic didn't shift on it's own, which meant that I had to manually go through 1, 2, 3, and then to drive. The thing was loud. I figured there was a hole in the exhaust somewhere. The seats were all torn up and the dash was cracked. I found even more dents and more rust. It was pretty bad, so of course I wanted it. I told him I loved it but that I had to wait until I sold my other car, which was a mk3 Jetta. I was a 17 year old highschooler at the time so I didn't have much money. It took way longer than I thought it would take to get rid of my Jetta, and I think he sort of gave up on selling the car, but I'd call him from time to time to see if he still had it. In early June, I finally sold my mk3. A few hours and a few hundred dollars later, the bastard was in my driveway.
These are the first pictures I took.
Like everyone else, I don't like the big American bumpers, so I took them off. This revealed the front valence thingy which was horribly mangled and falling off on the driver's side due to rust. So I took the valence off too. I had a spare mk3 bumper cover sitting on the side of my house and I tried to fit it just for fun. I was amazed to see that it fit almost perfectly. I took a cut off wheel and trimmed it a bit to fit the wheel wells, and drilled some holes to attach it. The turns from the e28 bumper fit pretty well with a little modification. I could have used mk3 turns but I didn't have any at the time. I like the way this looks.
I brought that e30 home the same day for parts. Everything was messed up with it, but it had everything I needed for a manual swap. And that bus was my bedroom for the spring/summer. The motor was out and being rebuilt so I removed the seats and threw a mattress in the back. I ran an extension cord and a cable to it and had a TV, stereo, and a PS2 on a shelf I made in the front seat area. It was great.
Back on topic.
One full day of owning the car at stock height was too much for me to handle. So the second day, my friend and I put it on the ground. But first, I had to take care of the rusted out shock tower. I didn't have any welding skills at that time. Luckily, I'm friends with a monk named Brother D. He lives at a monastery outside of town and he's in charge of the metal shop. He welded up a reinforcement plate for me. He's a great guy. Shoutout to Brother D.
I looked through Rusty's build thread to see how much Mr. Burroughs ended up cutting from the springs before Rusty was bagged. I liked the height so I decided to cut off the same. It was a long few hours of fighting rusted bolts and old junk, but I couldn't stop smiling when we were done.
The next morning.
I borrowed a Thule roof rack and did a mini photo shoot.
A few of us got together for a little cruise/shoot.
This park has a stream going over one of the roads, so we drove through it. I lost traction and almost slid off the side of the road where it's a few feet deep, and my friend with the Accord soaked the filter on his CAI so he held it out the window on the way home to dry it out. It's all good.
You know how everyone says that when they walk away from their car they just have to look back? Well yeah, I also have that problem.
I ended up trading a muffler for the roof rack I test fitted earlier. I built a little wooden basket for it. Which actually got used a few times. It wasn't entirely for looks.
By the way, that mustang dude parked on the wrong side of the pump. He got out and realized his tank was on the other side and had to turn around
The exhaust dragged all the time, it was the first thing I had a real problem with. It was pretty rusty at the point where the down pipe curves back right at the front of the car. It caught on the road and got ripped off.
Me and a girl to whom I gave the loving nickname of 'Chode' decided to have an arts and crafts day. We built a paper mache volcano to blow up with fireworks. Well, things got a little out of hand and we decided to paper mache a page of the newspaper onto my hood. Later that night we went to get ice cream and it fell off, but it inspired me. The next day my sister and I went through hundreds of old newspapers. We cut out the colored pictures on the front pages. It probably took around 6 hours. We mixed up some flour and water and went to work. I tried to wipe most of the mix off so that the pictures were more visible, and once it dried I scraped a little more off before I put cement sealer over the whole thing.
I also threw some comic strips on the rear.
I lost my license for a month at the end of the summer for a very stupid reason. I had a 30 day curfew on my license because I got a speeding ticket. I had to leave work a little early to get home on time, so I had it perfectly timed out so I could leave work as late as possible. Well, one night I was driving home with like a minute until curfew and I got pulled over for loud exhaust. I was like half a mile from home but the cop still got me for violating my curfew restrictions. The city probably was tight on cash or something. But anyway, I figured it was a good time to start on the manual swap. Between school, work, and having a girlfriend, I had like 4 hours of free time every weekend, so it started out really slowly. I pushed it outside and it sat all winter so that my dad could park in the garage. The next summer I bought an e36 M so I pretty much lost all interest in it. I'd do some random stuff from time to time and I ended up removing most of the interior. I love simplicity and I love it when people think my cars look like shit.
I took the motor out a few different times.
Figured out where I was leaking fuel.
I messed around with some walmart fog lights, but they were ugly so they came right off.
Added a pedal and tried to figure out all that wiring.
Test fit some wheels from the M3
Oh and I went to the park with my little cousin and he found this for me.
I moved into a shed at the end of the summer of 2012. I thought I'd have plenty of time and space to work on the car, but I ended up spending all of my time working on Volkswagens. So it continued to just sit outside. Eventually during the winter I brought it in. I had to figure out a few wiring issues and go through and clean the injectors and stuff, but I got it running again. I attached the front half of the e30 driveshaft to the back half of the e28's and luckily it was the right size. I wasn't sure if that was going to work or not.
In spring of 2013 I joined the Navy. I came home for 2 weeks in October and took all the spare parts out of the back seats and trunk, and I took some pictures.
As I type all this, I'm also eating cereal, and sitting in my room, in Japan. I'll be over here for the next few years, "protecting the world from terrorism". I'm always thinking of things I could do with my rusted, falling apart E28. It's the worst feeling realizing that it'll be so long before I can work on it again. Luckily, my Dad is holding down the shop so I have a place to store the car. I've had a couple people offer to buy it, but I can't figure out why anyone else would want it. I wouldn't be able to sell it anyway. I'd be too jealous. Honestly I'd scrap it before I sold it to anyone. I almost did take it to the scrapyard when I was back home, but I just couldn't do it.
I don't know how to describe the bond I have with this car. I feel like we have some kind of special connection. I've had a few other cars and after a month or two I get bored and just don't like them anymore. So I sell them and move onto something else. Maybe it's just because I've done so many little things to this car, or all of the ideas I have for the future.
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