They told me E30s were played out

[Absorbantnut]

Very cool thread. I really like all the attention to detail & parts that you made!

[gnmzl]

Slow day at work, so I can actually go through the heap of pictures from the rust repairs.
Here's another portion of those. Let's start with the rear right trunk pocket, where usually the battery resides. It wasn't too bad on first inspection, but more careful examination showed severe rust damage.

Lower back side, behind the rear right wheel:




Back side, under the bumper (it had been previously repaired):



Cut the hell out of it:



Weld and grind, finished:



Cut the part behind the wheel:



Weld, grind, prime:




The hole inside the wheel well already patched:



While we have the rear right wheel well in our scope, let's check out the other rotted spots. That's where the rear beam would be bolted to the chassis, the outer lip had seen some halfassed repair in the past, the rocker had some rust damage as well:





The fender lip's previous repair, you can't really see it, but there were weld beads all over the place, straight pieces of metal welded on random places and then smoothed over with bondo:




First patch already in place, that would have been the easy one for this spot, I suppose:



What it looked like before welding in the outer skin of the panel:



I had acquired legit panels for the body repairs and we had agreed, that the repair person would only cut where necessary and cut the needed piece from the panels as exact fit, so here is the result for that part:



Rocker piece also welded in and welds ground down:



Factory jack stand piece in place and primed:



The back end arch of the outer lip had to be cut out as well, the inner lip was fabricated using a front wing's lip, the bends and diameter of the circle are the same




Welded the outer lip, cut out to exact match from a new panel:



Aaand ground down:



Looks nice!



A wild rust hole appeared, where the power supply cable ran, there is a plastic cover that prevents the cable from rubbing against the chassis and causing a short circuit, but it also preserves moisture for the rust monster, that was slowly eating the car:




Isn't that a $eXy patch or what?




Then it turned out the little stud, that is usually holding the tank expansion canister whateverthethingiscalledorsupposedtodo, had moved away and left a big hole in my heart:




The spot, where the end of the classy eurobumper is screwed to the rear quarter panel had sadly desintegrated:



Replaced with fresh sheet metal:



The locking mechanism for the fuel filler door had also been kind enough to held up enough moisture and rot its own mounting points:



Punish with cutting!



Weld new stuff on it (sadly don't have a picture with the new holes:



Let's now move to the left side of the car. The front rocker panel was rotten just where the factory jack point is. The stuff you see inside is hollow space conserving compound, quite popular in our part of the world :



Fresh piece made and mocked up:



Welded in:



Ground down like a baws



Jack point welded in and primed:



Then a wild derp face appeared, right where the external fuel pump is. My car has 2 fuel pumps, I recently had an argument with a douche, who claimed only m3s have 2 fuel pumps. I asked him to explain why do both my e30s have 2 fuel pumps then ... no response. Anyway, the rotted metal:



Cut and ready for removal:




Welded and ground down:



Original brackets tacked on:



There was also a small issue a bit further away, that's where the rear arch and left rocker meet:




Then we had discovered a really bad spot, it's further back from the factory spring perch. The problem was, that the metal there is dual sheet , but the superrepairman managed:






Inner layer of new sheet metal, with the same thickness as factory:



Outer layer welded in and ground down:



The left fender lip needed just a bit of love:



Inner lip fixed:



Outer lip mockup



Welded and ground down



Some nasty holes appeared on the bulk head, where it joins the inner front left wheel well:



Sunshine!!



Fixed:




Then we discovered another nasty @ss previous repair. That is where the AC tubing would usually go through the frame:



Naaasty



Cut it away with fire!



Welded in new sheet metal, again with factory thickness and ground down (don't worry the body nut was returned to stock position):




Onto the next ghetto repair! That's the driver's side trunk latch:






Cut it away!



Fixies <3




Some holes revealed themselves in the front part of the left front inner wheel well, where it meets the sheet metal in the engine compartment, where the ABS pump sits:




Cut, welded and ground down:




The front right wing needed some love, because of my stupid repairs in the past, when I got the car:



And in the lower part, below the trim:



So, that's all for the repairs, next post will be short and will include the subtle modifications to the chassis.
Thanks for looking!

[gnmzl]

OK, time to tell you about the rust repairs.

Once we reached the location, where that awesome e30 guy does repairs, we unloaded the car and mounted it on the jig he had previously put together for his own e30s (4 in total ) and proceeded taking the doors, hood and wings off:



Then we flipped it to check what's the real damage:



At that time we discussed some stuff we needed to make clear, mostly what I want and how I want it. Then we got back into the e38 with now an empty trailer and headed back home, leaving my beloved car in the hands of the most capable person I could find. I knew that he is a good welder and he had brought back many e30s from beyond the grave, so I was not worried at all.

He started work and was kind enough to send me pictures of all the steps he did, I am going to pick the most interesting ones and share them with you guys.

Let's start with the most notorious rust places on an e30 - footwells. Here is the passenger side:

Outside, underneath the lower wing side



Awesome previous repair:



Cancer cut out:



Aaand welded new stuff in:



Outside view of the patch:



Driver's side was no better, another bad repair from the past:



What it looked on the outside prior his interference:



Cut it all out!!!:



Weld new stuff in <3



Outside view of the repair:



And on these pictures you can see what I had previously achieved with the holes in the rear passengers feet, I want to crawl into a hole and hide myself forever and ever because of these:




Thankfully, the body guy did a good job repairing my repairs:



What it looks like from underneath:



One done, one to go, you can see the difference in quality:



Driver's side done as well:



Driver's side from underneath:




That's it for now, I'll post again, once I sort some more pictures, since they are just dumped on my harddrive and it's difficult to post them in some order.

[gnmzl]

Thanks for the nice comments, guys!

interested in exactly what you did to get the 5 lug hubs to fit.

so you are a running a funky spacer? just kinda confused

I used a steel "spacer" to make the e36 hub fit the e30 spindle and a custom nut to hold the hub onto the spindle using the stock thread, but with a 46mm diameter, as the e36's nut is. Here are some drawings to make it more clear:











The 5mm thick thingie is there, so that the race of the bearing seats properly. That results in 8mm per side wider track, because of its 5 mm thickness, and 3 mm difference between the e30 hub and the e36 hub.
That I didn't like, that's why I am redoing it. The next version will be revealed once I have completed the assembly.
Will tell you what happened next in my following posts, thanks for your interest!

[Mehowski]

This is a great write up, a great write up always make the thread 10x better.
Also I love the E30, and seeing your enthusiasm for yours enforces that I want to pick up an E30 asap.
In for more!

[CubbyChowder]

subscribed, I like where this is headed

[CHIF8008]

interested in exactly what you did to get the 5 lug hubs to fit.

so you are a running a funky spacer? just kinda confused

[gnmzl]

Thank you all for the kind words! I shall then proceed bringing the story up to date.

Чак на края на темата видях ,че колата е с бургаска регистрация Надявам се да я видя на живо някъде из бургас

От Бургас съм, но рядко се прибирам за съжаление. А колата можеш на живо сигурно едва след няколко месеца да я видиш, обяснението ще намериш по-надолу
Не пречи да се запознаем като си дойда накрая на този месец.

Soo let me continue the joke.
Found my old phone and dug up the comparison pictures of the springs I used, next to the H&Rs previously installed.



Next to a stock one, the rears are on the right:





Soo after the e30 meet, I didn't actually do much to the car, just drove it like that and really really enjoyed it. Changed the rear tires from 215/40/16 to 215/45/16 and lowered it back again on the -60 springs, but then the battery started moving around the trunk. Cut the rear bump thingies on the spring perch and "fixed" that issue.

However, since I moved last September, I had to find a new garage to rent, had to be near me and since most of them are underground, the car had to be able to get over the ramp without scraping. I found one and quickly made a deal to rent it for a year. Moved all my stuff in there (spare m20b27, spare trailing arms and front struts, the lot). Unfortunately, rainy days came upon us in November and a pipe broke, resulting in me having a flooded garage and some damage to the paint was done:



I quickly took measures and did the best I could to repair it, polishing and whatnot. Those actions made me take a closer look at the paint and overall condition of the chassis. I had done some repairs in the past, as you can see in the above picures, but they were all so ghetto, that I am actually ashamed to show to other people. So a decision was made (actually three decisions):

1. Move the car to another garage.
2. Abandon flooding garage. Find an actual workshop with mate andrent it.
3. Start actual work on car in new workshop.

So, point 1 was easy to take care of - the new place I got came with a garage, but being low didn't allow me to put it there, so I used it mostly as storage and rented the one that floods. Tried with some wooden planks, got in without scraping, so the planks never left the trunk. Good jerb!
Point 2 proved to be a bit tricky. We searched for a workshop with a good location to work on our cars. I have a friend, who was at the time renting a garage in the same underground place, where I did. His flooded as well. So we decided to finally move in together <3

He found a nice place 5 minutes away from where I live, we rented it started painting and taking out trash, when guess what? It effing flooded as well. So we abandon ship.

Then he found this other place (actually cheaper then previous one), with 2 separate stalls and something like a storage room above one of them. Perfect. Rented and started moving shit. Which was nice.

Then I had to go on a business trip and had half a month to think about how I want to handle the chassis of my car. There are guys in our clique (how do you spell that word damn it) who had stripped their cars completely and done things properly. I kind of knew in the back of my head I want to do the same and I had actually discussed that with those guys, but it was always like you know .... "meeeh, let future me handle that".
Well, I was now future me and had to start working on that chassis, if I wanted to preserve it and enjoy it in the future. Thanks, past me!

So, once stupid winter was over (which took long enough), I washed her and took her out for two last night drives. Filled her up:



And took my buddy with me to help me burn some gasoline in the night. I knew I was goind to not drivbe this car for a long time and needed a motivational drive.
On the day I had planned to start the tear down, it literally started to fall apart, as if it knew and held on to that day - the clutch started slipping and the flywheel was shimming on takeoff, the radiator brackets broke off and it slammed against the fan, a halfshaft burst its booj and made a huge mess, ruining one of the wheels. Also minor other stuff like headlamp shortcircuit and the horn jamming on happened, but that's not relevant. All in one day!

So, I took her to the garage and started working, you can see the flood damage on the back side of the rocker:



Interior out, carpet out:





You can see the signs of my ghetto repairs on the last picture. As I said, not proud. Detailed pictures will follow of each spot with the repairs.

Started on the front:



For some reason, I think this picture is effing awesome, I get the chills everytime I look at it:



As you can see, rust has taken its toll on my radiator support, on the back side it was worse:



Got some stuf fremoved from the engine bay, you can clearly see the wax someone applied back in the day. I honestly think its a nice thing to do on a winter car.



Dash removed as well, not much left:



Then the windshield was removed, with the help of a friend, since I tend to crack them:



Backseat ... believe it or not, I once drove a girl home, who WANTED to sit in the back, while the rear seat was out. Go figure:



Jacked it up to get it ready for pulling the engine and taking off suspensions and stuff:



Me getting ready to pull the engine, trans is already out, I had a friend help me out.





Aaaand out on the hoist!




Please note the e28, it belonged to the friend, who helped me out with the motor and later for some dummy jigs, more on it later. The e21 belongs to the friend I share the workshop with. It's a genuine euro 323 with sunroof. We got some goodies for it today actually.

Then I took the wings off and put back the hood, so I can work on the sunroof an lining. Steering column is out as well, almost a bare shell now.



Took the sunroof and lining out, man was that a PITA. I broke some stuff, but who cares, I have spares ready to go:



Steering rack and front crossmember are on the ground on this picture, chilling with my daily <3




After I had removed everything from the car, and I mean everything, we decided to make it movable by weling wheels to some unusable crossmembers. The friend, who helped me out pulling the motor came over and started cutting and welding (I can't weld for $hit):




Once done, we put them on the car for like 10 minutes, really easy and rolled it out for the first time in 20 days!





Got camber?




I had talked to an e30 guy back in december about taking the bare shell to him, so he can fix the rust. I visited him while he was working on a friend's e30 to check on his skillz and I was very pleased and much wanted my car to be welded by him. I had told him about all the issues I knew about and we had negotiated a price ( well not really, he named a price and I just nodded ). I kept sending him pictures of the rust spots while I was tearing it down to make sure he knows what he is dealing with. He said I had pointed all pretty much all the stuff and the "surprises" were not a big deal.

So I talked to a dude, who is into shark BMWs to help me transport it to the body work guy (385 km away) and we loaded her up!




What happened next will be presented in my next posts.

[99sil-teg]

Well this escalated quickly, can't wait to see the progress, off to a good start already.

[iKarolis]

You are some inspiration that leads me to my garage Great job done!

[Nystad]

Nice work, never get tierd of the e30

[gilpmren]

Interesting read! I can't wait to see whats next for this story!

[K-Line]

i like this, super jealous of euro bumpers and MT1!

[jbginger]

Don't be fooled, they are. But I like yours.

[OsckR]

Чак на края на темата видях ,че колата е с бургаска регистрация Надявам се да я видя на живо някъде из бургас