Euro Bronzit E30

[Felixb5]

Hi there! So nice to start a new thread in here. Itīs been a long time looking for an old school BMW but hey! finally got it.
You may remeber some of my old cars:
A3 Turbo

[
SSAT







Time to start a different project, something that can be stored and done right with time as it wonīt be my daily. Sad to say this is gonna be a sloooow progress thread due to cash flow mostly
Anyway, letīs start
Everything started like 6 months ago, that week in April I tried to hunt several BMWīs and I felt quite frustrated! every single car I test drove was shit, or someone was faster than me buying the car before etc. Saturday came and I had been talking with an e30 owner the night before that wanted to sell the car. Fair price and...well seemed right. I didnīt expect nothing special from that car but had free time and enough petrol in my car to go and see.

These are the pics the seller sent me that night












I drove it and.. I knew the car had a ton of work to do on it but I quickly felt in love and wanted to continue driving and driving. So did I, payed it and went home with it (1hour trip) Next day I had to come back with a mate to pick my daily up
124.000km on the clock, 1.8liter, power steering,rear drums,leather interior, 325 wing and bronzit! I know itīs not a beloved colour, but I f*cking love it..itīs so classy!

First thing I did was a deep cleaning in order to see where all the defects were and create a list of missing parts and bits.


REAR END:

-BMW emblem was missing
-bumper replacement
-Remove sticker
- Restore tails
- All new seals everywhere (water was leaking in)
- New "pre" style plate (without euro sign)
- paint lower part of the bumper and anticorrosion treatment
- shave trunk (remove antenna and weld piece of fresh new metal)



note no sticker and new emblem in this pic



FRONT
- Needed new bumper
-new metal front with lip
-left front brake vent
-new turn lights (one was slightly cracked)
- new emblem
-paint grill
-new plate





SIDE
- Buy side mouldings (the previous owner used kind of tape instead of buying new ones...)
- Paint lower part
- repair superficial rust on wing









INTERIOR

Pretty good condition
To do list:
- remove everything and reseal (carpet is wet)
- Semibaquets
- change shift knob

[Felixb5]

PREVIOUS STEPS BEFORE PART 1

Bought a parts car...just in case. Iīll use bumpers first and then weīll see. It has brand new dash, alpina equipment, maual sunroof, 6 cylinders, rear brake discs...




and started with the rear, stripping the inside of the trunk looking for water leaks




note the water on that one
holly shit! so dirty...I couldnīt pass that

[Felixb5]

PART 1: GO HARD OR GO HOME

I found more work than desirable so I thought letīs start things well..if not this will be a mess. I needed to organize all the work so first step was to rent a garage to deal with this in a comfy way






THE FUN STARTS! I think renting a garage was one of the best decisions Iīve ever made in my life hahahaha







Welded the big antenna hole and primmered it with anticorrosion primmer



Started to deal with the tails. resealed them with sika, repainted the black trim and laquered them all red








still need to polish them tough

bought new taillights gaskets too, here you have and old vs new to compare






fitted back and sanded, primmered and painted lower part of the bumper


continued refreshing every single screw... now was turn of the trunk seal...I really want no water at all in my boot
-old one



- new one:





painted the plastic mould over the lock area (I donīt know its exact name =P)





not finished with the trunk yet...
once again old vs new lamp holder





and new air vents with theis gaskets (also used SIKA in the outside area as you can see)





I ordered some new parts, but meanwhile tried to continue with other peding areas:
A lil bit of interior: My plans are to convert it into a two seater, detect the water leak, make it lighter but still driveable, hide the radio...
so there we go


Found the water related problem...a cap was missing (see the arrow), bought it and resealed all the other caps from both sides




removed all the insulation material (itīs soooo heavy!!) and gave a nice clean

and this is a rough idea of how I want my rear seat area to look like


About the carpet, I removed all the heavy foam from below and washed it, I easly saved 7Kg or more with this process




Found an original radio cover. Installed the radio behind it so that you can listen to your music conserving your retro interior



and finally Iīll show you this pic in which you can see an overview of the worked out interior excuse me the lack of quality but I just had the shitty phone. You can also see how I painted the rear seat area and shelf .

[Felixb5]

PART 2: 5 LUG CONVERSION

These beauties came home...that meant: 5 lug conv! I wanted low offset 16" and something that was not so played out




16x8 ET 23 FORGED

I was quite excited but trial fitting them with such tyres was ridicolous

After a visit to the scrapyard I found some required parts








cleaned them, painted them with rustoleum, fitted new brake hardlines and everything that was needed



aaaaaaaaand bought couple tyres to test

going to the tyreshop



TEASER! haha there you have





...




Removed antenna and installation as Iīll be playing pendrives and phone via bluetooth for music

[Felixb5]

Finally more parts started to arrive!
-E36 COMPACT COILOVERS



- HEL PERFORMANCE STAINLESS STEEL BRAIDED BRAKE LINES+ EBC 307+ FLUID


- FRONT ADAPTERS






-NEW BOSH E-BRAKE CABLES

[Felixb5]

Started with the rear axle

this is how the arches looked like, drums inclusive.




Removed springs, brakes, shafts and arms. Refurbished everything and changed fuel hose







- Side molding ready to install, and lower part to be redone



and done!


painted calipers, installed new arms and and changed hard lines along them. did ebrake lines too








Changed every bolt there and bought new retro style plates, installed them without the license plate filler. Also had to reinstall the standard height springs because I had vehicle inspection that month



Got the precious sticker!





New rear bumper and coilovers in the rear





Time for fronts and coilovers now

[Felixb5]

Took the bumper from my parts car, sanded it down and sprayed it



The metal front was also replaced



and new blinkers (from parts car)



cleaned kidneys



grill ready for paint



New plate and emblem







Test fitted fronts

[Felixb5]

Theen my daily broke and spent some time fixing it...








test drove and back on BMW...

[Felixb5]

FRONT



AAAAAAANDDDDDDD THE DAY CAME!!!!!







































FINALLY LOWERED!! SOOOOOOO HAPPY WITH THE STANCE AND THE HANDLING











will have a nice shooting when finished..

[Felixb5]

Drove it like that for a while...never had a RWD before and love it. Iīve been working so hard in the car that Iīve not even refueled it yet. Now the car feels completely different. bye bye spongy brake pedal and faulty stock suspension.

I went to my GFīs village because there is a public car weighing machine there and nice twisty roads!!

got these measurings
- 1020kg Rear seats still in and full petrol tank


- and here it is by my GFīs Ibiza, wheel caps in

[FiveInline]

Nice project so far!
Love the wheels and hight!
Good work!

[Tate]

Looks really noice. You do good work sir.

Love those wheels and the tails.

[Felixb5]

.

[Felixb5]

Looks really noice. You do good work sir.

Love those wheels and the tails.

Nice project so far!
Love the wheels and hight!
Good work!

Thanks guys!

Well... time to attend my first meet with the E30 Garage Club!




More than 70 last time...



including several M3īs



Cheers!

[Felixb5]

UPDATE

Blew out my clutch! I was in a local meet and after playing a little bit, my pedal stucked to the floor. Actually I knew that was gonna happen =P

Had to tow the car back home



Kind of good news... SWAP is comming...







m50 non vanos from an e34. 170.000km on the odo