M42club.com - Home of the BMW E30/E36 318i/iS
FAQ / REFERENCE => Member Profiles => Topic started by: ozymand on November 25, 2008, 01:45:14 PM
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I am the owner of a 1991 BMW 318is in Brilliantrot out of Forest Grove, Oregon. She's mostly stock (from what I can tell), and has been driven pretty good (155k on the clock). Suspension needs work, interior needs work, stereo needs work... she's even still got her 14" basketweaves.. but that's all sort of stuff I expected going in when I got this car.
My plans for her is for her to be a driving car. No real crazy mods (like what ended up happening to my old SCCA Solo 2, a Dodge Neon ACR sedan) but more for enjoying the ride and the occasional road trip to SoCal and Seattle.
You folks got a good resource here, been very helpful finding info and advice while lurking here. Hope to see you folks around!
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Welcome. Every profile thread needs pictures!
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Well, more than a year later and I'm finding out even more wrong with this car.
Lost my job in January '09, and garaged the car in March '09 because of growing oil leak. Haven't gotten a really good chance to work on her since then, but now that I'm getting the opportunity to dig into her, geebus. Take my advice, ALWAYS use a mechanic to inspect a used car before buying it. I bought this car from a member on this forums that I thought I could trust but apparently he chose to neglect to mention to me two critical things:
1) The oil FILTER housing was damaged/cracked and sealed with JB Weld (both inside and out). How the heck the oil filter housing got damaged this way eludes me but only makes me worry the condition of everything else. The grime and grit on the engine covered up this repair and didn't make it obvious until I was tracking down an oil leak and noticed it WEEPING from the now-broken JB Weld fix. Now I'm tracking down a replacement housing to replace this damaged one.
2) The lower oil pan was cracked by the two bolts that bolt into the rear of the engine. It was rewelded, nice. BUT, it was rewelded in such a way that the two rear bolts were UNUSABLE since they filled in the holes. So whomever did this repair decided to bolt up the oil pan SANS those two bolts. Oh, and they didn't put back in a gasket. They went in with overkill with gasket maker. Cleaning that up was a chore since it got into everywhere. Now that explains why the transmission was covered in oil as well. Had to drill out new holes in the oil pan in order to properly bolt the oil pan back up.
Oh, and then there's the nagging and odd things like there being fog lights in the front but the wire harness cut at the fog lights and no button in the dash. Huh?
So yeah, I'm bitter right now. The guy I bought this car from will never see my business ever again, nor will any of my friends whom I have told what I have found (and they themselves have seen wrong) with this car. But, the only person really to blame is I for not taking it to a mechanic (or a reputable BMW shop) before purchasing it to inspect the car.
My advice for anybody out there that's looking for a used E30? Always use a mechanic before buying. If the seller balks, walk away. Quickly. Or you end up in my situation and going to have to spend a lot more money getting the car operational and usable.
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Well, made more progress on the car. Got her re-shoed, Sears was running a special on Falken Ziex 912s (buy 3, get one free). Got 185-60/14s on the stock basketweaves for $250. Should be good tires for most of the time, and I got the truck to get around when there's snow on the ground. Also installed new Hella H4 low-beams on the car. The old sealed beams were on their last legs.
Tomorrow it's time to install the Mtech-1 steering wheel as well as taking care a bunch of interior issues. I'm hoping to get pictures posted soon, as soon as I can get them off my phone and onto a web hosting service.
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Well, made more progress on the car. Got her re-shoed, Sears was running a special on Falken Ziex 912s (buy 3, get one free). Got 185-60/14s on the stock basketweaves for $250. Should be good tires for most of the time, and I got the truck to get around when there's snow on the ground. Also installed new Hella H4 low-beams on the car. The old sealed beams were on their last legs.
Tomorrow it's time to install the Mtech-1 steering wheel as well as taking care a bunch of interior issues. I'm hoping to get pictures posted soon, as soon as I can get them off my phone and onto a web hosting service.
Good luck with all of your repairs man; I too in the same stage. But since I didn't pay that much for the car, I don't mind going through the car and addressing the issues.
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Here we go, finally got some pics posted. They're off my camera phone, so they're a bit on the fuzzy side, but they'll do for now!
(http://lh4.ggpht.com/_1-zDqUOEqx0/S0_ZZvZikCI/AAAAAAAABWE/pMc9xD5KMc4/s400/SSPX0004.jpg)
Here's the mess I found when I pulled the lower oil pan. The brown stain is from where the (abundant) gasket maker they used to attempt to seal the pan didn't work since they weren't able to install the two rear bolts. You can even see the two little nubs where the gasket maker got into the threaded holes in the upper oil pan!
(http://lh6.ggpht.com/_1-zDqUOEqx0/S0_ZZ6vLOsI/AAAAAAAABWI/1AdxFET_1c4/s400/SSPX0005.jpg)
My MacGyver (temporary) fix in order to get the engine running for the time being until I get the replacement parts from a seller on R3v. To temporarily fix it, I used a small bit of gasket maker to cover up the crack in the oil filter. I then applied a pipe band (rubber under metal) to "seal" the crack, at least so at least it'll hold pressure without leaking.
(http://lh3.ggpht.com/_1-zDqUOEqx0/S0_Zc5IkdyI/AAAAAAAABWQ/M7wmw9PjFQw/s400/SSPX0006.jpg)
The new tires to put on the car. Falken Ziex 912's in 185-60-14. We'll see how they do as I break them in.
(http://lh5.ggpht.com/_1-zDqUOEqx0/S0_ZZJZBZnI/AAAAAAAABV4/a_OqwA90zPs/s400/SSPX0001.jpg)
Swapped out the old E30 steering wheel (with airbag) for a M-tech 1 steering wheel. I like it much better than the stock steering wheel, just need to get use to having the blinker/wiper stalks being closer to the wheel.
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Spent today scrubbing the carpets in the car. When I removed the floormats (which I have a question about later in this post), the actual carpets were pretty tore up. One of the previous owners must of been a smoker as I found many little burn marks in the carpet. However, they did clean up somewhat decently but I still need floor mats.
Here's a question to you folks: for those of you with 1991 318is coupes, how do the floormats in the front secure down? The ones I got with the car have these screw-in clips that suppose to go into the floor, but the carpet in the car don't have holes for them to go into. With them being pretty shot (and the driver side one being a liability as it likes to slide around and get under the clutch/brake), what do you folks recommend as good replacement floor mats? I've been looking at the ones from BavAuto, but I'm looking to see what you folks have to say about it.
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More incremental work done today. Fixed the sagging glove box (dang, only one bolt holding the glove box onto the rear bracket) with a quick visit to Ace Hardware and getting some bolts, washers, and locking nuts to re-attach it. Pulled the after-market stereo and began labeling wires to install a new stereo in. Also got my new Matt-B shift and e-brake boots. The original shift boot was severely cracked and the e-brake boot wasn't in good shape either. Here's pics of the new shifter and e-brake boots:
(http://lh3.ggpht.com/_1-zDqUOEqx0/S1pD9AX4yqI/AAAAAAAABXs/RiQl5roDjKE/s400/SSPX0008.jpg)
(http://lh3.ggpht.com/_1-zDqUOEqx0/S1pD80Kh-qI/AAAAAAAABXo/mNxZtzI2Q1Y/s400/SSPX0007.jpg)
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No pictures from today. Weather is crappy and the lighting in my garage isn't good enough to take pictures with my cel phone.
First order of business was pulling the "original" aftermarket stereo out of the car. Face plate was missing buttons and it required turning the volume up pretty far to get adequate sound so it needed to go.
Installed the new stereo and hooked everything up using Posi-Lock splices (man, I love those.. makes it so easy to splice wires in cramped spots and if there's a mistake it's easy to correct!). Turned it on, and it works except the front passenger speaker is dead and need to be replaced. Also need to find the speaker pods that go up by the mirrors and install those.
Eventually I need to pull the carpet and remove all the extra stereo wiring and clean up the harness. Also want to pull some RCAs to the trunk to hook up an amp for the speakers (in the future).
With the stereo out, also replaced the 6-button OBC with a good one. Old one was bleeding in the display and made it hard to read. Much better now. Leaves only the really major projects left in the interior: reupholstering the driver/passenger seats and figuring out what to do with the cracked dash (I'm thinking of being lazy and getting a carpet dash cover.. 80s fabulous!).