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E30 318is

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318is bmw e30
60K views 99 replies 41 participants last post by  Magic 
#1 · (Edited)
About time I started this thread, I've had the car a couple of months now - still not driven it, but we'll get to that.

I'll start at the beginning. I had been toying of the idea of buying a new daily, I've never been that interested in Clios and with my 106 still not completed, I wanted something a bit cooler that I could work on whilst my 106 is being built.

I thought about buying a newer car, but that quickly faded and I decided to look for an E30. After doing some research I decided that I wanted something with facelift bumpers, sports interior and a manual gearbox. At this point I also realised I wasn't going be able to get a 325i for two reasons, price and MPG, neither I could live with.

After looking for a few months, all the cars I liked either sold before I even got to look or were priced outside of my budget. Then I spotted a 318is. I had actually wanted one of these from the outset, but I thought I would be hard pushed to find one in budget.

The car in question was this.







 
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#3 · (Edited)
From the initial photos the car seemed pretty tidy. So I contacted the seller and found out more about the car. Unfortunately this conversation put a real downer on the car. Two problems. The first problem being that the car hadn't been driven properly for a few years and so didn't have an MOT.

At that point I thought maybe this isn't the car, but like any good car guy I had already made my mind up. So I decided I would get the car delivered to me. No problem right?

This is where the second problem comes to play. The car is in Northern Ireland. Again I question whether it's going to be worth the money/effort and again the car guy mentality comes back - I'll make it work.

I contacted a couple of transporting companies and was actually surprised how reasonable the shipping quotes were.

So it was settled, I paid the delivery costs and told the seller that I'd have the car. What I had just done was in foresight, stupid, buying a car in a different country that I hadn't seen.

Anyway I had to wait a couple of weeks for the car to be delivered to me. During that time I done some more research and found common issues etc. I questioned the seller more, he sounded pretty legit, told me I'd have no issues getting an MOT.

Let's fast forward to the day the car arrives. The transporter turned up, I see the car for the first time and immediately think "the car looks a lot rougher than the photos". The guys then starts to unload the car and casually says "This might be difficult, seen as the clutch doesn't work". It's probably at this point I thought, the seller might not have been as legit as I thought.

Enough with the text, here's the car as I got it.









 
#4 · (Edited)
Obviously the first thing to do was give a quick detail. Whilst I was jet washing it off, I decided to remove the mudflaps and various screws/studs/rivets to hold them on. This car must of been hitting the McDonalds stages in Ireland, I must of removed 15 studs for old mudflaps.









And after the detail.



After that the obvious thing to do, is to the pull the seats out and clean the door cards.





After that pointless job I made a list of things that were broken. Predictably it's a long list. Here's a few.

- Clutch master & slave cylinder needed replacing
- Brakes needed bleeding/replacing
- Alternator and fan belt slipping
- Central locking broken
- Alarm broken
- Power steering broken
- Oil leak on sump
- Both balljoints perished
- ARB hanging off
- Exhaust blowing
- Stereo not working
- Petrol gauge reading incorrect
- Headlights broken
- Wipers broken
- All interior lights broken
- Battery dead

Surprisingly, the one thing that I thought would be broken - the sunroof, did actually work.
 
#7 · (Edited)
The first job was to sort the clutch. The problem was that the pedal had no feel and would drop to the floor. Apparently this a common issue on E30s, and most people seem to advise replacing both the master and slave clutch cylinders.

So I ordered up a new slave and master cylinder. Fairly easy job to replace them both, whilst I was there I cleaned up the reservoir, replaced the reservoir cap and painted the bracket.

Old master cylinder.



New master cylinder.



Preclean.





After clean.







Master and slave cylinders installed.







Bled the system and the clutch now works perfectly. On to the next job!
 
#12 ·
Love these shape of BM's! Probably the best colour too.
Cracking bit of DIY there on the clutch.

When yer man said you'd have "no issues getting an MOT" he must have been referring to booking one! You seem fit enough to sort the problems though!

Looking forward to the updates! :thumb:
 
#13 · (Edited)
Cheers for all the comments guys! Glad you're enjoying the progress.

I'm going to jump about again. With all the issues with the car, I decided the following weekend to tackle some of the wiring issues.

To begin with, I wanted to get the central locking working again. I didn't know much about how it worked, so I started at the doors and worked back. When I looked at the drivers side pillar I knew someone had been messing around with it before. I saw that a live wire had been cut and a couple of nasty terminals had been used. I'm not sure what the reason for this would of been, but it certainly isn't helpful.

So out came the soldering iron.









Soldering the live together actually fixed the central locking all round. Feeling lucky, I decided to tackle this.







At first I thought someone had fitted an aftermarket alarm, until I noticed a BMW logo and part number on the box. So I assume a dealer fitted the alarm, and to be fair it was a pretty tidy install. The only problem I had with it, was that fact it didn't work. I assume the car originally had key fob to arm/dearm the alarm, but I certainly didn't have it now.

The only thing to do, was to pull it all out.









It looks a lot tidier under the glove box now. I cable tied all the wiring back, and rerouted some wires to better locations. The car initially didn't start. I had to solder a couple of wires back together, then it fired back to life. Another completely pointless task done.

I'm going to jump through some of the other wiring issues now, I only took a few photos as there were a lot of wires to be soldered. Here's the boot light, pretty obvious it's wasn't going to work in it's current guise.





Moving forward, the interior lights were surprisingly working, however they both have lengths of wire attached to them. So I pulled it all out and soldered them back up.







The next wiring job was the speakers. Like every great 90s sports car someone has decided to fit 6x9s and run their own wire. Unfortunately this was tackled by both Edward Scissor Hands and Stevie Wonder.



Surprisingly, this mess actually worked! Well the rear speakers worked at least, the fronts weren't connected up for some reason. The rears had a single wire running from the head unit and then split off at the rear bench area to each speaker.



I bought some good quality speaker cable, ran it along the OEM wiring locations and then soldered it together with a new ISO block.



To finish off, I crimped some new terminals on the wires.



Tided it all up with some cable ties. I put some new speakers in the front, and finished up by putting my old 106 head unit in. I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out, a day well spent!





On the subject of the electrics, I decided to change all the fuses. There were fuses blown/missing, which meant that some of the electrics in the car didn't work. Replacing them fixed quite a few issues - including heaters, dials, some lighting, stereo and headlights.



That's it for the wiring - for now at least.
 
#25 ·
Nice work :thumb:
Bajeebus! That was a mess of a wiring situation! Glad to see you've got it pretty much sorted on that front. Crackin' work !
Brilliant work bud. Keep it going!

Cooks
Excellent project thread. Keep up the good work.
Cheers guys! It's pretty satisfying fixing all the electrical woes.

Despite its list of niggles, not actually a bad buy considering the risk you took. Love the E30s. Will be following the thread to see how it transforms. Original set of cross spoke BBS alloys will transform it completely.
Yeah, it's not too bad. The only real issue is rust.

I agree on the wheels! Once I've got the major issues resolved that's going to be my first purchase.

Good work so far. :thumb: Its obviously had a blow over at some point. I'd be tempted to have a poke around under that cracked paint at the bottom of the NS rear C post - who knows what lurking there!
Very observant! For what I can tell, it's probably had two equally terrible blowovers. The finish of the paint varies from terrible to rough. Hopefully with some correction it should come up fairly well.

I did actually look at that on day one, luckily it's only the paint cracking. The rust hasn't made it there yet haha.

Nice to see you tackling stuff in a 'proper' manner

Had an '86 E30 325i back in the '90s - what a tail happy beast that was! until I put some quality tyres on!

:)
Cheers man. I'm looking forward to driving it!

Ha Ha Stevie Wonder and Edward Scissorhands !! I thought it was only me that used those descriptions

Good work your doing though and making it look easy
Cheers man!

this.

nice project. .. just hope you didnt pay a lot for it :thumb:
Cheers man. It was a good price had it been drivable.
 
#26 ·
After fixing many wiring issues, I tested all the electrical items in the car to see what still wasn't working. The first on that list was the wipers. After a short investigation I realised that the wiper motor was the issue.

Now a little side note, after working on the car for quite a considerable time now, I've noticed that lots of things are bolted down improperly, fitted incorrectly, missing bolts etc. So I think one of the previous owners at some point stripped the car down to restore or something and then for whatever reason didn't. Decided to sell the car, and bolt everything back on badly. Now I'm paying cost.

Carrying on, once I got the wiper motor I noticed an issue.



The linkage was actually fitted in the incorrect position. I spent an hour adjusting that when I refitted the wiper motor.

I pulled the wiper motor out and opened it up to see if I could see any issues. I'm no wiper motor technician, but I knew there was an issue.



I disassembled the wiper motor and found the cause. The motor had stripped the flywheel teeth.



I thought this would be cheap fix. It's a common problem, so someone must sell replacement flywheels. No, of course not. I had to spend £50, for a whole new motor to get that plastic cog.

Once it arrived. I fitted the replacement flywheel, cleaned up the wiper motor and regreased everything.



I then cleaned up all the other plastics and brackets, and refitted the wiper motor. Note the correct position for the linkage.



Whilst I was there, I repainted the wiper arms and fitted new wiper blades.



All tested and working! However I found another problem when testing - I'm seeing a theme here. The washers don't work.

Finally, I decided to quickly run over the bonnet with my DA, just to see how it would come up. Looks pretty good for the short time I spent on it. Needs refining, but it'll do for now.



 
#27 ·
Love these E30 318is'
My old man had one years ago, in white, got when it was only 6 months old, the previous owner had spec'd it to the hilt, with a full black leather interior and 15" wheel upgrade etc etc, wish I could have afforded the insurance when he traded it in for an E36 version

John
 
#33 ·
They seem to be a popular modern classic. I nearly bought a white lower spec' E30, it looked great in white and it was non sunroof - wasn't supposed to be!

good work
Cheers buddy!

Wow! great work there buddy. I had few of these motors in he past, easy to work with as there are a lot of guides online. But it seems you are quite experienced anyhow so keep it up. I was a member of E30zone where you can get lots of info and tips.:thumb:
Thanks man! Yeah, there's masses of guides online, I've been a regular to E30 zone since I've been tinkering.

Excellent thread for an excellent car. You may have been duped a little but the car still looks pretty solid all things considered.

It will be worth it in the end and you seem to be doing a fantastic job - Best of luck to you!
Thanks man! I'm partly to blame, I should of had a look before buying. It's 'fairly' solid, you'll see why I say fairly in an future post.

Fantastic work so far :)

I feel your pain with the wiring....I looked at a Calibra years and it previously had a 'custom' ICE install and the owner had taken it all out to sell the car......wires everywhere but nothing worked....needless to say I left it!
Thanks man! The wiring turned into a massive job, I guess 30 years of 'enthusiastic' owners hasn't been good for the car. I actually done some more work on the wiring this weekend.

Stunning job so far and I eagerly await further updates......as a resident of the aforementioned N Ireland it jars somewhat that you werent told the full story by the seller as it tars a lot of folk with a negative image :(

I have sold a couple of cars into England and am actively still friends with the new keepers who keep me updated on their respective progress !

Best of luck, really enjoy seeing a car being properly attended to !!!
Thanks man!

I didn't really cover this much in the beginning, but with all the problems I ended up having with the car/seller, the delivery guy (from NI) went above and beyond. Due to some complications with payment, I actually sent the delivery guy the money for the car and he drew the money out of his bank and paid. He updated every step of the way and sorted out some details with the seller whilst I was working. I couldn't recommend him enough! I must dig out his name and give him some exposure.

Based on my experience with the delivery guy, I would 100% buy a car overseas again.
 
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