The new project car: 1989 e30 M3

9.10.04
After work today my friend Jim came by and installed the windshield and rear glass. When he originally pulled the glass, he hung on to them for me since he has a better means to store it. The problem is that the rear window still had tint on it and I was not sure what to do about it. I wanted the tint off but it is difficult to remove normally, let alone without damaging the rear window defroster. I started to peel the corner of the tint back to see how bad it would be and it started peeling off fine. I just used slow and steady pressure and managed to peel it off cleanly in one piece! That could have turned into such a difficult project. The rest of the installation went without problems. I also installed the rear side glass and assembled some more of the dash.

8.28.04
The car has been in my garage at home for a while, but I just have not had time to do much with it. I pulled it out on Saturday and was able to get a fair bit done. I installed the dash from the cabrio and put most of the controls in. I will put new bulbs in the cluster before I reinstall that. I am curious about the K N S lights in the cluster as well.

I also put together much of the interior, including the rear seat, door panels, window and door trim, etc.

4.25.04
Here is the new panel finished and the car after the first of the paint work. I am so happy to finally see the car in red :)

4.21.04
Here is the panel installed and almost finished. I am not sure how easy it is to tell from the pic, but my friend that installed the panel did a really nice job. He brass welded the sides, spot welded the top and bottom and then blended the panels with some filler. It is just waiting for more sanding, a finer body filler putty and then primer.

4.16.04
Here you can see the way the panel is installed, with the brass welding, spot welds and body filler.

4.7.04
Ok, the panel arrived! Next step is removing the old panel, which includes drilling out the spot welds and cutting out the rest.

3.30.04
I removed a few more parts from the front and rear of the car and started to clean some of the areas. I am still waiting on the panel, but should have that soon.

3.29.04
The lower panel beneath the windshield is still available, so that was ordered today. It will be much easier to just cut out and replace then entire strip than fixing all the individual rust spots. Hopefully this will be in tomorrow. I also received my rear wheels back from the refinishing shop and they look awesome. They also mounted the new rear tires (Kumho Ecsta MX 245/40/17). I was planning on using the existing front tires for now, but seeing the new rear tires makes me want to get some new ones for the front as well :)

3.28.04
I pressure-washed the car, mainly to get the engine well and front of the car clean. This will just save some time when prepping this area for paint. I had to drive the car down to the detail area of the shop, which was interesting given the current state of the car. I definitely got some funny looks from people out on the street :)

I also removed the dash which is a fairly complex job. The existing dash was cracked and I was planning on installing the one from the cabrio anyway, but it also needed to come out so that the panel below the front windshield can be cut out and replaced.

3.27.04
More stripping, as body work should start next week. I removed the hood and doors as well as stripped down the bumpers.

3.25.04
The windshield and rear window were removed today, which helped to reveal some of the work that needs to be done. I could see a bit of rust under the paint below the windshield, but now that it is out you can see that much of that area is rusting. Most of this will need to be cut out and replaced. I will also likely add some additional drain holes to prevent this from happening again. The area around the rear window is fine, but the window was removed to be able to paint that area properly. I also removed all the trim from around the doors, which was somewhat tricky.

3.24.04
I did not have much time to work on the car, though I did manage to remove the sunroof. It was a pain, though I did finally get the majority of it out. The procedure is to pull the front of the sunroof liner down (unclip it from the sunroof), then put the back of the sunroof up. This will allow you to slide the sunroof liner back into the roof and then access the 6 torx screws. After that, the sunroof panel lifts out the top. I am still working on getting all the track components out, but that should not be that bad.

3.23.04
The fender roller which I rented from Brett Anderson at Koala Motorsport arrived, so I rolled the rears. I took my time and I think they came out really well. It would not have been a big deal if the paint had cracked since the paint work is still to come, but better that it did not. I will hopefully get the fronts done on Wednesday. I also removed the side skirts and a bunch of smaller pieces. I am glad to see red areas showing up, as that means I am getting the car stripped down further than they did for the previous (purple) paint. I also ordered the new rear tires (Kumho Ecsta MX 245/40/17), which should be in early next week.

3.19.04
Not much happened today, though I did manage to remove the bumpers.

3.18.04
More time removing parts. I got the rear side windows out, most of the door/window trim, door panels, rear seat and a bunch of small items removed. I also received my front wheels, which I had sent out to be refinished. Now I just need to order some new rear tires and then send out those rims for refinishing as well.

3.17.04
The project begins. There is a ton of prep work to do, so I started with some of the easy items to remove, like the lights, indicators door seals, trunk lining, etc.

Well, I finally decided to start the paint work on the M3. Things are a bit slow at work right now, so I figured this would be a good time. I will be doing any of the prep work that I can, but leaving the actual body and paint stuff to the pros :)

I decided to go back to the original red. Since I am not going to have the motor out anytime soon, I did not want to complicate things by trying to do a full color change.

Yay, my Strömung muffler arrived!! The only problem was that apparently the muffler on my car was replaced once before, and where they welded it on was too far forward for me. I cut at the seam weld, though it ended up leaving the pipes to the muffler a little too short (it seems like the muffler should be back about another inch or so). This should be fine for now and I will likely have the center section replaced with something else in the near future, so I will just have the tubes to the muffler made a bit longer. As far as sound, it still seems somewhat quiet, though there is definitely a deeper sound to it. I did notice a big difference in sound just within the short drive home. Once the muffler has opened up a bit more, I will get a video with sound.

Ok, brakes and oil change time. I removed the lower oil pan and installed the new baffle, which was really easy. Here are a few pics of that project:

I then replaced the brake pads and rotors, as well as install the cabrio front suspension (Ground Control) and Sparco strut bar. I ran out of time, so I was not able to install the rear GC suspension. I will probably finish that in the next few weeks. I also need to paint and install the other calipers, as well as install stainless steel brake lines and change the brake fluid. The silver that I sprayed on the rotors is a brake rotor and pad treatment, which you can spray directly on all parts of the rotors and pads. It works as an anti-squeak but is nice since it also prevents the rotors from turning rusty.

The only weirdness which I have noticed is a creaking sound coming from the steering rack. My assumption is that something is rubbing now that the car is much lower in the front. I'll check to see if there is some interference between the tie rods and the lower front cover.

I purchased a pair of 17x9 M System II wheels for the rear. This will be for the new engine setup, so I am not sure when I will install them. I am thinking of running 215/40/17 tires in the front and 245/35/17 tires in the rear. These two tires have the same diameter, and are about the maximum I can easily run on a lowered M3. The new wheels have a machined lip, where my existing wheels have the silver painted lip. I will either have the fronts machined to match, or have them all polished.

When I swap the suspension from the cabrio over I will rebuild and powdercoat the calipers, add stainless steel brake lines, swap the 25mm master cylinder, etc. I just wanted to refresh the braking system for now, since I have a bit of steering wheel shimmy while braking at moderate to high speeds.

I purchased a lower oil pan gasket and will hopefully have the oil pan baffle soon. I decided to do the brakes at the same time, so I purchased pads, rotors and sensors. I decided to give Zimmerman cross-drilled rotors a try, since I have never used them. I have had good success with stock rotors and have heard that the cross-drilled tend to crack easier, but this will give me a chance to see for myself. As for pads, I went with Porterfield R4-S. I have never used them before, but have heard good things about them and decided to give them a try.

Ok, next on the list is a tune-up and cooling system overhaul (has a leaky water pump). I picked up all the things I could think of, so we will see how it goes. I will wait on the oil change until next weekend, since I should add an oil pan baffle at the same time.

The water pump install was fairly simple, though I did run into a few issues. The fan clutch nut is a 32mm, though you need a narrow wrench to get to it. A suggestion of getting a "head wrench" from a bicycle shop worked great. The other problem was that one of the water pump bolts broke while trying to take it out. Once I removed the old pump, I could see there was enough of the old bolt to grab. I sprayed some penetrating oil and worked it out with some locking head pliers. Luckily there was no drilling and tapping involved! :)

The other issue I had was purging the air from the system. I filled the cooling system and then started the car with the heater on high. For some reason the temperature was getting pretty high, though the heater kept blowing cold. I would shut the car down and let it cool, then go through the process again. Finally I took the car out and drove it and things seemed to normalize, though the temp likes to stay right around the half-way mark. I am used to my cabrio running around the 1/4 mark, so I will see what I can do with this one. Suggestions have been to replace the expansion tank and cap, as well as replacing the clutched fan with an electric one.

I did not get the tune-up parts installed, with the exception of the air filter. Once I get the oil pan baffle, I will get the oil changed and the tune-up done.

The bracket install/slider swap was pretty simple, and the seats went in without any problems. The seats are definitely higher than the old ones, though I generally have my seats pretty high anyway so I think it will be fine. I should put my helmet on and make sure that I will not have any clearance problems when autocrossing.

The driver's seat was not working well (seat back was difficult to lock in a position), and after checking out some other used stock seats I decided to go with some new aftermarket ones. After searching for a bit, I decided on the Recaro SRD in black cloth. I purchased the seats and brackets from Conversion Techniques in Oakland. If things go well, I should get them installed this weekend.

I purchased an 89 m3 with 94k miles on it, to replace my cabrio. The car was basically stock, with the exception of some chrome 5-star wheels and a dark purple paint job. The wheels were swapped for the M5 wheels off my cabrio, which made a big improvement. I am not exactly sure what I will do about the paint, though at this point I am considering taking the car down to bare metal/fiberglass/plastic and starting all over. The car was originally red, though I am not sure if I will go back to that (not really a fan of red cars). My first choice of colors would be lachssilber, though we will see. I could even go something brighter, like platinum silver.

The car runs really well, though I plan to do a major tune-up in the near future. Besides that, I will likely leave the engine alone for now. I am considering installing the s50 in the car in the future, but we will see.

Some of the cabrio parts will be going on the M3, including all the suspension and brakes, the colorline ellipsoids/EVO grilles/black kidneys, the dash (existing one has a couple of cracks), the short shifter and knob, etc.