'91 BMW 320i... This could get ugly

Communities Vehicles & Mobility
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So a few weeks ago now, i had to opportunity to fill the empty spot in my garage with a new play thing… At absolutely no cost to myself… Barring the tow truck fee ofcourse…

The downside… Or upside, depending on who you are, and what you find pleasing, is that this “free” purchase, is a 1991 BMW E30 320i… complete with 2.0l in-line 6 cylinder engine (yup the good old M20) an Auto transmission, and that strange looking BLUE interior…

For those who need there memory refreshing… this is a pic of the actual car, as it sits in my shed right now…

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No doubt some of you will be wondering why in the name of god, one of these… For that the answer is simple… for some ineplicable reason, i love the body on this thing… to me personally, this was one of the last desings from BMW that i really enjoyed, before they, like so many other Manufacturers began a slow decline into “Fat” and “Round” cars…

What can i say… theres just something about how “Basic” this design is that attracts me… With that in mind, i guess at the end, i would really like to retain as many original parts as possible, or at the least “genuine” parts for around this era… while making it alot more reliable than it currently is, improve the ride a bit, and maybe eek just a little more power out of that poor little engine… All without needing to get an engineer to sign off on my work, so unfortunatly that rules out Manual conversions, and engine transplants (at least, non-bmw engines anyway).

So after a few weeks of podering what i was going to do to this, i decided to open this up a little to you guys here, that spend a bit of time floating around here in the vehicles section… to make this post, to serve several purposes…

Firstly, to here all your thoughts, suggestions, and ideas with regards to this project… and for me to bounce possibilties off you all aswell…

And also, to slowly but surely document my very possible decline into insanity… For your amusement aswell ofcourse =)

So for a basic rundown on my plans so far… in no particual order…

Partiall engine re-build (it has only got 144000kms on the clock, so not due a complete overhaul for a while yet).

Full transmission rebuild, due to a few issues floating around in there… have had it looked at, and apparently a full re-build of the trans is going to be cheaper and quicker than diagnoses and repairs…

Full and complete re-wiring, complete rebuild of the engine loom, dash and interior wiring… as we all know, it really is the electrical issues that cause most of the problems these older BMW’s have…

And ofcourse, a bit of a re-work with the suspension and brakes, mostly just stiffening up the ride a little, dropping the ride hight by about an inch, and impoving the stopping power a little bit…

And now that i have un-intentionally assulted you all with a massive wall of text, those of you who managed to make it through all that get the chance to give your opinions, thoughts and suggestions… while i go try take some more photos, and shop around for parts…

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I really like this car as well. I had a 1989 325i back when. How do you feel about building a computer into the car? Perhaps a version of Linux or Android for music and maps. Maybe a tablet mounted in the dash somewhere. It might be a bit ugly unless done right, but it would be handy.

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I have considered mounting a tablet into the dash, But you are right, unless it was really well done, it would look VERY out of place...

I have however been pondering the idea of mounting something, be it tablet or a mini-pc build, into the glovebox instead ( given im not a fan of storing things there anyway) that way it would be there when needed, but not visible all the time...

I may consult some of members local to me about getting something 3D printed to mount a Tablet in the back of the drivers sun-visors?

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Are you gonna repaint it or keep it original ?
If your gonna paint it i would make it black, and redo the interior to white, but that is just me :D

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I've been wanting to do some sort of car-puter for the longest time to get rid of the standard deck entirely but the biggest obstacle is retaining FM radio.
I think you've got a solid plan except its missing one thing, gold rims

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A little of both...

The current paintwork has definatly seen better days... stone-chips, scratches and plenty of stains... However, depending on local availability, i would prefer to have it re-sprayed in the original Alpine-white...

The interior is.... well its blue... so im definatly going to explore the possibility of a change in color scheme lol

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The white looks great in the E30, its the best colour that I've seen these old ones in. Black interior is definitely the way to go too.

I'd consider changing the wheels. I feel that no matter what you do the car, they're going to bottleneck the 'well looked after' vibe you'd get from it.

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Yea... The wheels are a little irritating at times... Absolutely impossible to proplery clean...

I dont really see a white interior working... mostly cause it would be so difficult to keep clean... black i may be able to work with... And would offer a really nice contrast to a white exterior...

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They look frustratingly painful actually haha

Oops, I meant a white exterior and a black interior, not a white interior, I can see how you thought that though
Thinking about other colours for the exterior, a bright red could be another option. If you can, use the exterior colour as the stitching colour in the interior, it can accent it nicely. The Giulietta QV makes quite a nice example of this :)

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Sorry lol

The white interior comment was more directeed at Infinite_Z3RO than you, but yea... i couldnt deal with trying to keep that clean...

Oooooo.... black interior with white stiching........

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Oooo that would looks nice.

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This E30 320i straight 6 12 Valve engine, is realy decent exaly.
The body works looks in a good shape on the outside.
How is it underneath?

These cars are realy easy to drift with by the way.

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the underbody is quite reasonable really, only the odd patch of surface rust, and a bit dirty, but otherwise in pretty good condition...

Its my understanding the guy who gave it to me bought it off a woman who's late husband had it sitting in their garage for 7-8 years... hence the very low k's for such an aged vehicle...

Ill try get some more pics over the next week for you guys... rapidly running out of natural light at the moment though... and being winter here, its dark when i leave for work, and darker still when i get home lol

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cool looking forward to see those.
My dad had one of these cars back in the days.

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oh snap ... Anyway, when in good condition they are a great drive regardless of age. With BMW what matters most is how well it is maintained. Rebuild it properly without cutting corners and Keep it well and it will still be a great drive when the sun becomes a red giant. Good luck with the project.

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maybe bmw style 5s http://i.imgur.com/COSJ2cB.jpg or something for the rims, and remove the us spec reflectors and orange bits.

IMO you should keep it looking as stock as possible all around including the interior, so maybe just go about retrofitting all of the missing spec options, there were plenty of toys on fully specced e30s and http://openlabs.co/projects/openOBC would let you do any hacky addons while keeping it stock looking. Instead of mounting a tablet or anything I'd say just add the facility to do bluetooth audio and all that kind of stuff, anything non-oem will look pretty out of place. you could jam in some toys from later models if you really needed

The body looks in great condition from that picture, you should sort out any rust or rot asap and just generally do a deep clean of all the interior to make sure you don't discover any new mould or anything along the way.

would be great if you could change from the zf auto to the 5 speed getrag 260, I see a couple on ebay for around 250 euros, it would be a great upgrade from the 3 speed mechanical auto box

you could also do the getrag 240 from the 318i, it needs to be adapted with a different bell housing but they can be bought for about 100 euros. might be ok if you aren't planning on adding much more power

I would love to own an e30 m3 or an e28 m5, such beautifully simplistic designs.

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I prefer going the original parts route:
With the E30, I'd take a look at the sills, since they tend to rust quite a lot at this age :( . As far as the interior is concerned, look for sport seats, they usually help with driving since you have thigh and bolster support. If you'll be looking at leather seats, they tend to get a bit pricey. A really nice bonus is the OBC, two types - 6 and 13 button version. M suspension would probably lower the car a bit while stiffening the ride and making the car turn sharper in corners. Break wise, the 6cyl versions usually had better brakes than the 4cyl. Not sure, but the 325i brakes might be a bit better. What you could add while your doing the wiring is a auto-dim interior mirror. It wasn't avaliable on the E30, but was on the E36 and hooking it up supposedly isn't that hard.

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First off the e30 is one of my all time favorite cars especially the e30 m3. There is a reason why you got this car for free. I had a 1987 325is that I race prepped it was just too expensive for me to repair after a while so I donated it to a 24 lemons team. After doing the brakes I just gave up. The calipers cost over $900 with pads accessories and rotors I was over $1500 and thats doing it in my driveway. Expect to spend 5-10k on what you are doing if your doing your own work they are great cars but the parts can be almost as expensive as a ferrari. I have not owned a 320 hopefully the parts are cheaper. If this is a flip you will lose money unless you get a second or third parts car look for another free one. I love the way the car looks but the costs are out of my league. Was a sad day when the tow truck came I hope you have better luck then I did I really miss that car.

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The only expensive part is getting new calipers. You can get them rebuild, saves you quite a bit of money. Original discs aren't that expensive so no need to scare the guy. Maybe it's more expensive in america, but in europe rear brakes discs come at around 58$/52€ a piece and the front ones come at 88$/77€ a piece and that's with tax.

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My favourite would be the e36 manual transmission