Project Revvin' Low: 1987 BMW 325

[Goodspeed]

I preferred the musty patina look, but if you're gonna paint it you might as well go all out. For some reason I can't get a 70's van craze mural of this out of my head

Barring that, there's always this

[CaptainHenreh]

If this was all about the "charm" of a 700 dollar bmw, you should have left it sun-bleached and damaged.

[Dave]

See here for Rex's reference to hank. The fenders are rustoleum green using a roller; you can paint a whole car for under $100 and get all the supplies at Lowe's, though it is a very labor-intensive project.
OR, go to E&M (the auto body supply shop in H-burg) and pick up a few spray cans of whatever paint code you would like and make it look F'in great (refer to my 240z thread in sig and check my interior).

I understand what you're doing here and can appreciate it. I just think after a while you'll wish it looked a little better, in which case you can bust out more cans and keep covering it up. Good prep and primer are crucial to a nice final product (which you may appreciate at resale). Also, if you want it to finish up smooth, you'll need to do quite a bit of sanding...

[Jake]

Hrmm. Thanks Dave... roller paint looks gooooood. So theoretically if I sand this blue shit off, a roller could turn out more even?

How much would paint from E&M cost, roughly? Your interior on the Z looks good.

[Dave]

For the roller job, it's really labor intensive b/c you thin out the regular paint with mineral spirits, put down a couple coats allowing to dry between coats, and then wet sand. Repeat that process 2-3 times. You're essentially sanding off the top layer of paint, but it smooths it out. Check out my old 91 SE-R, I Rustoleum'd the entire car... You'll want the bodywork to be in good shape, b/c by the time you're done you'll be intimately familiar with every nook & cranny on the car and it will pain you to see the flaws.

E&M paint cans are ~$15/can I think. I imagine you'll need enough to do at least 2 coats and you'll prob also want to put down some primer and sand that. I think I prob put about $150-$200 into my interior, maybe less (my memory is not so good).

[PDenbigh]

Yay toys!

The best thing you can do for yourself is to

NEVER PAINT YOUR OWN CAR

The second best thing you can do is to paint your car in a real booth.

If that fails too, just spray it outside somewhere.

Don't try to paint it in a one car garage. Ask me how I know.

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[Jake]

EtaBaby told me what she thinks of the blue paint. I'm guessing she doesn't like it because she puked all over the parking spot.

The clutch pedal goes straight to the floor with zero pressure. The transmission housing is all damp, which makes sense because the slave cylinder is bolted to the side of the trans. So... I ordered a new slave cylinder just now, and it should be here by Friday (thank you, Pelican Parts for cheap parts/shipping). That oughta fix things right up.

[WRXtranceformed]

And it begins......

[Jake]

OK, both parts installed today.

New (well, it's from an 86) air flow meter is in and was pretty simple once David and I stopped acting like n00bs and got it oriented properly with the airbox. Car (mostly) starts on the first try now and is running a LOT better. Not flawless... but it's about 90%. Motor pulls very strong until 4,500 (redline starts there) and if you really egg it on, it'll slam off the tach at 5k. You can really feel the torque and (lack of) power drop off around 4,300 though, so there's nothing to gain going further.

Slave cylinder was a little pain in the ass, but mainly because of where the bolts are located. It's theoretically an easy job, but a lot of things work well in theory. Big props to Andrew & both Davids for helping get the top bolt/nut back on. It was a bit terrifying when we got everything hooked up and still had no pressure in the clutch.

Turns out the brake lines drain from the bottom of the reservoir, and the clutch goes off the side (they share a reservoir). This means if you lose too much brake fluid, your clutch will stop working before your brakes give out, an apparent safety feature. Good foresight on BMW's part, I suppose.

Anyway, it must have taken a good 100+ pumps of the clutch pedal (and careful bleeding after every 6 or 7 or 10) to get ANY pressure. Just a lot of air in the line I guess. It finally built some pressure and started sucking down fluid. We did get all-new fluid in the reservoir so that's a good thing. Car drives fine and the clutch feel is back to normal.

[D_Eclipse9916]

I have a Motive Powerbleeder with the Premium black fitting for bmws. Makes bleeding a simple procedure.

[Jake]

Got the custom plates in the mail today (did you really think I'd go with generic? it was $10):



Have new seatbelt buckles in the mail now, and a new fuel filter I found lying around. Hopefully that'll solve the fuel starvation issue it's having.

[Jake]

Took the seats out and replaced the seatbelt buckles. It's nice to have them stay latched when I hit a bump I also swapped the front seats, left to right (passenger is driver now, vice versa) because one of the past owners was allegedly a rather grande chef, and the driver's seat sits a few inches lower on the left side.

As I care more about my comfort than that of my passengers, I switched them. The adjustment levers are not "convenient" to access as they were before, but they still work and driver comfort is much improved!

Also put a new fuel filter on today. I was pretty pleased; I didn't have to jack the car up and did the swap in ~15 minutes. Only got maybe 1/2 cup of fuel spillage, and it all went into a plastic tub and not on me or the ground. We had a few stutters and burps as the air that got in the line from the swap was pushed around and out, but things are much improved overall.

[Jake]

Some updates on this thing:

Clutch has been good since replacing the slave cylinder. Great success.

I discovered the sunroof leaks. Massively. Like, drenches the entire passenger side of the car. Applying the old saying "If it moves (or leaks?) and it shouldn't" I used...



The driveshaft has been making a racket and shaking like no tomorrow, so I got a "center driveline bearing/bushing" repair kit from Pelican Parts. It's on the way and should be here Thursday. That'll make it less terrifying to drive. I hope.

Shanna boosted my horsepower and ability to fend off other beat-up, once-sporting cars with a free sticker:



And Channing happened to have an E36 shift knob in his Ti's glovebox, so I replaced the stock plastic one (that was missing the shift pattern inlay) with this nicer one. Now everyone is on the same page regarding the location of Reverse. Bonus! I didn't punch myself in the face and/or unintentionally remove teeth when removing the shift knob.



I also have new door lock cylinders on their way. The key doesn't turn the door locks right now. The previous owner called it "liberating" - and it is, until people open the door and push the car to the middle of the street in Pheasant Run while you are away at the racetrack for the weekend and you get a call from the leasing office asking why your car is "broken down" in the middle of the street. Aarrgh. Fuckers.

[Goodspeed]

OT, but is that some sort of icey-hot orange blaze STi in the background?

[Jake]

OT, but is that some sort of icey-hot orange blaze STi in the background?

My roommate Steve, who isn't a "car guy" bought it to replace his 94 Accord coupe automatic with busted speedometer. It's whatever orange VW painted the recent GTI with. Title-wise it's a 2004 WRX but it has motor/trans from STi. He's from Jersey and has a radar detector so 90 mph on S. Main is a frequent occurrence. I've ridden in it twice and won't ride with him driving again.

[Mike]

what a pile.








both.

[Jake]

what a pile.








both.

The difference is I paid $700 for my pile, and knew what I was getting into. Roomie here paid a lot more for his pile and only knows what's done to it from a mod list posted on NASIOC that he keeps in the glovebox. Sigh.


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[Mike]

i believe it's "le sigh." or do ze germans say something different?

[Jake]

i believe it's "le sigh." or do ze germans say something different?

"Le sigh" works since I don't speak ze deutsch ja. I am aware that I'm driving a scheissebox though ;-)


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[Jake]

Another update on the Scheissebox:

Center driveshaft bearing doodad came last week and we put it in yesterday. This is, by far, the largest repair I've ever done on a car. Of course, we had to do it in the Pheasant Run parking lot, which means every muscle I didn't know I had is now sore from laying on asphalt all day. Not a "fun" repair - and it took us literally all day since we were relatively clueless - but the vibration/rattle/deathtrap sounds are gone and it actually drives pretty nicely.

First, I helped fix Andrew's E36 trunk button. Little rod that connects button to trunk popper had come undone:



Then we got the party started:



Cabell & Eben un-doing things:



Wendy's break



A clusterfuck of people and parts:



FINALLY. Driveshaft removed:



Trying to remove the old & busted bearing parts by hand, while Eben was off borrowing the proper tool from AutoZone. This could have ended horribly:



David's girlfriend Meg... I believe this was right as she looked at the parts diagram and said "hey guys, I think we put that on backwards"



That's it for photos... we removed a large chunk of the exhaust to make life easier, and took a video of how gnarly the M20 sounds without much exhaust in the way. I'll put that in a separate post once it's up. MASSIVE thank you's to everyone who helped out yesterday. This was not a "1 person" project and definitely a good learning experience for MM...