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Well, it's been a week now...

2K views 21 replies 10 participants last post by  steve23002 
#1 ·
It's a bit lazy, but i've already did an intro post on another forum, so i'm going to c & p the lot...

t the kettle on, as it's a long journey...
My first car was a calypso red e34 520, pretty pimpin' back in the day as a first car, that lasted just under a year when i put it sideways into a tree and a lamp post. It was replaced with a Laser Blue 520, quite a rare colour, and with lotus white leather, but that was written off about a month into owning it when someone pulled out of a blind sideroad with their fingers crossed.
I got a decent payout from the insurance for that (the red 520 was tpft, so i lost a fortune) and i moved onto the e36's.

My first was a 320, auto too, i was a bit tight for time when buying, travelled a long way and thought what the hell.



It spent a while getting all Alpina'd up, mostly lucky ebay bargains, so i had a switchtronic steering wheel from an e46, alpina mats, front airdam, suspension, wheels and also a full exhaust, from the manifolds back from a B3 3.0.
essentially an evo stainless exhaust with adaptor pipes to fit the 320's manifolds.

In keeping with the current theme of write offs, i crashed that one too, still TPFT, so i had a bent car and some manageable but lengthy repairs.



mostly front panels, and a respray, nothing too major, but then a challenger appeared.




I've actually forgotten which one was which, but a 325 coupe, same colour turned up on ebay for 750 with a suspected HG fail. This was about 4 years ago, so was quite a bargain, even more so when the engine was fine, just had an airlock.




It was a bit shabby, but between the 2, i ended up with a copy of the 320 now with less miles, a bigger engine, and a manual, so not bad overall.
It also wrote the book on rust though, and the chassis number gives it away as one of the first 325s made.


The paintwork was terrible though, bad touching up across the bonnet, and some sort of accident repair on a wing, so it didn't get washed, as it was nothing much to look at.

Having tatty bodywork meant it was well up for dark and twisted experiments, so some more bargains were sniped off ebay, and it started to go wide, 10j on the rear, and 8.5j up front.


It even needed inch spacers on the back despite the wider wheels with lower offsets.






I kinda liked it in black and blue, but i was far from finished. The doorcards had been moved about so much they were starting to disintegrate, so i jacked it all in, and stripped the insides.



Going this far, i knew it'd never be for sale, more stuff was added, M3 front hubs and evo discs, and complete evo rear axle with the larger 3.23 LSD, and a custom propshaft, a fixed back drivers seat, and a tilt passenger one so i could still empty the rubbish out of the back, and harnesses.

And finally, the icing on the cake.


that took about 4 hours start to finish, about 5 big cans of satin black, and a few sheets of sandpaper. Nothing beats the feeling of standing back and looking at a car like that after a few hours of messing about with aerosols.

This was all done to get it ready for another trip to the Fatherland









YouTube - RAF Marham Trackday 3rd Oct 2009

He does get used properly too, (although i have managed to lose 2nd gear somewhere, so will have a delightful 'boxswap on the cards)
 
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#5 ·
Welcome to Bimmerforums UK TheEnd and I must add that it is good to have more members like yourself that know their onions when it comes to cars, I've seen you posting in the forum Tech sections, :thumbsup

Keep up the good work and I hope you enjoy the forum, :)
 
#7 ·
The gearbox was swapped to a standard one, picked up off ebay for 15 quid.
I gave the seller £20 and told him to keep the change i was so happy.
The replacement had come from something like a 316, and then onto a 320, before it got to me.
Or something like that. It took a lot of part number checking, there is seperate part numbers and codes, although physically identical boxes.
Either way, it fits and works, and 15 quid for a gearbox repair was a bargain!

I'm not going to do much more the the 325, it's time to be retired, but there is a similar M3 project slowly underway, in a variety of secret locations, and in a number of garden sheds!
 
#9 ·
Yea, that's why i gave him £20!

His missus blown up the car shortly after, he kept on of the shattered pistons as a souvenir, and took the box back off and scrapped the rest.
The box had been in his garage for months after, til eventually, he just decided to get rid of it for whatever.
He also threw in a free clutch and flywheel, and was offering any other old spares out of his shed too!
 
#10 ·
sweet motor. im constantly trawling ebay,for a ruff looking 325i with the idea of creating a stripped out, balls out dont give a f**k rag around track monster.
nothing better getting in a car and not giving a fook,not getting rid of my m3 just want another car were i dont have to worry were i park it.
 
#19 ·
the steering wheel is from an e46 B3 that crashed a good few years ago.

What i needed to do was take the e46 slipring, and chop it down, quite severely infact.
I haven't had any problems with it for the 3-4 years i've had it, but i wouldn't recommend it to anyone as there is the chance it could slip out of alignment and catch something and lock the steering!

The spines on the steering wheel are the same, and also the position of the indicator self canceller, but when the plastic is removed for it to fit, nothing holds the cartridge together, so if you drop it, it spools out 1m of ribbon cable that will never go back!

when fitted, it's locked behind the wheel and the column, so won't go anywhere, but you could say it's loose on the column shaft, and without the indicator canceller being reshaped to skip past the base of the indicator stalks, there is a slight posibility it could hit it square on and catch.

The controls won't work obviously, they need to send data to a cruise control module, or an inbuilt OEM radio, but they have been wired to light up with the rest of the dash, and the 2 gear change buttons behind the wheel also work, but aren't connected to anything as i haven't found a use for them.
 
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