Yesterday I made a run into Maryland horse country (and mansion country) to see an old rallycross friend Mike Palszinki (sp) who had some parts. He's had a bunch of e30s over the years for rallycross, lemons, AER, etc. Ironically, the one sitting outside his workshop you may remember from the rally car thread as ALSO previously beloning to Dan G. (who I got this car from ), later bought by Jason Reynolds, and now owned by Mike. Apparntly it's going to return as a rallycross car this season.
In any case, picked up a few things from Mike for $50 - some good front brake calipers and brackets, and a good-condition M20 coolant reservoir. I also grabbed a black-colored e30 back seat he had sitting there, since I want to do black seats in this car and currently it has tan.
Calipers, which I may or may not rebuild - will check them out more closely first.
Since 318s didn't come with a coolant reservoir like this, they don't have the mounting brackets like the M20 cars do. so had to fab some up, using a piece of scrap angle iron and another (profiled) piece from the Raider Hood.
easy peazy
that was yesterday. Today I decided to take all the panels out of the trunk and see what things look like in there, rust-wise. The main trunk section looks pretty good, and the only rusty areas I already knew about, so no surprises.
Both of the "side buckets" are rusty, as they are in pretty much all e30s (brilliant design, bmw...). The one on the passenger side is pretty solid, will just need a couple patch panels at the front and back
The one on the driver's side a previous owner hadn't fixed the rust, but had just rebuilt right over the rust using fiberglass, and also using part of a beer can:
So I ripped all the fiberglass out
to reveal what I expected, basically this will need a full rebuild of the forward half of the box. Shouldn't be too tough, honestly (famous last words). But it's all hidden inside the wheel well and behind the bumper trim, so at least it can be an ugly repair (my specialty).
Also in the trunk, the area where the fuel tank breather hose goes (on the outside in the wheel well) is a notorious e30 rust spot, and this one has some rust areas that went through. The part on the right will be an easy fix, the part of the left is the remnants of the metal tube that goes from the top of the gas tank to the vapor/overfill tank, which literally must have rusted through from the inside.
And here's what it looks like inside the cabin....basically, it's totally gone. So I'll have to bend up some pipe and replace the whole piece. That may wait until I pull the gas tank in the spring, since I don't really want to weld around gas.
I also pulled the rear interior panels. I knew there was rust on both sides in this area where the front of the rear wheel well meets the body skin. On the passenger side it limited itself to the wheelwell itself.
On the driver's side, as you probably saw earlier in this thread, it also ate away the outside panel
I'll cut all this out and patch it. But, as it turns out, a part of the old passenger-side front fender (which is all rusty at the bottom) is actually a perfect replacement fit when you flip it around. So, that's super-convenient.
check that out.....perfectly identical profile for both the fender lip/curve and the indent for the trim. That will make life easier and hopefully make the patch job look better.
Supposed to snow tomorrow and drop 30 degrees. We'll see if I'm in the office or not, if not maybe do some patching.
Costs for calipers and stuff: $50
Total cost to date: $1171
