BMW 3.0si - E3 - Beginner project

[mashedpot8er]

Hi all, I've been lurking about for quite a while now, I'm almost completely new to doing up cars, I've changed an interior, shocks and small bits and bobs on my old audi coupe, but nothing like what I'm going to have to undertake with the beemer. So I thought I'd start a thread to try and help me through my beginners fear and show off the car a bit too This cars a keeper for me, so I hope to do things right, so they don't bite me in years to come too much. I've ploughed through loads of build threads here on RR and the skills here seem like magic to me, but have spurred me on to have a go myself. I'm looking forwards to the victories and I'll get over the f**k ups Any and all help will be very greatfully received.

The car:

It's a 1973 3.0si, It's a left hand drive, bought from france 5 or 6 years ago now. Bought it blind and was lucky (so I've been told) as it seems to be pretty solid and well looked after in general. It's quite tatty at the moment, few bits fallen off etc. My plan is, get it back on the road as a daily driver as quick as possible, then do a rolling restoration over the coming years. Look forward to learning more and getting to know some folks a bit too

[will16v]

That's a sweet looking E3 you have there, they're pretty hard to find these days let alone in good condition.
Are you looking to restore, mod or both?

[mashedpot8er]

Hiya Will. Thanks. So far, the plan is to keep it running and on the road, then restore and modify as I go. It's a second car at the mo, I've been driving about in a 1.2 corsa for 5 or 6 years while I try to get this old fella back driving. It's tough looking at the beemer on the drive everyday as I drive to work in my corsa, financial situation like most I suspect, has been turbulent and painfull. Still, managed to keep it at least, so I'm thankful for that. Got plenty of years of wanting to fuel the restoration.

As far as modifying it, I'm not a purist at all really, but I think it would be a shame to take a survivor too far from standard. So I'm planning to keep anything I replace, wheels, springs, body panels etc, so that it can be put back to original easy enough. I've got a really ambitious plan to make some carbon fibre body parts, boot / bonnet etc, but that might just forever remain an idea. I've got most of the car modelled up in 3d and have done years worth of design tweeks with various renders. Colour/ wheel combos and different looks / feels. Not sure this is the right car for those ideas though. I do respect the heritage of the car, so hopefully it will all pan out subtle, but nice.


Thought I'd put all the piccies in one place. First attack on rust: Cutting out and replacing rust in floorpan.

[omega]

a 3 liter as a dailey!! wow
I struggle to run a 1.4

[mashedpot8er]

Jul 20, 2013 14:09:21 GMT omega said:

a 3 liter as a dailey!! wow
I struggle to run a 1.4

Yeh I know what you mean. I drive an old 1.2 corsa at the moment. The problem is that I can't get rid of the car ( I get very attached to things I like) I can't put it in the garage and money is always tight to manageable. My mate's a good mechanic and told me once that the worst thing you can do to a car is not drive it. So I've only really got one option. Get it up together and find a way to keep driving it It's a great car to drive as it's a 3 litre, quite quick, good sound etc, but it'll be a huge draw on resources forever more. Ah well. My cross to bare I guess. Here's a couple of pics of it in various states of not being driven and looking sorry for itself.

[tonybmw]

Great car, bookmarked

[william123]

Lovely car, you can still wash/polish it and keep an eye on any leaks getting inside while its stood waiting for funds to arrive, all the best and keep the pics coming

[mashedpot8er]

Aug 18, 2013 16:26:09 GMT tonybmw said:

Great car, bookmarked

Thanks Tony, and thanks for your build threads. It was looking through posts on here, including your build threads that gave me the balls to get my hands dirty and have a go myself, so thanks for taking the time to share what you do. Hopefully thats a good thing for the car eh

Aug 18, 2013 19:33:46 GMT william123 said:

Lovely car, you can still wash/polish it and keep an eye on any leaks getting inside while its stood waiting for funds to arrive, all the best and keep the pics coming

Hi William. Too true sir. I nearly cried when I saw the state the car had got into over that winter. My mate let me park it up behind his house as I had to get it off the road. As you said, first thing I did when I saw it like that was give it a long clean and air it out. Pic to prove.



The green bonnet pics are a few years old now. I've moved since and it's now sat infront of the garage, hopefully its spell under the trees hasn't cost me too much, its been sat idle since, but regularly washed at least. I've got some more pics to post up, just sorting them out now.

[mashedpot8er]

After some info from another thread, I started doing some welding in the footwells: Patch cut and slightly shaped.






Really bad, second time welding ever welding.






Dressed the welds, just good enough for this time around. ( I hate subjecting my neighbours to the noise of dressing welds, and I do plan on a proper full bare metal restoration one day. )






Primered the floor with 1k primer, got a coat of Fjord blue paint on top of the well too. Not overly happy with the colour I got mixed though. Too greeny. Will grab a pic when I get a chance.






Mostly looks like surface rust in the drivers footwell ( Left hand drive ), I'll have a good poke at it next and make good whats reveales itself.







 I was cleaning up the area on the bottom of the welds I had done and trying out flap wheels and die grinders etc. I found some more rust holes, small ones on the front face of the little downstand bit, so cut them out, welded and dressed / primered etc, got into it and forgot to take pics during. Will happen a bit I suspect if I'm honest, so I'll apologies in advance.










As the front wheel was off for better access thought it would be a good idea to get some pics of its current state underneath. It's pretty much as I thought. It's good from my perspective, looks roughly the same as when I bought the car. But it could be a complete horror show to a trained eye. Most things look restorable to me, but I haven't really got the experience to know. My gut tells me that too much longer and it'll start getting quite a bit harder to put right. Hopefully it's in good enough shape to be a positive introduction to a new, daunting level of car tinkering. It did have an MOT a few years back though, so there's hope.

[mashedpot8er]

I love the stearing wheel, it was already in there when I bought it, fits nicely with the gauges and the wooden trim etc




More impressive though are the seat covers that came with it, ha ha. They're mental. But I love em. Remind me of the cookie monster. The seats seem virtually perfect underneath, no rips or anything. They're a blue leatherette and fuzzy stiff velvet combo job.





As the front wheel was up and off, seemed a good time to try my other sets on. I managed to scrape some cash together for these sets bought a few years back off the bay.  I didn't have the money to spend, but knew it would make sense in the long run, cash wise. Got the BBS style 5's for a good price (Previous owner sprayed the flaked lips matt black, I'll have to strip them back and polish the lips by hand) and the open lug alpinas, stunning wheels. I'm not sure which ones will go on the car, but the loosers will be sold to fund further work / running costs. I migh sell both and stick to the ones I already have on there, not sure, will have to see further down the line. More important things to fix first.









Next thing to fix after the drivers footwell, is to get a cup brush or something on the whole bottom and arches to see what its all like and get it fixed up, painted, stonechipped and protected while it's still warm. Hopefully end of this month if it warms back up again. I want to do it when the metal is all bone dry if possible.

[les509]

I would keep all 3 sets of wheels, you could use the original alloys as your winter wheels and alternate between the other two the rest of the year round. It's nice to change the look of your car every now and again, it keeps the enthusiasm going for it, and wheels are one of the easiest ways. Bookmarked.

[markgenesis]

Cracking project, stunning car, great work so far

If you are new to jacking up cars with the trolley jack i'd watch that cup on the chassis rails, they tend to do damage if used bare, i always use a block of wood between the cup and chassis rail or jacking point.

A bare trolley jack cup on an old chassis leg is just something that makes me cringe when i see it.

[mashedpot8er]

No updates on the beemer as such. Managed to accidently buy another car. Thanks to retro rides, I had a quick hunt about for saabs after reading a thread about them and ended up collecting one the next day !! Damn you all for your bad influences!! So the saab will either be a seller or my new daily driver, not sure yet, but it was too much of a bargain in my mind to pass over.

Aug 19, 2013 3:47:22 GMT les509 said:

I would keep all 3 sets of wheels, you could use the original alloys as your winter wheels and alternate between the other two the rest of the year round. It's nice to change the look of your car every now and again, it keeps the enthusiasm going for it, and wheels are one of the easiest ways. Bookmarked.

You're a bad man !! I think it would get to me eventually having money locked up in wheels that could help protect the beemer from the ravages of age. That said, it will be hard to part with them and what you suggest does make sense.

Aug 19, 2013 6:53:10 GMT markgenesis said:

Cracking project, stunning car, great work so far

If you are new to jacking up cars with the trolley jack I'd watch that cup on the chassis rails, they tend to do damage if used bare, I always use a block of wood between the cup and chassis rail or jacking point.

A bare trolley jack cup on an old chassis leg is just something that makes me cringe when I see it.

Thanks Mark. Cheers for the use a bit of wood tip too. Should have occured to me really, makes sense to protect the important bits.

[Mark]

So cool. Great being a left hooker too.

[spandelly]

That looks fantastic and a great project and don't worry about your skills or budget as long as another retro is still on the road thats what matters. I'm not an expert especialy welding and will be starting a thread myself soon with similar problems and mistakes so kudos to you for having the balls. As for the wheels the deep dish multispokes look great but the alpinas look spot on so there the ones in my opinion.

[Davenger]

Awesome, my dad had an E3 2500 that colour, fjord blue is I'm not mistaken,
I rather like the original wheels, just a shame they're not wider.
The alpinas will look the nuts, the multi spokes will probably make it look like a donk, lol

[Bigdoors]

Hey great car mate, good luck with the resto. That hammer in the last 2 pics looks like a clip from Pink Floyds The Wall video :-)

[mashedpot8er]

Aug 25, 2013 16:42:35 GMT Mark said:

So cool. Great being a left hooker too.

Cheers Mark. It was a French car when I got it, via Switzerland, via South Africa as far as I can gather. It's got a South African sticker under the bonnet.

Aug 25, 2013 17:21:22 GMT spandelly said:

That looks fantastic and a great project and don't worry about your skills or budget as long as another retro is still on the road thats what matters. I'm not an expert especialy welding and will be starting a thread myself soon with similar problems and mistakes so kudos to you for having the balls. As for the wheels the deep dish multispokes look great but the alpinas look spot on so there the ones in my opinion.

Thanks mate, I'm really enjoying having a go at it all. Good luck on your build when you get going on it.    Still very undecided on the wheels.

Aug 26, 2013 21:28:09 GMT Davenger said:

Awesome, my dad had an E3 2500 that colour, fjord blue is I'm not mistaken,
I rather like the original wheels, just a shame they're not wider.
The alpinas will look the nuts, the multi spokes will probably make it look like a donk, lol

Hiya Davenger, quite correct on the colour. Really nice colour I think. I like the original wheels too, I messed about colouring between the spoke bits black, looks quite snazzy. I had to look up what a donk was, brilliant, I see what you mean. 

Aug 28, 2013 11:32:12 GMT Bigdoors said:

Hey great car mate, good luck with the resto. That hammer in the last 2 pics looks like a clip from Pink Floyds The Wall video :-)

Cheers Bigdoors. Good video that.



Had a muckabout with my new saab wheels. Lent the wheels against the car, then photo-fudged them in. Just a wee hint of guilty pleasure.

[stonio]

Those Saab wheels look the nuts that would be my choice l love these old beemers we had a 2500 in Bronze when l was a kid always wanted another, still looking

[spandelly]

I thought the saab wheels were 4x108?