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A fine days fettling.

Today was the day of reckoning for the E30, and it's all looking rather good, if the truth be told.

Sunday night, after getting home, I subscribed to an E30 forum and asked about to see how hard it was going to be to get bits to tidy up the ol' thing. Needed a front passengers door, the front valance under the bumper, a pair of headlamp wipers, a rear wiper, and a centre cap for one of the BBS.

Monday, when I was on the way to Northampton and Warwick to pick up a car, I get a phone call from a guy in Solihull "Hi mate, I've got all the bits you need - the door is diamond black and complete apart from the mirror and lock". As Solihull is 30 mins drive from Warwick and I was driving the Heep Cherokee I toddled off to get the bits. Total cost £60, bargain.

Today, fitted the door (total time taken fitting actual door, 20 mins - time to get the bloody lock barrel fitted properly, 3 bleedin' hours), fitted the headlamp wipers, centre cap, rear wiper arm and tidied it up generally.

As I was working in the workshop decided to get the tester to it a full pre-MOT check. It needs a slight exhaust blow sorting, but otherwise it's A-OK.

Tomorrow it'll get the exhaust sorted, a full on steam clean, valet and buff, the drivers seat frame fixed and a new AC belt (bits of the old one are still in the engine bay, previous owner said "it only stopped working a few days before I bought my new car" and the AC compressor pulley is still shiny where the belt used to run. He wasn't the type of chap who'd know why it had stopped being cold.

All in all, I'm quite a happy bunny. Not at all bad for £331 (so far).

Reply to
Pete M
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air con too! i wish i held out for an e30 with air con :( still i do love my E36

Reply to
Vamp

Pete M gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Compressor seized?

Reply to
Adrian

Nope, I put power to the clutch and turned the compressor by hand.

I suspect it was just down to an old belt. AC pump belts aren't the type of stuff that seem to be changed when they should be - a lot of small garages just see an old car and don't think it'll have AC fitted. I did notice it's had a new PAS belt, so I suspect the AC one threw the PAS belt off when it snapped.

There's a nice sticker on the inner wing saying "AC converted to R134a" from an AC specialist, so hopefully the rest of the system will be fine.

Reply to
Pete M

That, my dear fellow, is called elbow grease and knowledge. To me is=20 exactly that what makes the distinction between a chav and somebody who=20 likes a car.

TDM

Reply to
Tom De Moor

These are still too small to haul much stuff, aren't they?

I nearly bought a Vectra estate for £500 because I need an estate car, with a towbar, to finish off moving/clearing out the house crap. I have never driven a car so utterly forgettable yet revolting. One was a 1.8, the other a 2.5 V6, both were crap despite being under 10 years old/100,000 miles for the 1.8 one.

An E30 Estate (and convertible) have been on my "wouldn't mind one" list since they came out. Not sure that I could get more furniture in one than I could in my Ignis, though - I managed to move my main synth in the Ignis (88 key 40Kg monster Korg).

Richard

Reply to
Richard Kilpatrick

Aye, they're not exactly large. Can carry a couple of guitar amps, or maybe a few suitcases, but they're not much use for shifting genuinely big stuff.

Reply to
Pete M

Still a nice car though. Was on wifeys list but they were doing silly money at the time so she went and bought a 525...

Women eh?

Reply to
Conor

Love it? I thought you hated it...? Have I missed something in the last few days?

Reply to
DanB

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