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Ha cheers, it's my only car so I enjoy it to and from work every day!

I've not updated this with any progress lately, it's just been servicing and general maintenance.
Hopefully in a few weeks I'll have some more exciting picture filled updates!

I've finally sorted the noisy water pump that's been doing my head in recently.
It was quite a nice job, literally 2 pipe clamps and 2 nuts later the rad was out, so easy!


Then swapped the old with a nice new pump.



I also got myself a nice new old stock N/S grille. The old plastic had just turned a bit grey, a nice fresh black now.
Before:




After:

Nice look! some envy in my voice)

Why thank you!

I set about a simple little mod this weekend that I'm quite happy with.

I got hold of a spare center dash panel,


Widened the hole for the cigarette lighter with a file,


so it would then fit this USB charger I got my hands on, like so;


Once it was all wired into an ignition live and in place in the car:


I'm very happy with this little addition, I never used the cigarette lighter for anything else and I think it fits into the dash really well, looks as if it could have come from the factory like that imo.

Nice modification!

joe14 wrote:I've finally sorted the noisy water pump that's been doing my head in recently.
It was quite a nice job, literally 2 pipe clamps and 2 nuts later the rad was out, so easy!

Then swapped the old with a nice new pump.

Is changing waterpump merely a question of bolting off old and on the new one?

You have to take the rad out first which is just 2 pipes and 2 nuts,
Then drop all the coolant,
Disconnect the pipes from the pump,
Loosen off the belt by allowing the alternator to drop down,
Unbolt the water pump,
Clean off any old gaskets
And repeat the above in reverse to rebuild, including bleeding the system. Make sure your heaters are open if you want to flush them out too and that they get hot after you've bled the system

I flushed the coolant out with water a few times to make sure any old crap was gone before putting in fresh coolant.

So yeah, an easy job!

Love the little USB mod mate very clever idea!

+2 with the USB! Clever look of retro and modern convenience

Thank you both for your comments about the USB socket, I'm very happy with it.

In some less good news some curse word reversed into the front of my car and drove off.
The damage really isn't that bad, being localised to the kidney grille and the nose of the bonnet.
The grille looked like this:


Luckily the new black grille I had just fitted wasn't damaged and I was able to find a NOS replacement.
I think it actually brightens up the front of the car a lot so the whole situation could have been worse.

So I've been busy lately.

I got these 323i trailing arms from Max,


Quickly burned the old bushes out (a horrible job, thanks Dave!)


The condition of the bearings, shoes etc was actually really good, but non the less everything is going to be replaced.




Before long they were sanded down and all painted up looking much better.


Some of the new polybushes in:




Plenty more to do, I've managed to get all the required bits, new polyurethane bushes, bearings, E30 callipers, 323i discs, hand brake shoes and fitting kit, rear anti roll bar.

I was quite suprised that Brake parts international kept most of what i needed on stock and at very reasonable prices. I'd really recommend them!
http://brakeparts.co.uk/#!/shop

+1 for brakes international

I've made some more progress building up the 323i rear arms.
All nice new parts.

Everything laid out


Old bearings out, cleaned up and ready for the new bearings


Got some new bearings


shaft all cleaned up


The back plates were quite corroded so we decided to trim them down so we were just left with the necessary slots for the pins to hold the hand brake shoes


Some handy storage for little bits


The hand brake shoes built up with a new fitting kit


The hub back on


The disc had to be counter sunk a bit more to fit the retaining screws we had


Unfortunately the callipers we had didn't fit right. I've since then discovered that we had E30 touring callipers not from a coupe.
Here's the poorly fitting original calliper:


The new calliper is on the right, you can see the smaller piston and the sliders are closer to the mounting points meaning the calliper will sit lower on the disc.

On a slightly different topic, I've got new wheels.
I thought fitment would be a bit tight but they fit really well.

They were sold as 8" x 15" et0 and 7" x 15" et20 but it seems the rears might actually be 8.5.
None the less I've gone for 195/45/15 and 185/45/15 tyres with 20mm spacers up front and none at the rear





I'm very pleased with them!