UK 323i destined for America (Update 2011)

[cobbler2u]

Looking good. There was some wheels with dark grey centres they looked good.
Not sure on what colour grey it was

[arshad76]

Looking good. There was some wheels with dark grey centres they looked good.
Not sure on what colour grey it was

Thanks. Yeah that's an idea, play around with different shades of grey. Well It still has the MSW's on. BBS will go on soon. If I get a good price I'll sell the MSW's - if not I'll get them refurbed with grey centres.

[arshad76]

Things are finally moving along. Rear demister working, alloys and door cards on in the next few days. Had to plug this small business in a back alley in Levenshulme. I was previously told by 5 previous auto-electricians that it either couldn't be done or one needed 8 hours to do the job @ £70ph. These guys managed to rustle one up in an hour and a half. While I was there some guy pulled up in a dented, rusty Fiat Panda and wanted a cigarette lighter fitted. They sourced and wired one up and made a custom holder out of metal for £15 fitted.
I love the way it's an Aladdins cave of alternators and electric window and wiper motors hanging from the roof. Anyway, I'm a happy man now and can finally move on to getting my interior sorted.

[arshad76]

I'm off to Kazakhstan tomorrow for a few days to visit a friend (no really). Dropped my car off in Huddersfield to a zoner to have the wiring converted to Motronic 1.3. Was worried on my way there about what kind of place it would be as the guy wasn't charging much. Turned up to his unit and looked nice and secure and dry. Also had a bevy of E30 beauties lined up, so I took a quick pic on my phone.



Fingers crossed the conversion gets done on my return and its driving better than ever

[rasb1]

Looks great - Silver paint with those rims is a nice combo! And I honor your commitment to painting the car twice in a couple of years - True grit

And good work maintaining this thread for allmost 6 years now

[arshad76]

Looks great - Silver paint with those rims is a nice combo! And I honor your commitment to painting the car twice in a couple of years - True grit

And good work maintaining this thread for allmost 6 years now

You've actually been a big inspiration Rasmas, as I know you've had to contend with rust, mechanical problems and still have a lovely looking car.

Anyway, have had a bit of a facial injury recently (almost all better now) That and 10 days off work with no holiday booked got me fairly bored and turned my attention to my parcel sun faded parcel shelf. O.K, so it's not going to fail its MOT looking the way it does, but with the rest of my car looking fairly smart it just bothers me. If you look close enough you can actually see round the edges what the original colour would have looked like - a lot darker.



Options are to have it sprayed/dyed, except the fabric itself has deteriorated, so replacing it would be a much better option. I managed to track down some german square weave carpet, which isn't officially BMW, but might as well be, it looks just perfect. Got it back from the trimmers and I'm really happy.





Not that happy actually, as this little task ended up costing me £80 in the end I had to buy the material by the meter, which was the main cost. Anyway, if anyone would like to buy some I've got enough for two parcel shelves in the for sale section.

[Jason_323i]

Looks good and I ma sure Steve will do good job of the wiring conversion.

Jason

[arshad76]

Hi Jason,

I didn't know you knew Steve, but should have said yes wirings all done and he did a great job. I need to go back to him to get the E30 trip computer fitted, but we thought it would be best to leave it until I had a new stereo and the existing Alarm looked at. It's been fitted this weekend so I'll be bothering him again soon

[arshad76]

Time for an update. I guess I'm just in a negative mood. The work doesn't seem to end, despite putting in a lot of effort to get things finished. Anyway, at least my floors are finally looking as good as the rest of the bodywork.













Both are now solid and won't cause any problems for the next few years touch wood. Next is a new sill and some chassis repair and then no more rust.

[karsten1]

Time for an update then! My 323i has seen yet another transformation. Not sure if I told anyone on the forum that I bought an excellent condition E30 325i with air con, the plan was to drive it around for a year ad then swap over the engine to my E21. However, when my mechanic friend who had three weeks to kill persuaded me to do the conversion quicker.

Perfectly useable 325i



Now looks like this!



Its now 90% there. Initially I was worried by the amount of E30 ancillaries that have gone into the conversion. I was of course happy with the engine going in, but now it has the complete wiring loom (so yes it’s fully Motronic), and even fingers crossed the air con! One advantage of installing the complete E30 loom is that other E30 extras can be added. We’re now modding E30 electric window motors to fit and also the electric sunroof. I know it’s not important to many E21 purists, but I like the idea of these luxury touches, especially since it should look like a factory job by the time it gets done.

As for the gearbox, Jimi might need to eat his words on this one! We managed to attach the speedo pickup to the original E21 LSD diff. My friend had a spider wheel from the E30 diff machined from an engineer. The speedo pickup now sits outside the diff and everything mated up to the millimetre and works perfectly.

Decided not to drill into the gearbox, and placed speedo outside the diff using a custom fabricated spider. Simple!




skimmed the halfshaft a little so everything fits perfectly.




We then decided to source a good LHD E30 dash, so that it would hold the air con and instruments better than modifying an existing E21 dash. At first I was worried that it might look out of place, but it actually feels like it belongs in the car and of course will be easier to attach all the heater controls air conditioning vents etc too (more detailed pics to come), and prefer the way it cocoons the driver better than the E21 does.

easy to fit, but metal support does have to go



It was a also a relief to be reunited with my Bilstein Sports (nice to see they have a label with my name on it) These will be installed next, along with some brand new Ventura springs I got from ebay a few years ago.





Been busy with the details too. Wiper motor cover for example was cleaned up and repainted in satin black. One of the mods required to fit the E30 air con will probably mean that it won’t fit, so I will have to modify a spare wiper motor cover I have, then get it resprayed so it looks like a factory job.



Well that’s all for now folks, dash should be going in soon, then I need to see an aircon specialist to regas the system and also supply a condenser (the original one doesn’t fit behind the valance.
My car has picked up the odd chip hear and their. Still looks excellent, but while I have a little money it will go to the bodyshop for a little touch up here and their.

Original E21 recaro seats are also to follow (pics soon) and then get the alloys refurbished, and then we're almost done.

Leave you with some shots of work in progress, covers off fairly soon

Hi
Nice looking car. I have a question about the speedometer conversion. are you using the E-30 instrument or the E-21? I have just done the same to my e-21 323i baur, installed a 88mod 325i whit a Getrag 260 gearbox. If you converted the instruments to the E-30, how did you do it, or do you use the complete instrument cluster.

[arshad76]

Thanks. I actually have the complete dash and wiring from an E30, so yes that includes the binnacle. If you do it that way then it's obviously easier to do. I have seen modded E36 dials in an original E21 instrument cluster that looked nice. A lot of work, plus I had other reasons for installing an E30 dash too.

[raseeda green]

Really nice car....l like the work you doing to it..love them wheels too.

[arshad76]

Really nice car....l like the work you doing to it..love them wheels too.

Cheers bud, was telling Nas how much I liked your red car. That's quite a look and engine you have there!

[Sean]

Arshad,
did you do a write-up on installing the e30 dashboard. Thinking of sourcing one for my 78' 316. te dash has a big crack and is a pre facelift.

[Jeroen]

And because our UK mod is not paying attention lemme move this one to the 6 cyl section.