Luke's E21 316

[Luke328cab]

Well, after selling my e36 I picked this up on Saturday.

It's an e21 1983 316 manual. It has a few rust spots on it but nothing that can't be sorted out. The car is really solid where it needs to be. I have done about 150 miles in it so far and it hasn't missed a beat. The plan is to do a few subtle mods but to take it back to original.

I only have a few pics from my phone so far








I have also picked these up for it, I will get them put on as soon as I get some free time.

[woody m3evo]

Very nice mate,looking forward to seeing your future plans.

[Luke328cab]

Today I took a trip to Gavs to try and get the coilovers on.

They day was only half successful though as we only managed to get the rears fitted as the front needs the entire hub set-up removing. The standard rear suspension was boge, so wether it has been replaced at some point im unsure. I will get it booked into my mechanic to get them fitted and do a few other jobs. The rears that have been fitted have been put to standard ride height and put on the softest setting as to not upset the balance of the car until the fronts have been fitted.

Did get the pressure washer out today and gave all the inner wheel arches a good clean. Found a couple of small rust holes on the passenger side front and rear inner arches. Nothing to be concerned about but enough to warrant them being cut out and new metal welding in.

I only have a few pics from today:

[Luke328cab]

Got a bit bored today so I thought I would give the engine bay a little clean. Again only a few shitty pics from my phone but you get the point.








Also thought I would take a couple pics of the interior now I have hoovered it




That's as far as I got really, I did manage to break the brake fluid level sensor so I need a new one of those (hopefully BMW still do them).

[Luke328cab]

So I received 4 parcels today

I managed to get these from good old eBay. They are 7j 15" with brand new 195/45 toyo t1r's on them. As it was dark and raining I haven't had chance to get them on the car yet for a test fit. I'm expecting to need spacers for them to get them to fit how I want.

They aren't perfect and have a tiny bit of keen rash and lacquer bubbly up but they will do until I get them refurbed.

This is the only pic I have of them at the minute (iPhone pic in the dark = terrible quality)



What does everybody think?

* forgot to put, they are ronal turbo's

[pandemonium001]

V nice, pics on the car please.

[Luke328cab]

No pics as yet unfortunately.

Did a little test fit of the wheels today, which went terribly. I figured out that I need roughly a 5mm spacer on the front to clear the ball joints, although I will more than likely go with a 10-15mm spacer to bring the wheels out that little bit.
I also found that I need about a 2mm shim on the rear as the wheels just catch on the rest trailing arms to stop the wheels sitting inboard I'm more than likely gonna go with a 25mm spacer on the rear.

And now that I need them I also need spigot rings as the wheels were built for a VW, so the centre bore on the is 67.1 wheat as the e21 is 57.1.
All in all I'm gonna need a few things to get them to fit but nothing serious

[mrd]

I want to get ronal turbo aswell, for £200, but cant decide if i like it..

[Luke328cab]

Obviously I'm biased but I think they look good.


Did get a few better pics of the wheels today.

[grungeisdead]

fyi vw centre bore is 57.1

i will have a search around my unit and see if i have any appropriate spigots

car looks nice, i nearly bought one that colour before I found my black one

[Luke328cab]

fyi vw centre bore is 57.1

i will have a search around my unit and see if i have any appropriate spigots

car looks nice, i nearly bought one that colour before I found my black one

Ah, didn't know that. Well I measured the centre bore on the wheels and it is 67 so I did a quick search and found 67.1 so just pressumed.

If you could have a look and that would be fantastic

I didn't really have a choice of colour as I had so many criteria to meet that the list of potential cars was very short. It's slowly growing on me though

[Luke328cab]

fyi vw centre bore is 57.1

i will have a search around my unit and see if i have any appropriate spigots

car looks nice, i nearly bought one that colour before I found my black one

Ah, didn't know that. Well I measured the centre bore on the wheels and it is 67 so I did a quick search and found 67.1 so just pressumed.

If you could have a look and that would be fantastic

I didn't really have a choice of colour as I had so many criteria to meet that the list of potential cars was very short. It's slowly growing on me though

[grungeisdead]

aye vauxhalls are 56.6 so you can bash em onto a dub, but they dont come off as easy haha!

also mazda and early volvos have the same 4x100 pattern fyi

[Luke328cab]

First of all, no wheel on car pics as yet as the spacers haven't turned up yet

I have however been doing a few little bits and bobs.

When I first got the car the exhaust back box was hanging down as there were no exhaust rubbers holding it up. I initially had it held in place with metal cable ties (which did the job) but within a few days I had a knocking from the exhaust. So I thought I would replace the ties with the correct parts there turned out to be two rubbers missing on the back box and one perished on the centre section. All three were replaced.




I began to get a squealing from the auxiliary belt so after going and buying one I found out that I could just tighten the existing one by adjusting where the alternator sits. So now I have a spare belt and no more squealing
When I bought the car I got given a spare unripped passenger seat as the existing one has started to rip on the cording. So 5 minutes later the new seat was in and looking a lot better (sorry no pics )
While I was having a little play under the bonnet I decided to sort out the ludicrous idle, when cold it would idle at roughly 1000 rpm and when warm about 1200 rpm. So I got my screwdriver out and adjusted the idle screw (got to love old skool mechanics) and now she idles perfectly at 5-600 when cold and 800 when warm

When buying the car I got told the sunroof didn't work and got given a new sunroof mechanism to replace the existing one, I thought I would see how bad the sunroof mechanism was (a decision I regretted for about an hour ) I tried to open the sunroof, which opened pretty well, the damn thing refused to shut! So after wrestling with it and swearing for an hour I finally got it to shut.
I have had a quick look and it seems the roof lining needs to be taken off in order the fit the new mechanism. I decided that enough was enough and left it for another day.

Sorry about the lack of pictures, I intended to take more but got sucked into tinkering and forgot about it.

[Luke328cab]

Just a little update on the progress of the car today,

It's having the front suspension and braided brake hoses fitted, a service and gearbox oil changed.

A few sneaky pics: