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I've had my e21 for a few years but it's been off the road (following a ding) for a year and a half. As I'm getting it back on the road now I thought I'd start my own thread...
(Sorry if it's a bit boring!)

Here it is a couple of weeks ago, coming out from my parents' garage:


Back home in Salford (bumper and grill off):

Hey, it's a start! Fixing her up now?

Like those rims. I spy some Recaros in there too? So what's the plan?

Thanks. The plan is to first sort the 'sensible' stuff and get it through an MOT.

The slam panel had risen a tad. So with a bit of professional panel beating...


...it sat a little better.


Many thanks to Nas for the grill and Arshad for collecting it


And to Jim for the bumper and bonnet

Amongst other things, it needed new track control arms. You can see from this pic that the wheel is sitting slightly forward in the arch (and I could feel a jolt going over bumps).


I ordered some from 'buypartsby' - they wasted my time and money. Anyone else had trouble with them? (They are cheap, I'll give them that.)

Eventually I got to work...


New track control arms, handbrake shoes, cleaned and greased calipers (it has 323i brakes). New oil, oil filter, fan belt, ht leads, exhaust bracket and rubbers - oh and a Model-T style horn! Cleaned and greased the brake lines, secured some gators etc.

Ah looking better already! I'd spray that horn black though!

It had all new handbrake shoes when I rebuilt it, odd they needed replacing.

Recaros are e24 ones as I recall, the rails were a bit worn exactly where I had the seat so it moved, you may have a different driving position though!

Great to see it getting fixed up and glad to have been able to help with the parts.

drjim wrote:It had all new handbrake shoes when I rebuilt it, odd they needed replacing.

Recaros are e24 ones as I recall, the rails were a bit worn exactly where I had the seat so it moved, you may have a different driving position though!

Great to see it getting fixed up and glad to have been able to help with the parts.

Hi Jim, cheers. It was good to meet you. Did you get the log burner blazing?! The shoes were only part worn but I had some new shoes lying about so I thought I may as well fit them. Yeah, I've sat the seat back on the rail a bit and sorted the reclining mechanisms - seem fine.

Jeroen wrote:Ah looking better already! I'd spray that horn black though!

Thanks. I think you may be right about the horn!

I chopped the front springs too as the front was sat higher than the rear. (Perhaps the camber adjusters give it some extra height.)

Also removed that black plastic from below the boot (keeping the Zender spoiler for now.)

nice work mate! you booked it in for an mot yet?

Nice work - loving the look with those wheels, looks meaty! What are they?

nas80 wrote:nice work mate! you booked it in for an mot yet?

Alright Nas, yeah got MOT today!

alschux wrote:Nice work - loving the look with those wheels, looks meaty! What are they?

Thanks. The wheels are Schmidt Modern-Line Cups (and in need of a refurb).

Hey, nice to meet a fellow E21 enthusiast and well done on not giving up. On the home strecth for sure. I think I've got the same problem as you with the track control arm, so I'll look into that myself