I'm gonna get myself killed ..

[Bear Paw]

but my coworker is moving to Kansas and is selling me his BMW. Its 1989 325i convertible.

Pros:
convertible (always wanted one)
new tires on 17" rims
price is right ... $300
killer Kenwood setero with 6 speaker system
top doesn't leak
all the electronics work (windows, ...)

Cons:
325,000 miles (engine was changed out at 250,000)
He warned me that it needs a new water pump and oil pan gasket (soon)
I doubt the engine had the 60,000 mile service, so I'll need to flush everything and some new ignition parts and belts
A little small for me so I'm gonna need to slim down but I need to do that anyways

Things I'm looking at doing:
I want to upgrade the brake system, no doubt the brakes lines need to be switched out.

Headers, intake, exhaust, fuel (I want convert it over to Flexfuel, we have a station that sells E85 for about 20-30 cents less then regular).

Replace body bushings, shocks, struts.

new interior and new paint job


SOOO, anyone want to bet on when I'm going to smear myself across the highway?

I'll repost this in a bit in the 3-series forum, thanks for any input.

 

[Doughnut]

If the car has no rust, the paint is ok - and if you have the money, and the time to do all the things you want to do, by all means i think you should. $300 is really cheap in my opinion and if it has no other serious problems than it should be a steal. i love the 2.5litre engines.
Water pump replacement may be dauting at first but is a relatively easy job, there are heaps of tech articles here and all over the web.

Good luck, and welcome to the board.

 

[E30m42cab]

"I'm gonna get myself killed" That's what I said when I bought my E30 convertible. $300 is cool, but there are a lot of bushings that will be shot. You'll have a great old time doing the rear subframe bushings. I brought back an E30 from it's death bed, and it was expensive and very, very, very, very time consuming. But if you've got money to burn and time to kill go for it. You'll learn tonnes of stuff about your car. You'll love it too... I'm never going to sell my cabrio!! I LOVE it! At some point you migh get sick of working on it and think; "man I could have spent $2500 on a 1990 that was in better shape and I could spend more time driving than I do working on fixing stuff". That's what I thought about my old '86 325e.

Good luck though, have fun, and I'll be able to ask you how you did stuff that I haven't done yet.

Cheers

 

[Bear Paw]

I'll let you all know how it goes. Should be getting it this week. I use to have an old GMC truck that required 2-3 hours of work a week just to keep it running. So this shouldn't be too bad. I have access to a lot of tools too.

 

[Doughnut]

I want to upgrade the brake system, no doubt the brakes lines need to be switched out.

Ive seen soo many brand new aftermarket brake rotors and pads realy cheep for our e30's on eBay, simple change over from old, to new

keep us posted.

 

[Bear Paw]

I drove it on thursday before going to Vegas ... drove it home today. This baby is gonna kill me. She doesn't do less then 40mph unless I have it out of gear. Needs new brakes for sure. New bushings are first on the list. Tech needs fixing ... does anyone else have a MPG gauge?