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Thread: Canadian E36

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2014
    Location
    Calgary, Canada
    Posts
    51
    My Cars
    97' BRG 318i slicktop

    Canadian E36

    Long time creeper, never posted much. Gotta start somewhere.

    I've owned 8 BMW's in my short time of driving but never really got around to building one and seeing it through. Took a small hiatus from working on cars in 2016 after I hit black ice on a freeway on Christmas Eve in my 84' Zender 325e that I was in the process of cleaning up. Hit a concrete barrier doing around 70km/h and ripped the rear bumper clean off as well as crumpled the front fender. I drove home and since that night have vowed never to own a car that isn't german. The plans for the car are pretty simple right now, with just some much needed love and maintenance. However the goal of the car performance wise is a reliable and streetable 300 horsepower that can be taken on road trips but driven hard as well. Summer time I would like to see the car wrapped in a new colour, new trim pieces where needed, LTW wing, proper wheel setup and just a clean oem+ look on both the exterior and interior.

    Bringing us to this day, I figured I might as well start documenting a build I have been dreaming of starting and completing since buying my first E36 in 2013. I picked up a 1999 323is 5 speed cosmos coupe with megan coilovers and these ugly winter wheels on Dec. 29th, from a friend who had been debating on selling the car for a couple months and finally gave in.

    [IMG]A428B2D2-97D2-41BF-AEF3-15FD69CB8A3F by Paul Claassen, on Flickr[/IMG]

    I've been looking for a clean coupe shell for a base for the past six months which isn't an easy task here up north. The car has 257k on the clock, is missing the carpet, has a bad maf, the heats real slow, trim pieces are starting to come off and the hood release doesn't really work. Home sweet home right? The night I went to pick up the car, the temperature with wind chill was close to -40, the roads were terrible and it was snowing like crazy. When I arrived, the car was sitting warming up and we went over the usual and he showed me that the rear drivers side has a large amount of toe-in and that it just needed an alignment.Taking his word I started the drive him, driving the residential roads I didn't really notice the rear end trying to swing around as it was low speeds however as soon as I got to proper speed my rear end was all over the place. With it being 8 o'clock already I pulled off into a parking lot and let it sit till the next day not wanting to risk an accident.

    The next day I got the car up in the air after letting it sit in my condos guest spot in the under ground lot to thaw out for a bit. First thing I look at is the drivers side trailing arm and found out that the arm has shifted all the way to the inside, and instead of replacing the bushing, the adjustment plate had just been pushed as far out as possible.

    [IMG]0E7C5EF8-AF56-4032-9F90-B99AE5594FC3 by Paul Claassen, on Flickr[/IMG]

    After seeing this I went over the car as best I could with a jack and basic hand tools as all my tools are at school. Ordered up new oem bushings for both sides with poly limiters as well as new front lower control arm bushings as they were in a sad state too. I also have clean black carpet, a UUC evo short shifter and a new maf to replace the current one that is toast. I am hoping to have the bushings in for next week as the weather is supposed to warm up a little and I can drive it to a friends garage to under take some much needed bushing replacement as well so I can take it to school and do an alignment after the break is over.

    That is all for now!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    Lawrenceville, GA
    Posts
    11,860
    My Cars
    4 BMWs.
    Best of luck with the resuscitation.
    2001 Z3 3.0i -Oxford Green/Sandbeige
    2016 428xi -Estoril Blue II/Black
    2018 430iC- Estoril Blue II/Black
    2018 330it - Melbourne Red/Venetian Beige/Black

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