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Thread: Sepia Brown 320i Project Thread

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Tangent Oregon
    Posts
    450
    My Cars
    79' 320i 84' 733i

    Sepia Brown 320i Project Thread

    Well I just realized that its time I start a humble project thread on here, as time is slipping by at a rapid pace. It's already hard to remember all of the details from the first years of ownership! This is my 1979 320i automatic in Sepia Braun. I love these old e21's, they are so good looking and so simple, no AC, no power steer, etc. I bought this car in 2014, after looking at the craigslist ad repeatedly for a few days. I was mostly drawn in to the unusual color, and I thought it would be a fun base for a project. It runs and drives enough to get around, but it's tired. I have done a bit of maintenance on the M10, but I don't want to dedicate a lot of time or money to it. My long term plan is to pull the M10B20 and auto trans in favor of a 6 cylinder/5 speed conversion. It has a cheap respray that shines up nice but had plenty of flaws. The interior is a bit ratty, I have slowly gathered up parts to change it out. That is one of the next things I have in mind to finish up.

    My E23 makes a cameo in a few of the photos, if you are curious you can find more info here: Bahama Beige E23 Project Thread
    Here is how it looked when I brought it home




    IMG_4173 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_4171 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_4184 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_4170 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_4162 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_6882 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr


    I did some basic maintenance, including some Eurometric bushings in the steering rack and bushings in some new control arms. Around this time my buddy Jesse (Jester) passed a 323i parts car along to me. It had some unknown lowering springs on it, I think they are ST. I swapped the complete 53mm 323i strut housings over, this is what is still on my car currently. Threw on a set of E30 14'' weaves. I also squirreled away what was left of the black interior. I actually ended up selling the rear disc brake setup off this car, which was a mistake.



    IMG_4254 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_5015 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_5019 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_5044 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_5059 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_6880 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_6881 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_6883 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0561 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr



    I got a BBS front valance from my buddy AJ. I painted it up with a few cans of sepia brown from paint scratch.com. I got it installed and made a temporary "bumper" out of rubber trim from the US bumper.



    IMG_0567 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0582 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr


    Big stereos in cars aren't usually my thing, but Luke at German Audio Specialties had an E21 box left over from a run that he made, so we struck up a deal to trade some parts and labor back and forth and I ended up with a fun stereo. We used E28 premium sound rear speakers and modified tweeters, along with a 10'' sub in the custom ported box. The tweeters fit surprisingly well.



    IMG_2178 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_2704 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_2705 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_2708 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_2709 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_2710 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr



    Somewhere along the way I bought a cheap beater Porsche 944 just for the Epsilon wheels it had on it. The price of the car was the same as the value of the wheels haha. I got it running and sold it cheap since it was an automatic and pretty rough. Basically came out with a free set of wheels. I keep thinking that I will put them on the E21 eventually (with adapters) but I haven't gotten that far yet. Epsilon's are some of my favorite wheels.



    IMG_3587 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_3607 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr


    A few years back Jesse (Jester) experienced a terrible loss, the storage hangar where he kept his projects caught fire. His freshly restored TC1 323i Baur was destroyed. It was an extremely sad situation. He needed to clean out all the debris in the shop, so we made a deal and I took what was left of the Baur. We used the winch on his Jeep to drag it up onto my trailer. I picked what I could off of it, and parted out a few small things that were left.
    One of the main items I keep were the euro bumpers. The chrome was damaged beyond repair, so I carefully pulled them apart and sent them off to my powder coater. They came back looking amazing. I reassembled them with new rubber strips from Walloth and Nesch, along with hardware sourced from BMW and the local hardware store. I also had the strut bar that was on the Baur blasted and powder coated and it turned out nice.



    IMG_0722 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0768 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0775 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0797 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_1346 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_9410 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_9411 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_9409 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_7093 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_7094 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_7097 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_7099 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr



    I got the front installed, along with a new set of Hella H1/H4 head lamps and clear euro turn signals. I also cleaned up and painted the grilles, and installed my BMW CCA grille badge. I am using the bumper bracket kit from "Johnny Bimmer", now sold by Blunttech. I have spent some more time recently trying to get the bumper to sit straighter and it's a little better. I didn't get the rear bumper installed, as we were about to move to a new place in a different city and it took a while to get settled in.



    IMG_7613 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_7103 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr



    Around this same time I had pulled the windshield since it was cracked, and spent a bit of time knocking down some surface rust in the gasket channel and coating with POR15. I had a local old school glass shop pop in an aftermarket windshield, and paid them to slip in a new rear lock strip as well. Money well spent to have a pro do it IMO. It was great watching the installer work, he was an old school guy who really knew his stuff when it came to the BMW style windshield gaskets.



    IMG_6884 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_3072 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_7797 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr


    In 2016 We moved into a new place, and I was able to sort out a shop space in the barn on our families farm. It took a while to settle in before I dug back into the E21 projects.



    IMG_0002 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_7537 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_3452 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_7762 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_7545 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_7542 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_8133 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_8129 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_9772 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    Agnes my Great Pyrenees/Border Collie likes to keep me company in the shop

    IMG_2247 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr



    I finally started on the rear euro bumper. I stripped off the old US bumper and related hardware. Powerwashed the lower valance, then spent some time with an abrasive wheel on the drill to knock down the rough spots and old paint. I cleaned it all up, masked the car and sprayed the lower valance with truck bed liner. Over top of that I sprayed it with a few coats of Sepia Brown color matched paint. I used a set of brackets that a buddy welded up for me, based on the template available here on the forum. They worked out well, but if I was to do it again I would probably use brackets that my friend Erik Dye has started producing, unfortunately they weren't available when I had this set made up. https://dluxfab.com/BMW-E21-rear-Eur...ets-p115717014

    I sourced new hardware for the rear bumper, from eBay, BMW, and local stores. When I first started working on the rusty bumpers the rear corner brackets had been damaged, so I cut off what was left of them before I had them powderocated. It was time to figure out a solution to bolting the corners up. I bought some elevator bolt, with large flat heads. I modified the heads to be rectangular, so they would slip perfectly into the track in the rubber bumper trim strip. I slid them all the way to each end, where they popped out the existing holes in the steel. I matched these up to the sheet metal on the car and drilled holes in the lower quarter panel for the bolts to poke through. This method has worked surprisingly well! I found a brand new pair of Hella license plate lights for a great price from classic euro parts and modified the factory wiring to work with the euro lights. I used the license plate relocation bracket that Blunttech sell for a clean install of the plate. Lastly I used an assortment of rubber grommets to seal up unused holes and protect wiring.



    IMG_9736 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_9764 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0759 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_9770 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0783 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0784 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0787 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0795 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0798 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0631 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0623 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0635 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0643 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0642 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0626 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_0758 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_3044 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_2924 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_2955 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_3041 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_3040 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_3197 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_3193 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_3195 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_3191 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_3216 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_3206 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    IMG_3359 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr

    This last photo is with my buddies E21, it has some nice goodies on it

    DJI_0148 by Steven Henriksen, on Flickr


    I think this catches up to where the car sits currently. Next project to tackle is getting the interior fixed up!
    Last edited by StevenHenriksen; 01-19-2021 at 10:49 PM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2015
    Location
    Phoenixville, PA
    Posts
    21
    My Cars
    1987 BMW 535is
    You are really doing great work on that e21! Looks very nice.
    BTW, it does have power steering, although very basic by today's standards. Brings back fond memories!

    Sent from my XT1635-01 using Tapatalk

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    Austin, TX
    Posts
    1,585
    My Cars
    1978 323i
    Outstanding work!

    I love the brown color, and the black bumpers (and the clean rear conversion overall) work really well with it. And those are some of my favorite wheels too!

    Can't wait to see how the interior turns out
    Last edited by cgifool; 01-14-2021 at 09:47 AM.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Tangent Oregon
    Posts
    450
    My Cars
    79' 320i 84' 733i
    Quote Originally Posted by BC535is View Post
    You are really doing great work on that e21! Looks very nice.
    BTW, it does have power steering, although very basic by today's standards. Brings back fond memories!

    Sent from my XT1635-01 using Tapatalk
    Quote Originally Posted by cgifool View Post
    Outstanding work!

    I love the brown color, and the black bumpers (and the clean rear conversion overall) work really well with it. And those are some of my favorite wheels too!

    Can't wait to see how the interior turns out
    Thanks guys, I appreciate it!

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2018
    Location
    Battle Ground, WA
    Posts
    294
    My Cars
    83 e21 82 E23 80 E12
    For whatever reason I was thinking your e21 was in need of serious work. That thing is super nice!

    I like the home made front bumper. Looks like an interesting option.

    Thanks for the props on the euro brackets. Mine are simple, cheap and fool proof for sure.

    I can't tell you how much I like that front end with the brown, clear lenses and black accents. You're e23 is one of my favorite because the color too. I would be curious to see that car with the same setup.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Tangent Oregon
    Posts
    450
    My Cars
    79' 320i 84' 733i
    Quote Originally Posted by Erik Dlux View Post
    For whatever reason I was thinking your e21 was in need of serious work. That thing is super nice!

    I like the home made front bumper. Looks like an interesting option.

    Thanks for the props on the euro brackets. Mine are simple, cheap and fool proof for sure.

    I can't tell you how much I like that front end with the brown, clear lenses and black accents. You're e23 is one of my favorite because the color too. I would be curious to see that car with the same setup.
    Thanks man I appreciate it! Its a decent 20 footer for sure haha. It has some rust around the trunk gasket lip, pretty minimal. I need to get on it and buff it down and do a coat of POR 15. The worst rust is that hole under the accelerator pedal that I sent you pictures of. I also need to patch up the seat brackets, they are torn out. After that I will clean up the floor and I can put the interior back together.

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