The Bride Gets Serviced. Oo-er.

Thought I should post an update, as I've been juggling three car projects. The new car (The Bride Of Luger) has had something near a re-commissioning (well the car's only done 2000 miles since 2003) as I wanted to tackle a litany of niggling faults, so that she'll be completely reliable as a daily driver. That way I can take the Rover off the road to do the VVC swap.
A re-commissioning you say? Well how about:
New plugs, timing belt, tensioner, water pump, oil, oil filter, air filter, PAS belt, alternator belt, ballast resistor for the Bosch radiator fan, new injectors from my parts pile (a mate of mine used to work for Bosch so got stuff at cost - we filled our boots...
Rebuilding a warm-up regulator for the K-Jet as the idle speed is erratic.
Stripping and repainting the pulleys, various brackets and crank balancer, as they were all rusty.

Degreasing the whole engine bay - 28 years worth of caked-on grease get tedious after a while.

Peek-a-boo, I see you...

Repairing a crack in the sump that meant evvvvvvery last drop of oil had to be drained before I could make with the chemical weld. And various little wiring bodges that had to be ironed out. Did anyone that owned this car previously ever hear of solder?
That said, I found out it's had new wheel hub bearings and exchange  front brake calipers, so the car's had new bits on it recently.
Now it's getting somewhere near my standard.
Did get a chance to put an E36 325i battery cable in the green car (The Luger) and the loom for the B25 is nearly done. Next task is to mount the ECU under the driver's side dash area. Well, I wanna put gloves in me glovebox, innit?

Enter The Bride...

This car was the subject of much discussion on a thread on Jeroen's E21 forum; basically everyone thought the car was dodgy as the price started out at £2500, then was chipped down over the course of a week or so to £1700. So that, coupled  with some of the odd answers the seller was giving to people
Well, I had a hunch it was a decent car despite all of the bullshittery given off by the seller, so I drove down to Worthing. Story goes the guy is an Alfasud nut (he has a tii with a 1.7 lump I'd love to own), he bought the E21 on a whim, unfortunately didn't like it and needed funds fast to buy another 'Sud, hence the rapid slashing of the price. After two-and-a-bit hours of poking, prodding and looking for the usual E21 issues, I bought it. In fairness to the guy, he made all of the classic mistakes when listing it which contrived to make the car more moody looking than a Moody Blues reunion tour.

Problems? theres - well not much actually. It's done just over 128,000 miles so a few things are a little 'baggy', but it has a sheaf of BMW dealer receipts and nearly all of the MOTs, including head gasket work and new discs about ten years ago. The cars only done about 2000 miles in the last 7 years, so a bit of fettling is required, y'know, servcing, timing belt etc. This car will be kept completely standard as the Luger will be the 'mad' car when it's finished and I did primarily buy this to get my E21 'fix' in the meantime.

Leather interior (with Recaros) and genuine Alpina steering wheel & gear knob, bought in the late 90's according to the dealer receipt. Niiiice.

What look like MKII Astra GTE Recaro seats re-covered in tan leather, with the rear bench done to match.

Now it all goes a bit shonky...
An Alpina fusebox - for those high-performance B8, B10 and B16 amp fuses!

An Alpina ashtray - no doubt to stub out your Alpina cigarettes, of course lit by an Alpina lighter. Mind you, when I cleaned out the ashtrays I found half a zoot. Y'know, a joint, spliff, wacky baccy etc. Wondered why the car smelt a bit funky. And why I couldn't stop smiling afterwards. I wonder what are the hazards of secondary ganja inhalation?
The joys of Morroccan Old Holborn.

Now we're just getting silly.

Schnitzer on one side:

And Alpina on the other. It's a good job cars don't have identity crises.

Then there's the audio install, I reckon it dates back to the early 90's. Old-school or what? (and not all in a good way either). Note the subtle use of household flex for the power cable, and the small colony of scotchlocks round the back of the centre console; 27 at last count! And the non-working rev counter. And a decent Bosch radiator fan (from an E23 7er) that stays on when you put the fuse in. Needless to say it's all getting re-done. Along with a couple of the MOTs being done in Streatham (and the other 'stuff'...), I've got this image of Denzil from Only Fools & Horses cruising round in it back in the day, with Bob Marley & The Wailer's finest blaring out.

And yes your eyes don't deceive you, that is a carpeted boot. Proper job too, with the backing and vinyl edging. This car must have been garaged most of it's life, as the boot and boot lip are rust-free behind the panels.

It's gonna be fun.

Lets Start At The Begining...

I'm a huge E21 fan. I'm onto my third one now.

The first (no photos at present) was a red 323i which I had to scrap and the second one was, well, a red 323i (not by design, just happened to come up in Auto reader)

which had all the rare bits (Recaros, LSD, BBS wheels, Ansa exhaust).
A lovely car.
Until some muppet in a Micra rear-ended me:

...and the, to add insult to injury, legged it. The car drove onto the lowloader with it's head held high while the Micra had to effectively be picked up with a dustpan & brush.
But my heartbreak was short-lived when this beauty turned up on eBay:

It's actually a 320 with (knackered) 323i running gear; the body is virtually rust-free, a boon on an E21, as they can rot like a fruit in a plastic bag if you let them. It had been in dry storage for two years and while it starts, runs and drives, will need full recommissioning to be roadworthy again. The car was up in Lancaster, a 520-mile round trip from London, and as I didn't have a road-legal car to my name, decided to hire the cheapest car possible for the trip. Which happened to be a Smart City Coupe...

Now before  you wonder how many weeks rehabilitation I had to have after that journey in that car, I was pleasantly surprised. In brief, it was a great drive, with a driving position modeled after the Merc S-class (Smart was created by M-B) and an engine that handles motorway speeds with ease, with the only drawback with it being at the mercy of crosswinds. So after covering that distance feeling relaxed and spending 2 hours checking over the car, I paid £1200 and booked a lowloader to bring it home

Got the car home and tried one of my BBS wheels on. Sexxxxy :

Future plans include a built 2.5 lump, totally refreshing the running gear and fitting all the goodies I've accumulated over the years.