Clean Up

Before I started putting any actual money into the car I spent many days cleaning up the years of grime and trash. My Mom and her husband had used the car as a basic daily driver. I polished the paint which looks good from far but far from good.

My next step was to replace the good old factory stereo. I picked up a decent Pioneer cd player with Ipod control. This paired with the 1991 premium audio package actually sounds relatively clean. I browsed Craigslist daily looking for the perfect deal on a reasonably priced sub woofer to add some base to the system. I ended up buying a 12" sub, amp and box for about $125. With a clean car and some decent sound I really started feeling the urge to turn this into a project car. My biggest hang-up is that this car is an automatic. I'm all about the driving experience and I wasn't to thrilled to put money into a car that didn't have a manual transmission. So I decided I wouldn't put much money into the car aside from keeping it running and clean. That didn't last too long.

Congratulations on your new E30 and by the way, it doesn't run.

My Mom and her husband Tim were kind enough to give my wife and I their 1991 BMW 325I. There was only one problem, it didn't run. Annie and I had it towed out to the family farm in Willsonville, OR where it sat for a few months until I was able to spend some time diagnosing the problem. Now I'm nowhere near a mechanic. In fact I have almost no experience or knowledge aside from the basic ability to change the oil or a spark plug and maybe some brake pads. After some reading and assistance from family I determined that the fuel pump was bad.

One trip to U-Pull It and $17.00 later and I was off ripping down the street to some factory tunes naive to the fact that I was headed down a slippery slope of E30 modding.