E36 328, soft top, £575, What's the worst that could happen?
Discussion
Thanks guys.
As I said, angel eyes always divide opinion. I like to think mine are better than most though. I love them
It's a nice treat to see it working when I'm behind a dark clean car. Coming off roundabouts is a good one for it.
As I said, angel eyes always divide opinion. I like to think mine are better than most though. I love them
McSam said:
.....That dimming function is excellent, working with the headlights is one thing but the indicators is top class, I bet it looks great on the road.
Don't often see them myself It's a nice treat to see it working when I'm behind a dark clean car. Coming off roundabouts is a good one for it.
McSam said:
Interested to hear the wind deflector compatibility.....How have you found the car with it fitted?
Not tried it out properly yet. The PH east anglia fish & chip run is this weekend though so hopefully the weather is good. Quick post to say the BMW is still going well.
It's been half term this week to the kids have been off school. They were promptly dropped off at the grandparents and my wife and I disappeared off to Wales for a few days.
Mainly a relaxing adult holiday, but I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity for some good driving roads
Few pics for you....
The 328 didn't put a foot wrong all week and was great fun hooning around the Welsh mountains with the top down (new wind deflector working perfectly).
Yes the convertible chassis is a bit wobbly, and scuttle shook like hell across the many cattle grids. But (IMO) it's a small price to pay to spend some quality time with that straight 6 noise
The windy roads did confirm what I already knew though - I really need to fit a shorter ratio diff. Coming out of slower corners or doing the classic 30-NSL sprint, the revs are almost always too low for a good pull but high enough to make changing down for all of 2 seconds pointless.
The 328 has a 2.92 diff and a common straight swap is to fit the 3.0ltr M3 item which has a 3.15 ratio and the benefit of a LSD too. I've planned to do this for a while but after the trip this week I think the 3.23 from the M3 evo would be better still, the only down side being it's physically larger so requires the full evo subframe etc...
It's been half term this week to the kids have been off school. They were promptly dropped off at the grandparents and my wife and I disappeared off to Wales for a few days.
Mainly a relaxing adult holiday, but I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity for some good driving roads
Few pics for you....
The 328 didn't put a foot wrong all week and was great fun hooning around the Welsh mountains with the top down (new wind deflector working perfectly
). Yes the convertible chassis is a bit wobbly, and scuttle shook like hell across the many cattle grids. But (IMO) it's a small price to pay to spend some quality time with that straight 6 noise
The windy roads did confirm what I already knew though - I really need to fit a shorter ratio diff. Coming out of slower corners or doing the classic 30-NSL sprint, the revs are almost always too low for a good pull but high enough to make changing down for all of 2 seconds pointless.
The 328 has a 2.92 diff and a common straight swap is to fit the 3.0ltr M3 item which has a 3.15 ratio and the benefit of a LSD too. I've planned to do this for a while but after the trip this week I think the 3.23 from the M3 evo would be better still, the only down side being it's physically larger so requires the full evo subframe etc...
Edited by JordanTurbo on Tuesday 16th June 17:55
There's been a lot of updates from the e36 guys in here recently. Think it's best I should join in.
Nothing special as I'm spending my free time building a new Rover V8 for my Land Rover. Just some maintenance in the form of rear pads, rear discs and handbrake shoes.
Went for standard OEM compound Pagids. I don't see much point in "posh pads" on the rear, not for the little amount of work they do on the road.
Rear in the air and wheel off.
Stripped
And back together after a clean up and handbrake set up.
Only other update is that I spotted this on my travels.
I've fancied a set of staggared 5 series "style 32" wheels for a while and this didn't help the want at all. Really like them on the e36 (although I'd have them in a slightly darker gunmetal grey).
Nothing special as I'm spending my free time building a new Rover V8 for my Land Rover. Just some maintenance in the form of rear pads, rear discs and handbrake shoes.
Went for standard OEM compound Pagids. I don't see much point in "posh pads" on the rear, not for the little amount of work they do on the road.
Rear in the air and wheel off.
Stripped
And back together after a clean up and handbrake set up.
Only other update is that I spotted this on my travels.
I've fancied a set of staggared 5 series "style 32" wheels for a while and this didn't help the want at all. Really like them on the e36 (although I'd have them in a slightly darker gunmetal grey).
Hi guys, not updated this in a while as I've been busy on the V8 Discovery and moving house.
328 is still giving trouble free service in the meantime though. New garage means I'll have room for the car AND tools Instead of just tools.
Drive way is smaller though, only room for one car instead to 2/3. Slight slope is good for an oil change though, means it's level for the refill.
Service light reset, back to 5 greens.
Finished of with a new MOT, can't believe I've had this over a year already. Flew through with no advisories of course. The emissions results were better than last year too, regular running is obviously doing it good.
328 is still giving trouble free service in the meantime though. New garage means I'll have room for the car AND tools Instead of just tools.
Drive way is smaller though, only room for one car instead to 2/3. Slight slope is good for an oil change though, means it's level for the refill.
Service light reset, back to 5 greens.
Finished of with a new MOT, can't believe I've had this over a year already. Flew through with no advisories of course. The emissions results were better than last year too, regular running is obviously doing it good.
Hi guys 
The E36 is still here. Happily performing my daily commuting duties, while my V8 Land Rover Discovery does the family stuff.
The thread has been quiet mainly because she's been so well behaved. The dash has just ticked over 120,000 miles bringing the total in my ownership to about 17,300.
Still enjoying every mile, and getting the roof down where ever and when ever possible.
Apart from another scheduled oil and filter service over the summer, the only work I've had to do was on the front brakes. Where the EBC pads that I fitted when I first got the car two years ago, had worn down and now required changing.
While sorting out replacement pads, I heard that a simple upgrade may be to swap to e46 328i discs. The rumour being that unlike the more common 330i conversion, which has a larger caliper and ideally requires an M3 master cylinder to keep a good pedal feel, the 328i setup uses the same caliper with a larger carrier to suit the bigger discs.
A quick search on RealOEM.com for the part numbers seemed to confirm that.
Seeing as I was doing the pads anyway, I decided I might as well slot in an upgrade while I was at it. So I ordered the required parts - Discs, pads, and the e46 carriers from a breakers.
With the old bits off, you can see the difference in the carriers (old on the left, new on the right)
To allow for the slightly larger discs. 300mm on the e46 Vs 286mm on the e36.
All bolted up perfectly as planned using the original e36 calipers, so I didn't even need to do any bleeding. I'm not normally fussed about coloured brakes, but seeing as the used carriers that I bought were painted red, I decided to give the rest lick of paint to match.
I'm happy with the upgrade. No increase in pedal travel, but a little bit more bite.
With that done, here's a few more pictures of the 328 out and about. She makes a regular appearance at the monthly Haynes Motor museum breakfast meeting.
As well as the Castle Combe car park at the numerous events over the summer.
As always, thanks for reading and all comments welcome.
The E36 is still here. Happily performing my daily commuting duties, while my V8 Land Rover Discovery does the family stuff.
The thread has been quiet mainly because she's been so well behaved. The dash has just ticked over 120,000 miles bringing the total in my ownership to about 17,300.
Still enjoying every mile, and getting the roof down where ever and when ever possible.
Apart from another scheduled oil and filter service over the summer, the only work I've had to do was on the front brakes. Where the EBC pads that I fitted when I first got the car two years ago, had worn down and now required changing.
While sorting out replacement pads, I heard that a simple upgrade may be to swap to e46 328i discs. The rumour being that unlike the more common 330i conversion, which has a larger caliper and ideally requires an M3 master cylinder to keep a good pedal feel, the 328i setup uses the same caliper with a larger carrier to suit the bigger discs.
A quick search on RealOEM.com for the part numbers seemed to confirm that.
Seeing as I was doing the pads anyway, I decided I might as well slot in an upgrade while I was at it. So I ordered the required parts - Discs, pads, and the e46 carriers from a breakers.
With the old bits off, you can see the difference in the carriers (old on the left, new on the right)
To allow for the slightly larger discs. 300mm on the e46 Vs 286mm on the e36.
All bolted up perfectly as planned using the original e36 calipers, so I didn't even need to do any bleeding. I'm not normally fussed about coloured brakes, but seeing as the used carriers that I bought were painted red, I decided to give the rest lick of paint to match.
I'm happy with the upgrade. No increase in pedal travel, but a little bit more bite.
With that done, here's a few more pictures of the 328 out and about. She makes a regular appearance at the monthly Haynes Motor museum breakfast meeting.
As well as the Castle Combe car park at the numerous events over the summer.
As always, thanks for reading and all comments welcome.
Edited by JordanTurbo on Sunday 25th September 15:25
Thankyou for the comments guys. I'm still really happy with it.
Got another couple of updates to put up soon when I get a chance. So watch this space.
(2) The new soft top will normally be just that - The fabric top. You would keep the old "skeleton" including the worn elastic straps, so you'd still have the tonneau cover contact issue.
(3) Yes you are correct, the headliner is best left off to do the roof. It speeds the job up a lot.
I hope those answers help you.
Got another couple of updates to put up soon when I get a chance. So watch this space.
Vince70 said:
Hi I wonder if I could be cheeky and ask for some advice...........
(1) If you need it, there is a repair kit available from BMW that includes new dog ears and string. Not sure how much it is though as mine were repairable.(2) The new soft top will normally be just that - The fabric top. You would keep the old "skeleton" including the worn elastic straps, so you'd still have the tonneau cover contact issue.
(3) Yes you are correct, the headliner is best left off to do the roof. It speeds the job up a lot.
I hope those answers help you.
Happy Easter everyone, tume for another update on the BMW.
Well the trouble free motoring couldn't last for ever, and one afternoon on the way back from work I got a flat on the rear.
Out with the space saver, and home. Then decided that instead of buying a new tyre, now would be an ideal time to change wheels.
I got the staggered M3 wheels as they were a great deal at the time and better than the 15s that she originally came with. But I never really liked them on the 328, as I always thought they made it look like an M3 replica and consequently like a tarted up 4 cylinder, when infact it has nothing to hide.
So I had the flat tyre removed from the Style 32s, along with the other rear tyre which was close to the legal limit, and sold the 5 wheels.
And used the money to buy a set of the wheels I'd wanted for a while - some genuine 328i Sport BBS RC041 splits.
They had been fitted to a "stanced" golf. And as you can see, they had been painted purple and had some bling gold bolts fitted.
Obviously not to my taste, but the colour meant I got them for a good price vs a set in a more desirable shade, and they had decent rubber on them too. So I fitted them to the BMW and ran them for the rest of the winter.
Once the summer came round, it was then time to sort the wheels into a more respectable set, and I made a start splitting them for a refub.
The bolts are a special BBS type and are splined into the rim instead of having a hex on the outside, so they need to be hammered out. To do that the nuts were wound up flush with the top of the threads to protect them, then a coper drift was used to avoid any damage as they can require some force.
All nuts and bolts removed. These gold ones wouldn't be kept, but I wanted them out cleanly so that they could be sold to somone with the required taste.
With all 20 bolts out per wheel, the centre could be knocked out. Again preventing any damage using some rag and a block of wood.
All 4 wheels split. Note the car in the background on axle stands at the front, as my 15" spare wheels wont fit over the larger brakes at the front.
Hub caps split as well.
And all purple items cleaned up ready to be dropped of with the painter.
Thanks for following.
More to come once I've sorted the photos.
Well the trouble free motoring couldn't last for ever, and one afternoon on the way back from work I got a flat on the rear.
Out with the space saver, and home. Then decided that instead of buying a new tyre, now would be an ideal time to change wheels.
I got the staggered M3 wheels as they were a great deal at the time and better than the 15s that she originally came with. But I never really liked them on the 328, as I always thought they made it look like an M3 replica and consequently like a tarted up 4 cylinder, when infact it has nothing to hide.
So I had the flat tyre removed from the Style 32s, along with the other rear tyre which was close to the legal limit, and sold the 5 wheels.
And used the money to buy a set of the wheels I'd wanted for a while - some genuine 328i Sport BBS RC041 splits.
They had been fitted to a "stanced" golf. And as you can see, they had been painted purple and had some bling gold bolts fitted.
Obviously not to my taste, but the colour meant I got them for a good price vs a set in a more desirable shade, and they had decent rubber on them too. So I fitted them to the BMW and ran them for the rest of the winter.
Once the summer came round, it was then time to sort the wheels into a more respectable set, and I made a start splitting them for a refub.
The bolts are a special BBS type and are splined into the rim instead of having a hex on the outside, so they need to be hammered out. To do that the nuts were wound up flush with the top of the threads to protect them, then a coper drift was used to avoid any damage as they can require some force.
All nuts and bolts removed. These gold ones wouldn't be kept, but I wanted them out cleanly so that they could be sold to somone with the required taste.
With all 20 bolts out per wheel, the centre could be knocked out. Again preventing any damage using some rag and a block of wood.
All 4 wheels split. Note the car in the background on axle stands at the front, as my 15" spare wheels wont fit over the larger brakes at the front.
Hub caps split as well.
And all purple items cleaned up ready to be dropped of with the painter.
Thanks for following.
More to come once I've sorted the photos.
Edited by JordanTurbo on Sunday 16th April 20:52
Thanks guys.
So with the centers dropped off to the painters for a colour change, I turned my attention to the shiny bits.
First up was to order some replacement chrome bolts to replace the gold ones.
Not cheap for the genuine BBS bolts (around £1 each and there's 20 per wheel
) but they are a special type and need to be right - splined as I mentioned in the other post, with an 8mm shank that steps down to an M7 threaded portion, and with a 10.9 high tensile rating - not exactly an "off the shelf" fastner.
Eith them ready to go, I made a start polishing. First with the centre "nuts"
Which came up nicely.
And then onto the lips. They had been polished before so didn't take too much work to bring back up to scratch.
Came up really nicely.
One of the wheels had an issue though. While cleaning them up, I spotted that some previously welded damage had cracked through.
With the tyre removed, it was clear that it had been a bodge job - just a bead of weld layed over the crack with no cleaning up or work on the inside of the rim. No wonder it cracked through.
I have a mig welder, but not tig, so took it to a local specialist to be done properly.
The crack was cut right back and Veed out to remove any stress points, then welded all the way back to the lip.
It was done inside and out, with the rim reprofiled where required. Proper job like the crack was never there.
So with that done, a trip to the painter was made to collect my centres. Now freshly painted in a nice grey.
When I dropped them off, we spent a while flicking through colour cards to find a shade I was happy with.
We settled on VW Platinum Grey metalic as I wanted somthing that was dark enough to give a contrast with the chrome, but not too dark that the detail of the BBS centres was lost, and they came out looking better than I had planned.
Now the rebuild, centre caps first.
Then onto the lips, and when rebuilding BBS splits one does not simply resist the urge to try the centres backwards in the barrels for a laugh
Just look that dish!
Playing over, I rebuilt them properly with the new chrome bolts.
All 4 done, and fitted, with a quick jet wash of the car so I could take some pictures.
I'm so happy with how they have tuned out. Much much better than the M3 wheels that were fitted before, and IMO they've turned it from looking like an old 90's chavvy M3 wannabe, to a looking like a smart modern classic as it should.
Thanks for reading, and I'll get some better pictures up once I've given it a real wash.
So with the centers dropped off to the painters for a colour change, I turned my attention to the shiny bits.
First up was to order some replacement chrome bolts to replace the gold ones.
Not cheap for the genuine BBS bolts (around £1 each and there's 20 per wheel
) but they are a special type and need to be right - splined as I mentioned in the other post, with an 8mm shank that steps down to an M7 threaded portion, and with a 10.9 high tensile rating - not exactly an "off the shelf" fastner. Eith them ready to go, I made a start polishing. First with the centre "nuts"
Which came up nicely.
And then onto the lips. They had been polished before so didn't take too much work to bring back up to scratch.
Came up really nicely.
One of the wheels had an issue though. While cleaning them up, I spotted that some previously welded damage had cracked through.
With the tyre removed, it was clear that it had been a bodge job - just a bead of weld layed over the crack with no cleaning up or work on the inside of the rim. No wonder it cracked through.
I have a mig welder, but not tig, so took it to a local specialist to be done properly.
The crack was cut right back and Veed out to remove any stress points, then welded all the way back to the lip.
It was done inside and out, with the rim reprofiled where required. Proper job like the crack was never there.
So with that done, a trip to the painter was made to collect my centres. Now freshly painted in a nice grey.
When I dropped them off, we spent a while flicking through colour cards to find a shade I was happy with.
We settled on VW Platinum Grey metalic as I wanted somthing that was dark enough to give a contrast with the chrome, but not too dark that the detail of the BBS centres was lost, and they came out looking better than I had planned.
Now the rebuild, centre caps first.
Then onto the lips, and when rebuilding BBS splits one does not simply resist the urge to try the centres backwards in the barrels for a laugh
Just look that dish!
Playing over, I rebuilt them properly with the new chrome bolts.
All 4 done, and fitted, with a quick jet wash of the car so I could take some pictures.
I'm so happy with how they have tuned out. Much much better than the M3 wheels that were fitted before, and IMO they've turned it from looking like an old 90's chavvy M3 wannabe, to a looking like a smart modern classic as it should.
Thanks for reading, and I'll get some better pictures up once I've given it a real wash.
Cheers.
I'm really happy with them, and probably doubled what they are worth compared to what I payed for them originally.
Not that I'm planning to get rid at all.
At some point I'll put them in the chuck of my drill and clean them up a bit with some sand paper. Then sell them on.
I'm really happy with them, and probably doubled what they are worth compared to what I payed for them originally.
Not that I'm planning to get rid at all.
Dannbodge said:
You'll be able to sell the old ones on eBay though. I got a decent price for the ones I removed and they were rusty and horrible.
Yeah, that's why I wanted to remove the gold ones without any damage.At some point I'll put them in the chuck of my drill and clean them up a bit with some sand paper. Then sell them on.
Thanks guys.
I may go back to chrome kidney grills at some point though, now that I have the chrome detail on the wheels.
Should have more on that soon.
shalmaneser said:
Looking great but really needs normal projector headlights, orange indicators and chrome kidneys for the full effect.
Go on, you know you want to!
Nothing againced amber indicators, but im not a fan of them on the silver E36s. The angle eyes are also staying as I love them - especially when they come on in dusk when the car is unlocked.Go on, you know you want to!
I may go back to chrome kidney grills at some point though, now that I have the chrome detail on the wheels.
2thumbs said:
I couldn't get on with the grey plastics that came with the silver leather in my old arctic silver sport. Gorgeous car otherwise!
I'm not keen on the grey plastics either personally. Should have more on that soon.
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