Not another E36! A Thread about a Daily Smoker - 323i
Discussion
Indeed, it is time that I showed my face with a propestive BMW bargain of the moment, the E36s, the unloved child out of all of the 3 Series. What started out with me buying a car as purely transport has ended up with me appreciating it, even it is a lowly 'detuned 2.5'.
As to how I came to acquire this? In a short space of time I sold off nearly all of my cars. This included a:
1989 Peugeot 205 GTi:
A car I thought I would hold onto ; A 944 Turbo with a few desirable mods:
However, with things going a little South in terms of work and an unreliable car left (this is coming...) I decided to part ways. It was good whilst it lasted for sure:
Finally I was left with the Stag. Despite the engine running fine the gearbox was giving me quite a bit of grief. It resulted in me needing to plan my journeys long in advance and be prepared to throw away a minimum of £5-10 worth of fuel before it would even move under its own steam. Whilst I did resort to riding around on my racing pushbike something had to be done.
With a new line of work things improved. I decided at that point in time that my daily should come in the form of this:
Whilst it was a superb daily it probably was not the best choice with how Fords can rust! Clearly I needed a winter smoker.
A friend of mine for a number of reasons was getting rid of his car. A BMW 323i Coupe. On the basis that I knew the history of the car it seemed like an appealing buy. After some cash parted hands I was now the new owner of the Bavarian machine:
Did it come with issues? Of course it did! The car was cheap and it was almost 20 years old after all! The issues included:
-The front wing having the paint burned through it as a result of the an overzealous polisher and a poor paintjob on it
-Central locking not working (still to fix)
-The engine running cool most of the time
-A small hole in the driver's seat bolster.
-Non working heated rear window
-Rattly parcel shelf
-Car driving with a mind of its own
Hang on, I've bought a nail right?
Not quite. The real beauty of the car lay skin deep, with them including:
-Powerflex lower arm lollypqop bushes and Black Series RTAB bushes.
-New Lemforder arms up front from an E30
-Koni suspension all round lowered at around 40mm with less than 1,000 miles on them
-New genuine BMW 850i top mounts (my friend ordered the earlier 6 pot dampers as opposed to the later ones).
-New OE clutch kit fitted.
-Special order leather interior binned in favour of half leather Sport seats ; the interior was very dirty prior to him buying it.
-17" Style 68 wheels with brand new tyres
-Fully serviced bar the coolant and fuel filter
The first issue I had to cure at this time of year was the thermostat. Some may call me nuts here but I shelled out for a BMW item ; on previous cars I was rather annoyed with the poor results pattern thermostats gave, and a Wahler thermostat was only £3 cheaper than BMW's list price, which I had a discount on anyway
. Despite some issues with bleeding the system despite following the bleeding procedure to the letter (I removed the heater matrix pipe to dispel of any excess air) I ended with with an amazingly warm heater, and temperature gauge which stayed within the middle upon warming up! I also filled it up with BMW approved coolant but with not coming from the dealer . Again, some may say coolant is coolant, but after the issues I had with the Triumph Stag and other cars with cheapo coolant (the coolant turned brown within a year in both cases!) I did not wish to take any chances on a car which has a reputation for potentially overheating.
Changing this:
resulted with this:
The rattling shelf required most of the rear interior to be removed in order to simply refix the rear shelf! However, it is now far less annoying to drive! At the same time I refixed the earth for the rear heated window which saw it working once more
.
Furthermore I had to car's geometry checked. It would not really drive in a straight line and the car felt like the rear and front of it were doing different things! Being lowered (and an E36) my local guy could not track it (with his hook over the tyre gauges, the wheel arches would have been damaged badly. So I ended up shelling out a small fortune for a bloke with a Hunter alignment system (where the gauges clip onto the rim) to align the car. Sure enough, the toe on all 4 wheels was all over the shop (they were all toeing out the front of the car having a toal of 0.57' toe out and the rear having 1 22' total toe out!). with the rest of the settings being relatively consistent. With the toe changed the car finally drove as it should.
There are a few more things to add, but that is it for now.
As to how I came to acquire this? In a short space of time I sold off nearly all of my cars. This included a:
1989 Peugeot 205 GTi:
A car I thought I would hold onto ; A 944 Turbo with a few desirable mods:
However, with things going a little South in terms of work and an unreliable car left (this is coming...) I decided to part ways. It was good whilst it lasted for sure:
Finally I was left with the Stag. Despite the engine running fine the gearbox was giving me quite a bit of grief. It resulted in me needing to plan my journeys long in advance and be prepared to throw away a minimum of £5-10 worth of fuel before it would even move under its own steam. Whilst I did resort to riding around on my racing pushbike something had to be done.
With a new line of work things improved. I decided at that point in time that my daily should come in the form of this:
Whilst it was a superb daily it probably was not the best choice with how Fords can rust! Clearly I needed a winter smoker.
A friend of mine for a number of reasons was getting rid of his car. A BMW 323i Coupe. On the basis that I knew the history of the car it seemed like an appealing buy. After some cash parted hands I was now the new owner of the Bavarian machine:
Did it come with issues? Of course it did! The car was cheap and it was almost 20 years old after all! The issues included:
-The front wing having the paint burned through it as a result of the an overzealous polisher and a poor paintjob on it
-Central locking not working (still to fix)
-The engine running cool most of the time
-A small hole in the driver's seat bolster.
-Non working heated rear window
-Rattly parcel shelf
-Car driving with a mind of its own
Hang on, I've bought a nail right?
Not quite. The real beauty of the car lay skin deep, with them including:
-Powerflex lower arm lollypqop bushes and Black Series RTAB bushes.
-New Lemforder arms up front from an E30
-Koni suspension all round lowered at around 40mm with less than 1,000 miles on them
-New genuine BMW 850i top mounts (my friend ordered the earlier 6 pot dampers as opposed to the later ones).
-New OE clutch kit fitted.
-Special order leather interior binned in favour of half leather Sport seats ; the interior was very dirty prior to him buying it.
-17" Style 68 wheels with brand new tyres
-Fully serviced bar the coolant and fuel filter
The first issue I had to cure at this time of year was the thermostat. Some may call me nuts here but I shelled out for a BMW item ; on previous cars I was rather annoyed with the poor results pattern thermostats gave, and a Wahler thermostat was only £3 cheaper than BMW's list price, which I had a discount on anyway
. Despite some issues with bleeding the system despite following the bleeding procedure to the letter (I removed the heater matrix pipe to dispel of any excess air) I ended with with an amazingly warm heater, and temperature gauge which stayed within the middle upon warming up! I also filled it up with BMW approved coolant but with not coming from the dealer . Again, some may say coolant is coolant, but after the issues I had with the Triumph Stag and other cars with cheapo coolant (the coolant turned brown within a year in both cases!) I did not wish to take any chances on a car which has a reputation for potentially overheating.Changing this:
resulted with this:
The rattling shelf required most of the rear interior to be removed in order to simply refix the rear shelf! However, it is now far less annoying to drive! At the same time I refixed the earth for the rear heated window which saw it working once more
.Furthermore I had to car's geometry checked. It would not really drive in a straight line and the car felt like the rear and front of it were doing different things! Being lowered (and an E36) my local guy could not track it (with his hook over the tyre gauges, the wheel arches would have been damaged badly. So I ended up shelling out a small fortune for a bloke with a Hunter alignment system (where the gauges clip onto the rim) to align the car. Sure enough, the toe on all 4 wheels was all over the shop (they were all toeing out the front of the car having a toal of 0.57' toe out and the rear having 1 22' total toe out!). with the rest of the settings being relatively consistent. With the toe changed the car finally drove as it should.
There are a few more things to add, but that is it for now
.The airflow in this car was not superb. After seeing the hard to get to Pollen filter it was obvious.
Part of the windows not demisting well, despite driving the car for quite some time as well as poor airflow (mainly from the lower foot vent, but the rest were not much better) may have been down to this chap:
I cannot say it was the easiest pollen filter to change (it looks to be an afterthought in terms of design!), where I only had to remove the driver's side part of the dash as well as the footvent (which had been bodged back into place with some tape (the vent was not really on)). What the photos do not show are the many leaves which the pollen filter was also storing ; for not long the footwell became an autumn brown colour! They smelled lovely... I guess that did not help the condensation either!
A new pollen filter later, the vent correctly attached (why do people bodge things when it does not take much longer for the job to be performed correctly?).
After this the heater was awesome and all of the airvents had plenty of force!
It is surprising how the simple fixes can make the car so much easier to live with!
At around the same time my friend had the paperwork through to get his plates back. A sad detail here but I figured I would treat the car to some age related plates with a vague dealer touch to them. Not quite Euro plates I admit, but still better than nothing.
At the same time I picked up some Continental WinterContact tyres for the 15" wheels which were part of the deal, so as to prep the car for what the winter throws at it. It did different it has to be said from its previous guise but I was in for a surprise:
They do not look as bad as I thought they would but things can still do with improving.
The surprise I was in store for was the drive of the car. To put it bluntly it has literally been transformed on these wheels in more ways than one! Firstly there is the performance; the car seems to feel like it has gained at least 10BHP! Whilst the thermostat swap may have helped matters I cannot help thinking that the wheels helped (the M-Sport Style 68s are heavier than these, especially the rears!).
Then there is handling. The ride has improved no end but I guess that was to be expected with the baloon sidewalls. I put these wheels on with the temperatures still being in the low teens, where being winter tyres these should have been at a disadvantage ; How wrong I was. The car feels far more planted on country roads, it is miles safer to drive in the wet (it was a combination of understeer and oversteer heaven if going a little too fast, and not all stupidly either!), along with the turn in of the steering feeling simply fantastic, a far cry from the vagueness it had on the 17" wheels?
What was the cause? Who knows? The tyre pressures were correct for both wheels, but maybe it was due to the extra weight of the 17s, maybe it was also due to the fact that the 17s were on E46 sized tyres (225/45R17 and 245/40R17) rather than the E36 ones (215/45R17 and 235/40R17). OTOH maybe it was down to the tyres having cheapo budgets on, although they were fresh budgets with some peeps seeming to have a good opinion on them. Whatever the cause it has left me with a dilemna. So much for just a daily!
I prefer the 17s in terms of aesthetics but love the 15s for how the car feels! I have decided (for now) that I will most likely buy a set of 16" wheels or go for a set of lightweight 17" (boring I know, but Rays would have been on the wishlist, although cheap they are not!). How do other BMW 17" wheels (like the BBS RC041s) compare to the weight of my Style 68s? I do reckon that my issue is an unsprung weight one but what do you peeps reckon?
Oh, and some more shots:
Part of the windows not demisting well, despite driving the car for quite some time as well as poor airflow (mainly from the lower foot vent, but the rest were not much better) may have been down to this chap:
I cannot say it was the easiest pollen filter to change (it looks to be an afterthought in terms of design!), where I only had to remove the driver's side part of the dash as well as the footvent (which had been bodged back into place with some tape (the vent was not really on)). What the photos do not show are the many leaves which the pollen filter was also storing ; for not long the footwell became an autumn brown colour! They smelled lovely... I guess that did not help the condensation either!
A new pollen filter later, the vent correctly attached (why do people bodge things when it does not take much longer for the job to be performed correctly?).
After this the heater was awesome and all of the airvents had plenty of force!
It is surprising how the simple fixes can make the car so much easier to live with!At around the same time my friend had the paperwork through to get his plates back. A sad detail here but I figured I would treat the car to some age related plates with a vague dealer touch to them. Not quite Euro plates I admit, but still better than nothing
.
At the same time I picked up some Continental WinterContact tyres for the 15" wheels which were part of the deal, so as to prep the car for what the winter throws at it. It did different it has to be said from its previous guise but I was in for a surprise:
They do not look as bad as I thought they would but things can still do with improving
.The surprise I was in store for was the drive of the car. To put it bluntly it has literally been transformed on these wheels in more ways than one! Firstly there is the performance; the car seems to feel like it has gained at least 10BHP! Whilst the thermostat swap may have helped matters I cannot help thinking that the wheels helped (the M-Sport Style 68s are heavier than these, especially the rears!).
Then there is handling. The ride has improved no end but I guess that was to be expected with the baloon sidewalls. I put these wheels on with the temperatures still being in the low teens, where being winter tyres these should have been at a disadvantage ; How wrong I was. The car feels far more planted on country roads, it is miles safer to drive in the wet (it was a combination of understeer and oversteer heaven if going a little too fast, and not all stupidly either!), along with the turn in of the steering feeling simply fantastic, a far cry from the vagueness it had on the 17" wheels?
What was the cause? Who knows? The tyre pressures were correct for both wheels, but maybe it was due to the extra weight of the 17s, maybe it was also due to the fact that the 17s were on E46 sized tyres (225/45R17 and 245/40R17) rather than the E36 ones (215/45R17 and 235/40R17). OTOH maybe it was down to the tyres having cheapo budgets on, although they were fresh budgets with some peeps seeming to have a good opinion on them. Whatever the cause it has left me with a dilemna. So much for just a daily!
I prefer the 17s in terms of aesthetics but love the 15s for how the car feels! I have decided (for now
) that I will most likely buy a set of 16" wheels or go for a set of lightweight 17" (boring I know, but Rays would have been on the wishlist, although cheap they are not!). How do other BMW 17" wheels (like the BBS RC041s) compare to the weight of my Style 68s? I do reckon that my issue is an unsprung weight one but what do you peeps reckon?Oh, and some more shots:
Many thanks for the kind comments.
NiceCupOfTea, I had read your thread and it seems that you are having fun with that for sure! It also looks very clean!
Paul, I see you are having fun with yours as well. If I had known about this earlier I may have bought the wheels off you. Now it will be a trickier for me to do so (I bought this car back in October).
BGarside, I certainly found it well balanced on the stock 15s. The extra speed and agility surprised me more than anything.
Not much to update here!
The car was treated to another oil change (it has quietened down the tappets thankfully) as well as a fuel filter change. It was not a terrible starter before (quite good in fact) but it has made the car start better (barely a few turns from cold and it is alive) in addition to it feel a little perkier again! Placebo or coincidence with the cold weather?
NiceCupOfTea, I had read your thread and it seems that you are having fun with that for sure! It also looks very clean!
Paul, I see you are having fun with yours as well. If I had known about this earlier I may have bought the wheels off you. Now it will be a trickier for me to do so (I bought this car back in October
).BGarside, I certainly found it well balanced on the stock 15s. The extra speed and agility surprised me more than anything.
Not much to update here!
The car was treated to another oil change (it has quietened down the tappets thankfully) as well as a fuel filter change. It was not a terrible starter before (quite good in fact) but it has made the car start better (barely a few turns from cold and it is alive) in addition to it feel a little perkier again! Placebo or coincidence with the cold weather?
No worries for going off topic. It is always good to obtain a variety of viewpoints.
In all honesty my car did feel sharper on the 15s or at least to me. Backroads had the car feeling way more planted and surefooted. The fact that they were on cheapo tyres may had been one reason for this mind you but then the wheel package itself was much heavier than the stock 15s.
Like some peeps on here I ended up getting rid of this sensible coupe to get something far more sensible as a daily ; a Clio 172! One day I will get a vaguely sensible and cheap to run daily, although the Clio has been to closest I have been to that for some time.
In all honesty my car did feel sharper on the 15s or at least to me. Backroads had the car feeling way more planted and surefooted. The fact that they were on cheapo tyres may had been one reason for this mind you but then the wheel package itself was much heavier than the stock 15s.
Like some peeps on here I ended up getting rid of this sensible coupe to get something far more sensible as a daily ; a Clio 172! One day I will get a vaguely sensible and cheap to run daily, although the Clio has been to closest I have been to that for some time.
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