Hi all,
Been thinking of doing build thread for my e36 and decided that this would be a good place to post. Primarily, it is a Malaysian website, and this is a car in Malaysia after all! That Tom seems a decent fellow is further icing on the cake.
I have been a fan of european cars for some years now. As a new project, I had in my mind to buy a car which was <RM100k, which would hopefully preserve its value, whilst also being reasonable to restore and tastefully enhance. My previous cars had been relatively painful to the wallet, european cars living up in rather spectacular form to their reputation of relatively high maintenance effort and poor resale value.
I also wanted a car which would stand out by being relatively uncommon, which would feel engaging to drive - therefore it would need to, in my mind, be rear wheel drive and have a manual transmission. While not having had the opportunity to own a BMW until recently, I had been attracted to the brand because of the active enthusiast and aftermarket support, as well as the relative ease of availability of factory parts in Malaysia.
Under consideration at the time were a Volvo 240/740/940 wagon and a Mercedes W124 230TE wagon. They ultimately fell through because too many people told me I was crazy (which through the years I have gotten used to.) but primarily because I couldn't, despite to the best of my efforts of trawling mudah.my and the like, find one which I felt would be a suitable base.
I first saw this car at a TT session, during and after which ///M friends were made and I came to learn that the car was for sale. Some time later and, as the modern world would have it, WhatsApp messaging and Facebook stalking later, I found myself test driving the car, liking it and putting an offer in.
I did not manage to get a workshop to do a professional pre-purchase inspection - my gut was entrusted to check to make sure the car was straight and a good basis for my to-be project. I planned to view the car in the morning, so that I could see how the car started from cold. I was a little disappointed to find the engine warm to touch when I got there, having been driven earlier that day. To the credit of the previous owner I found the car in a well maintained honest form. Being a 1996 it had pre-facelift kidney grills. I made sure that the wiring was in good shape - in this respect there was no cause for concern. There were, for its age, only a few additions, those I spotted being for the angel eyes, the fitment of the aftermarket radio, amplifier and subwoofer, and finally for the alarm. In my mind these could be easily reverted to stock.
Looking at the engine bay I could see that the cam cover seals were seeping a little around the front of the engine, and that the power steering hoses were a little wet, but nothing alarming otherwise. The oil aws well topped up, and visually appeared have been changed recently as it was a clearish healthy brown. I unscrewed the filler cap and found no evidence of any sludging or unnecessarily long service intervals. The radiator reservoir held nice clean fluid and wasn't running low either.
The clutch fans didnt seem tight, belts weren't cracked, it all looked in good! The first of the things to annoy had been uncovered though, and this was the fact that the red Hellrot paintjob had been done rather poorly. There was overspray everywhere due to poor masking, and elsewhere there were many portions that had not even been painted.
Looking inside the cabin for me was the most pleasing part of the inspection. It was clean, worn in the right places, the tint was well applied indicating that the owner had not skimped. The radio was a nice Alpine, having ipod integration even. Turning the key on (without starting the car) I found that all the lights worked as expected, and that there were no dead pixels anywhere either on the dash cluster, the air conditioning control unit or on the on-board computer.
Under the car I found no indication of any overly enthusiastic workshop jack damage, or off road excursions. I didn't see the surface rust frequently found on reconditioned cars, and saw a custom made decatted stainless steel exhaust, welded to a Hamann back box. The gearbox was clean and dry, as was the differential. To me this meant that the gearbox and diff breathers were dry too, which is a good indication that the car has the correct level of fluid, and that it also hasnt been driven at high revs for long periods.
I started the car and found that the idler pulleys were noisier that ideal, but otherwise everything worked well fans ran, and steering effort was appropriate. Air conditioning was set to 16 degrees, which to me was a potential alarm bell, but remained cool when I changed the temperature up to 24degrees, so it seemed that the compressor was at least healthy.
Onto the test drive then, this was something risky to me. First, was that I was left to view and test the car alone. Whilst on the surface an unaccompanied test drive was fantastic, there was also incredible exposure should something happen during the test drive!
In being entrusted with the car I was careful to treat the car gently while it was warming up. My first cause of concern was that the clutch take up point was very low. Something was definitely wrong here. In combination with the gearbox fluid being cold, the shift into first was expectedly trademark notchy. As the car warmed up sitting in the traffic, combined with me familiarising myself with the area to find some free-er roads to stretch the legs of the car, I was excited and knew, at the very least, that even if I didn't buy this particular car, the e36 seemed the right platform to give me some motoring smiles.
Soon enough I found some clear roads and confirmed my sentiments further. Running through the gears I found that ignoring the clutch take up point, the shifts were buttery smooth, particularly at higher revs, and and oh my - the car made some sweet sweet sounds. Intake noise was louder than I expected - the bwohhrrrrrr of the individual throttle bodies was quite clearly audible, and the exhaust had a lovely metallic buzzy twang to it without being intolerably loud. The sunroof worked noiselessly, which for me was fantastic news as I loved car rides with the sunroof open as I was growing up, and have found now my daughter appears to love as much as I did!
The test drive took some 40 minutes or so, combined with inspecting the car earlier on meant that I had somehow spent close to two hours checking the car out!
Given how well it all went, I knew then and there that I needed to go home and speak to my wife and let her know that I had found a good project car to start with. She immediately responded with "another old car?" but I have now developed the skills to see in the corner of her eye whether she will let me get away with it or not...
Fast forward through a few weeks of negotiation, the requisite Puspakom inspection and JPJ transfer and payment and I finally got the car in my hands. A good friend followed me to collect the car, which happened to be late on a weekday afternoon along Jalan Tun Razak, with the rain heaving down on us. He elected to drive the e36 on her maiden journey home, whilst I admired it from every mirror possible.
And so begins the tale of Project Holly!
Been thinking of doing build thread for my e36 and decided that this would be a good place to post. Primarily, it is a Malaysian website, and this is a car in Malaysia after all! That Tom seems a decent fellow is further icing on the cake.
I have been a fan of european cars for some years now. As a new project, I had in my mind to buy a car which was <RM100k, which would hopefully preserve its value, whilst also being reasonable to restore and tastefully enhance. My previous cars had been relatively painful to the wallet, european cars living up in rather spectacular form to their reputation of relatively high maintenance effort and poor resale value.
I also wanted a car which would stand out by being relatively uncommon, which would feel engaging to drive - therefore it would need to, in my mind, be rear wheel drive and have a manual transmission. While not having had the opportunity to own a BMW until recently, I had been attracted to the brand because of the active enthusiast and aftermarket support, as well as the relative ease of availability of factory parts in Malaysia.
Under consideration at the time were a Volvo 240/740/940 wagon and a Mercedes W124 230TE wagon. They ultimately fell through because too many people told me I was crazy (which through the years I have gotten used to.) but primarily because I couldn't, despite to the best of my efforts of trawling mudah.my and the like, find one which I felt would be a suitable base.
I first saw this car at a TT session, during and after which ///M friends were made and I came to learn that the car was for sale. Some time later and, as the modern world would have it, WhatsApp messaging and Facebook stalking later, I found myself test driving the car, liking it and putting an offer in.
I did not manage to get a workshop to do a professional pre-purchase inspection - my gut was entrusted to check to make sure the car was straight and a good basis for my to-be project. I planned to view the car in the morning, so that I could see how the car started from cold. I was a little disappointed to find the engine warm to touch when I got there, having been driven earlier that day. To the credit of the previous owner I found the car in a well maintained honest form. Being a 1996 it had pre-facelift kidney grills. I made sure that the wiring was in good shape - in this respect there was no cause for concern. There were, for its age, only a few additions, those I spotted being for the angel eyes, the fitment of the aftermarket radio, amplifier and subwoofer, and finally for the alarm. In my mind these could be easily reverted to stock.
Looking at the engine bay I could see that the cam cover seals were seeping a little around the front of the engine, and that the power steering hoses were a little wet, but nothing alarming otherwise. The oil aws well topped up, and visually appeared have been changed recently as it was a clearish healthy brown. I unscrewed the filler cap and found no evidence of any sludging or unnecessarily long service intervals. The radiator reservoir held nice clean fluid and wasn't running low either.
The clutch fans didnt seem tight, belts weren't cracked, it all looked in good! The first of the things to annoy had been uncovered though, and this was the fact that the red Hellrot paintjob had been done rather poorly. There was overspray everywhere due to poor masking, and elsewhere there were many portions that had not even been painted.
Looking inside the cabin for me was the most pleasing part of the inspection. It was clean, worn in the right places, the tint was well applied indicating that the owner had not skimped. The radio was a nice Alpine, having ipod integration even. Turning the key on (without starting the car) I found that all the lights worked as expected, and that there were no dead pixels anywhere either on the dash cluster, the air conditioning control unit or on the on-board computer.
Under the car I found no indication of any overly enthusiastic workshop jack damage, or off road excursions. I didn't see the surface rust frequently found on reconditioned cars, and saw a custom made decatted stainless steel exhaust, welded to a Hamann back box. The gearbox was clean and dry, as was the differential. To me this meant that the gearbox and diff breathers were dry too, which is a good indication that the car has the correct level of fluid, and that it also hasnt been driven at high revs for long periods.
I started the car and found that the idler pulleys were noisier that ideal, but otherwise everything worked well fans ran, and steering effort was appropriate. Air conditioning was set to 16 degrees, which to me was a potential alarm bell, but remained cool when I changed the temperature up to 24degrees, so it seemed that the compressor was at least healthy.
Onto the test drive then, this was something risky to me. First, was that I was left to view and test the car alone. Whilst on the surface an unaccompanied test drive was fantastic, there was also incredible exposure should something happen during the test drive!
In being entrusted with the car I was careful to treat the car gently while it was warming up. My first cause of concern was that the clutch take up point was very low. Something was definitely wrong here. In combination with the gearbox fluid being cold, the shift into first was expectedly trademark notchy. As the car warmed up sitting in the traffic, combined with me familiarising myself with the area to find some free-er roads to stretch the legs of the car, I was excited and knew, at the very least, that even if I didn't buy this particular car, the e36 seemed the right platform to give me some motoring smiles.
Soon enough I found some clear roads and confirmed my sentiments further. Running through the gears I found that ignoring the clutch take up point, the shifts were buttery smooth, particularly at higher revs, and and oh my - the car made some sweet sweet sounds. Intake noise was louder than I expected - the bwohhrrrrrr of the individual throttle bodies was quite clearly audible, and the exhaust had a lovely metallic buzzy twang to it without being intolerably loud. The sunroof worked noiselessly, which for me was fantastic news as I loved car rides with the sunroof open as I was growing up, and have found now my daughter appears to love as much as I did!
The test drive took some 40 minutes or so, combined with inspecting the car earlier on meant that I had somehow spent close to two hours checking the car out!
Given how well it all went, I knew then and there that I needed to go home and speak to my wife and let her know that I had found a good project car to start with. She immediately responded with "another old car?" but I have now developed the skills to see in the corner of her eye whether she will let me get away with it or not...
Fast forward through a few weeks of negotiation, the requisite Puspakom inspection and JPJ transfer and payment and I finally got the car in my hands. A good friend followed me to collect the car, which happened to be late on a weekday afternoon along Jalan Tun Razak, with the rain heaving down on us. He elected to drive the e36 on her maiden journey home, whilst I admired it from every mirror possible.
And so begins the tale of Project Holly!
Maybe one day I will "rob" it back 
RM20 and one hour later it was mostly done. There were still a few yellow blobs of glue as the job was not perfect, but it certainly seemed like good value to me.
