Hello, new member from Texas

wizzurp

wizzurp

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Hello guys, my name is Wyatt. I finally picked up a 2800csa after hunting for one for the better part of a decade. She has been sitting in a field since 1991, I'm excited to start working on her. Car has a clear title issued in 1982 issued to the second owners, I was very excited for that.

It's silver/rust colored, everything is complete, blue interior, only dent is a large scale one that I think can be popped out in the driver's side door, the rest of the car is perfectly straight. Can see through the ds floor board, there is a small hole in the trunk, and probably some rust on the pass side too. Both front fenders have some rust. The interior is the worst, I'm going to have fun cleaning that up.

It took us 5 hours to load it on the trailer and 5 minutes to unload it, what a day!

This will be a very low budget build as I'm a senior in college, hoping I can get it going asap and work on cleaning it up as I go.

A little about me, I've had probably 20 cars of varying varieties. Miatas, rx7, e30, 1602, e24, e30, e36, ae86, saabs, and my beloved 78 280z. E9's have always been my unicorn so I'm extremely glad to have the opportunity to pick this one up!! I hope I can contribute and hope to learn from the community. I'll be registering mine in the directory sometime soon.
 
My two turds.
 

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Welcome to the forum, go ahead and put your location up, there are a number of very helpful fellow Texans here. Also register your car while you're at it. Looking forward to seeing you bring her back to glory.
 
Welcome! Yes, there are at least 6 or so Coupes here in town and we have a number of proven shops/resources here to help, both body and mechanical.
 
Welcome to the group! Bwana and I are both BMW E9 AND Datsun guys. Small world - I have a 67 Datsun 2000 and Bwana has a 69.

Are you in College Station or Houston? We are in Houston.

Cheers
James
 
Welcome Wyatt. Can you add to the story on just how this Princess came into your life? Was it a drive-by field find or ?
PS If you can show more photo's please.
 
I got it registered! My vin is 2204987 if anyone can help me figure out more information about it, the vin decoder clearly doesn't work, it tells me it's a 320i haha.

Jamesw: I live just north of Dallas!

tmason: I had a friend send me a picture of the car sitting in a field. He knew I liked old stuff but didn't know I had been looking for an e9 for so long. He only made it out that way once a month or so to visit some extended family. I told him to get me some better pictures of it and a phone number to call when he had the chance to get back out there. Eventually I got a text one day with a bunch of pictures and a phone number, called the guy that night and picked it up the next day! Guy was very old, it was his wife's car and she had driven it in the 80's and parked it in 91 when she got a new Buick (sounds like a horrible trade to me)

Had a hell of a time getting it out of the field as it had become one with the earth and had three flats and a literal missing tire/sitting on one wheel. Broke several come alongs getting it onto the trailer and ended up using a high lift jack as a winch.

Got a chance to go through it today, it definitely has some holy bits in the floor pan, drivers/pass/rear seat floor/trunk but nothing ridiculous. Chased a mouse out of the trunk and found some ants in it. It is complete as far as I can tell, even has the original spare spark plugs in the tool kit!

It'll definitely need some serious work but I am SUPER pumped to get cracking on it. Need to get some tires put on these wheels to get it able to roll around.
 
Now you have it.... Never sell it. Being complete is half the battle, well, it is here in blighty. All the shiney bits get robbed and sold off as medalions or something. Get 2 sheets of 8x4 steel and a mig and you'll be able to rebuild it!
 
Yep, mig and tig handy here and have a bunch of plate steel on tap. I need to get it rolling so I can have fun with it.
Need to see if the head (or motor) has been replaced. These are some interesting carbs, I'm excited to pull them apart and see how gross they are internally. I also know nothing about this trans except that it's a terrible 3spd, my e24 was automatic as well, it wasn't bad just a little picky. Would prefer to swap in a manual one day. Have to see if it runs first though!
 
Congrad's on the find and funny your buddy didn't know you looking for one. Did the Old Guy let it go cheap?
 
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Yeah, it was pure random luck, I'll take it though! I didn't even haggle with him, it was so cheap. Put it this way it was only three digits and not very high up in them at that.
 
At that money, I could have flown to Texas and shipped it back AND it would have still been cheaper than the wrecks for sale over here... Good save.
 
rudeuk2 said:
At that money, I could have flown to Texas and shipped it back AND it would have still been cheaper than the wrecks for sale over here... Good save.
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That's sad to hear, I'm sure being close to the ocean doesn't help. This one sat in a field for 24 years, it definitely could be worse for how cheap it was!

I didn't realize how much people charge for assorted stuff on these things. I suppose there aren't a ton of them still around and partouts probably aren't too common but damn. Mine will be very low budget to get it running/driving and I may do the exterior rust cleanup/respray the car myself along with chrome and trim restoration. Luckily old stuff is really easy to tinker with. The head looked super clean when I popped the fill cap off, it looked a lot cleaner than my e24 did. Cluster has 87ish thousand on it, not sure how many times it has rolled over. As soon as I get a battery in it/assess what works and what doesnt I'm going to see if it'll fire with a little persuasion. If I can get some heat in it I'll compression test it for giggles.

I've got a broken ankle currently so I've got a lot of motivation to work on it but I can't stand for long periods of time. :roll:
 
its not so bad, just needs a lot of work to make them right. Make sure no one is in the way of the exhaust when you fire it up. I got a S2 Bentley woke up after 12 years in a field, it fired nut shells out the exhaust like bullets! :razz:
 
I think I read here on how to best lube up an engine that's been setting so long. Do a search on the Forum sites. Also if it's a non sunroof car that helps on rust issue but make sure strut mounts are sound before driving. These cars have a lot of flex, just jack up 1 side and you will see what I'm talking about.
PS Hope that broken ankle is the clutch foot ;)
 
Rude: hahaha that's hilarious, never seen that happen.

Tmason: normally you just pull the ignition lead and let it spin without fire to build oil pressure. You can also thread in a fitting where the oil pressure sender is and manually inject/build oil pressure that way. I'm kind of lazy so I'll probably just prime it the normal way. Need to see if it turns over first though, may have to break it free if the rings are a little rusty or anything.
 
Wizzurp, I'm in Austin- have my hands full with my current e9 project and, oh, I forgot- work too but maybe we could make arrangements for a visit/view. Please start a thread in projects and restorations and we can follow the progress. One word of warning though, I think JMacro said it but the most expensive car you will ever own is a cheap e9 :)

You'll have to strip that baby down to bare bones to see what you have (or don't have) in terms of the body. You can clean up and re grease just about everything to get it working then replace when you can find (and pay for) the parts.

Everyone here is excited to see an ole e9 put back on the road but there is the reality check of being beyond the point of return, these cars can be like beautiful girls with unpronouncable diseases.
 
Peter Coomaraswamy said:
I think JMacro said it but the most expensive car you will ever own is a cheap e9 :)

Everyone here is excited to see an ole e9 put back on the road but there is the reality check of being beyond the point of return, these cars can be like beautiful girls with unpronouncable diseases.
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I was just thinking what Peter said here above, it's one thing to strip it down and do all the bodywork needed, that's not the expensive part if you do a lot of the bodywork yourself, the expensive part comes later when you have a nice rustfree body with new shiny paint on, then you realise there is noway that you can or want to use any of all the old small bits and pieces (and there is a lot of small bits and pieces on these cars)

And to start buying every piece you need, piece by piece, will become enormously expensive. So it would maybe be wise to start from a car in better condition.

But anything is possible! There are many examples of e9 restorations where the starting point has been far worse than what state your car is in now, it's just a question of how much time, effort and money you want to put into it.

And as Peter said, start a project thread so we can follow!:)
 
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