davekillen
Member
Hi all, thanks to everyone who helped me out when I posted about what to save from an e12 parts car. I wouldn't have been nearly so diligent about that without the guidance, and I think it'll pay big dividends as my project moves along. The e12 has moved along to its next person (thankfully I was able to find someone locally who's kind of an e12 nut, so hopefully it'll continue to be made use of before getting scrapped) and I'm digging into the e9 now so I figured I'd introduce myself.
The car that introduced me to BMW was a '77 530i my family briefly owned when I was 15, and largely due to that car I grew up working on e21s and 2002s. In recent years I've been more of a vintage Porsche guy, restoring a couple 912s, but have almost always had a bimmer as my daily driver. My current e39 wagon stickshift has been rock solid for almost 10 years now.
I never thought I'd have an e9, but lucked into this one via a friend who works at a local european car shop. Someone had had two e9s sitting for years, and hired the shop to make one good car out of the pair. When this was done, the leftover car was up for grabs, and my friend tipped me off to it. It really hadn't been picked over too badly, and the rust that was scaring other people off didn't bother me with my Porsche history (and lots of research about e9 rust and repair) - I'm good with a MIG and getting there with TIG, and recently picked up an enormous spot welder I'm eager to put to use.
The car needs floors and rockers at a minimum, and had a terrible red paint job over the original Taiga (which is what I'll return it to), but the interior is in decent shape and I'll try to save as much of that as I can. I like the idea of "sympathetic" restorations and that'll be my goal here; that's what I did on my most recent 912 (I made a video about that when I sold it that you can watch here if you want:
I'll start a thread in the restoration forum and also still need to post some e12 stuff in the classifieds. I'm glad to have this resource and am looking forward to chatting with you all as the project goes along!
The car that introduced me to BMW was a '77 530i my family briefly owned when I was 15, and largely due to that car I grew up working on e21s and 2002s. In recent years I've been more of a vintage Porsche guy, restoring a couple 912s, but have almost always had a bimmer as my daily driver. My current e39 wagon stickshift has been rock solid for almost 10 years now.
I never thought I'd have an e9, but lucked into this one via a friend who works at a local european car shop. Someone had had two e9s sitting for years, and hired the shop to make one good car out of the pair. When this was done, the leftover car was up for grabs, and my friend tipped me off to it. It really hadn't been picked over too badly, and the rust that was scaring other people off didn't bother me with my Porsche history (and lots of research about e9 rust and repair) - I'm good with a MIG and getting there with TIG, and recently picked up an enormous spot welder I'm eager to put to use.
The car needs floors and rockers at a minimum, and had a terrible red paint job over the original Taiga (which is what I'll return it to), but the interior is in decent shape and I'll try to save as much of that as I can. I like the idea of "sympathetic" restorations and that'll be my goal here; that's what I did on my most recent 912 (I made a video about that when I sold it that you can watch here if you want:
I'll start a thread in the restoration forum and also still need to post some e12 stuff in the classifieds. I'm glad to have this resource and am looking forward to chatting with you all as the project goes along!
