Sell or fix 325iS, or franken30?

[SubDad]

Pictures for Ivan attached.
Richie s999: The black car? The PO put unpainted fenders on what I think of as the red car and as far as I can tell the front lip is intact?

The trailing arms and front struts from the red car are festering rust blobs. I was going to replace them this year.
I'll give them a decent burial.

The Green had a slight smack on the front left, enough to break the lip that curls under the dam and wrinkle the fender enough to crack the paint but not the primer. If it's that lip (see the picture of the front right) you have, then Yes Please! I hear you can't get them in Canada. Could that be true?

TheTwin and Everlast: I have the Bentley manual in print and it's getting covered in thumbtracks, but it doesn't really cover a Eurospec 320. Subject to *this weekend - GD it I'm gonna get to work on this car* it seems to figure out the ignition and fuel in a Eurospec car you have to read both the 318 and 325e sections of Bentley. If I had a 1987 it'd be easier. I also have the factory 1987 manuals on .pdf, and a Russian language factory .pdf that isn't as useful as it would be if I could read Russian.
This car is an oddball from a North American perspective, see the distributor picture. As far as I know, and I grant you that compared to most everybody on this site I don't know anything, all NA distributors run off the cam, not out of the block. And I don't recall seeing the Telefunken ignition. Do 318s have Telefunken ignition?

Infinite Dice: Fair question, no probs, and one that hadn't really occured to me. The VIN comes up as 325i on RealOEM and maybe it seems to sit high because most E30s have been lowered by now? The single exhaust is a cheap Spiffy Muffler unit screwed to the rear frame with #12 sheet metal screws. There's a (snort) 2 into 1 connection just aft of the cat, made with the sort of welding that I'd be ashamed of and I'm the world's second-worst welder.
It has the full-leather bondage interior, the 3-spoke wheel, colour shift knob, electric everything OBC etc. I think it's a 325iS? The left rear swing out window has the wrong trim shade because it came off a junker, that window was missing when I bought the car.
Also, I took it out for a hoon this evening. The fancy seats are a fine thing for corners.
I'll keep calling it a 325iS and stand quite willing to be corrected, preferably over beers.

[craz azn]

That lip comes on the north american spec E30s too. I have one chillin' in the trunk of my parts car if you want it.

[cormier]

How bad are the trailing arms and struts? You may be able to work the rust off the surface if it's not deep, and seal/repaint

I remember some of my parts looked horrid and unusable, but just needed a bit of TLC

[SubDad]

craz azn: Really? Aw rats, there goes some of my unique-itude. But it's nice to know I'll be able to make it symmetrical easily.

cormier: Yeah, I've brought stuff back from the dead too, but once I take them off the red car it isn't a rolling chassis any more. My driveway is big, but at the rate I work I'd be having to shovel snow around it, so it'd be nice to be able to push it away without a Kenworth.

Good advice on this forum, wow.

It's such a nice chassis that that I'd rather not install stuff I avoided looking at too closely last year, the year my neighbours say I spent under the red car.

[richie_s999]

I have this one, same one that's on my 83 euro

I have the same color interior on my 83, its so ugly it hot

[everlast]

You should SO get a sticker made that says

"Now with 100% more Telefunken!"

[SubDad]

I thought Telefunken only made shortwave radios and hifis that that really earnest people listened to jazz on.

But my problem isn't the Telefunken ignition, it's the Funken fuel injection.
As a bit of shotgun troubleshooting before I start a proper process I've ordered a DME (fuel pump and ECU, effectively) relay. The current one seems to test OK, but it has a large crack in the base so it'd need replacing anyway.
Asked around in Ottawa, but everybody has them on back order.

"It'd be $99.99 if we had one but we don't have one, so you could order it, pay for it and wait until it comes in." >>> Pass, thanks. Signs of yet another trip to Ogdensburg, and another western sandwich at the diner downtown.

[SubDad]

Hey, Cormier?

Re-reading my post from last night I see that I reversed the order of the last two lines, so it looks like I'm making a sarcastic remark, when really I'm just sort of stupid and fumble-fingered.
I'm sorry about that.
I really do appreciate the advice and offers that are coming in and a particularly good remark was your first reply, saying that a bad chassis would be bad forever.

[cormier]

Haha I didn't even notice! Now if only the compensation for hurting my feelings was your euro....

[SubDad]

Oh good, thanks Cormier.
And no, you can't have my Green.

So, about the colour. As you all know, women are the arbiters of colour. All the women in my life say "Ohhh, I like the colour." Then I open the doors and they say "Oh."

But they're unlikely to be anything but passengers, so too bad.

[everlast]

All the women in your life? That sounds weird lol.

[SubDad]

After a hard weekend of bathroom renovations and rudder refinishing, which car do you think started so I could pick up my daughter off the bus back from Montreal?

Was it the Green Euro E30 which is otherwise perfect, and a very pretty face? No, but I knew it wouldn't.

Was it the DD Nissan, otherwise perfectly reliable after 14 years and 220,000 mostly city miles on the no-maintenance maintenance plan? No, coughed an alternator. It was brakes last week.

Was it the still aggressive, 24 year old torque-monster with 325,000 km of who-knows-what, thrust-master with a sloppy gear-shift Red 325iS?
Yes! Was it fun to drive? Yes, it was. And aside from the GD anti-lock, all the electric toys worked just fine, thanks.