Caradise Project Car – Love at First Sight at the Impound plus Serious Problem Found

Picking this car out of the impound feels a little like picking some long lost relative from Jail. You wonder about his past, what did he do? Why are there no records in the last ten years? What horrors will await? Our project car, aka “Project Zoolander” started by going into a deep dive of cheap cars in Facebook Marketplace, where the horrors abounded. Our search ended weeks later, by winning an auction at Joyride for a 1986 BMW 325 that came with a clean title and looked complete, but was bought sight unseen. For a simple mission, a track day on May 14th at Sonoma Raceway.

After paying the final bid, although not yet the registrations costs, signed a few papers, and paid a local locksmith $80 to get one key made. The car was mine, and I finally was gonna see it. Some auctions allow inspections prior to the auction, this one doesnt.  There were a few surprises along the way. This one was more a barn find than a regular impound for sure. The first glance at it was promising.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. After a records search, the car’s records dried up sometime in 2010. The last year of reported smog check. The pics showed a stock car, so near-zero chance to be a 10 year old only-track car.

The car had no battery, i saw some water pooled in the floor in front of the rear seats, I panicked a little thinking it may have been a recently flooded car. Not quite, the sunroof has been left open a quarter of the way, and the rear windows too. The engine looked dry as well.  The trunk was bone dry, same for the front of the car. Didn’t smell like moldy.  It had been two rainy days right before today. So I calmed down. Cracked and dry dash, tired seats, and no shifter knob.

The shifter was very loose, still got into gears, but was thinking the linkage must be off and I hope not something worse in the transmission.

I had anticipated the no-battery situation and brought a small battery I had laying around and some fresh gas, but the battery didn’t fit. So I had to call AAA and had them tow the car home, had to wait nearly 2 hours.

The interior look very tired but complete. The last E30 I was looking at was a complete mess compare to this. So it looked semi-decent despite its many years away. Thankfully, the sunroof has a manual crank and I was able to close it.

When I got the car home, I found another battery, a fairly large one from my VW Phaeton that I sold in 2020. I’ve been telling the wife I would use it someday. Hoarders Win! I kept this battery around for nearly 3 years in my garage. It looked very large, but it was a perfect fit on the custom work done to move the battery to the back inside the trunk. The I turned the key just to start the power and car came alive (the lights did) but, I didn’t crank it yet. As a precaution, I checked all fluids and hoses, and noticed the oil stick basically showed no oil. I put a quart, headed for more, and saw the entire quart was now on the floor, on the street. It was getting dark so I couldn’t quite see, but the usual suspects had to be the either the filter, the oil pan or perhaps a missing oil plug? Something worse?

We got a YOUTUBE Channel Y’all! Check it out!

The next day, I got under the car to see a clearly cracked oil pan. There was no shield, I’m not sure it had one stock, but there was a 5 inch crack, and was slightly loose.  This one I was dreading, because it does require for removal to lift the car and to slightly lift the engine a couple of inches up via a cross beam engine lift to get the oil pan out. I couldn’t do either myself at my place, so off it went to the local BMW indie cheap shop. Stay Tuned! Time is ticking for us to get this thing ready!  Follow us in Youtube! The rest of the work I’ll have to do myself.