** Acme [Akagi] bought a pink estate car - E30 325i project log! **

Given that you plan to keep the car, and the faff on to put the sump gasket issue right, I'd pull the engine and go to town on it.
I think (hope) that pulling the engine would be overkill at the minute. The sump gasket should be easy to change.
 
It seems that in their infinite knowledge, BMW have made it incredibly hard to replace the sump pan gasket. Hooray!
 
Ingenious, but I have to take the wheels off to drop the subframe. :p

Could use an engine support beam...

 
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Trust me. Pull the lump now and be done with it. You can clean it, check/renew/replace stuff all in one hit. You can also give the engine bay some tlc while it's out.
 
id love to, but i dont have the means to do it sadly. and the labour cost of someone else doing it would be extreme!
 
Taking an engine out is a little beyond me at the moment! I meant a lack of someone willing to help as much as a lack of a hoist. Haha :p

Not something I want to be doing, nor is it something my Dad will help with, nor something he'll let me attempt to do myself without trying to make my life difficult every step of the way.

I was met with strong resistance when I told him what I was buying, but I think now he's calmed down he secretly digs it a little, and has been talking about replacing a few of his motorbikes with a classic car! :D

So I'll save that for if and when I re-build the engine/have the engine re-built. :)
 
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If you're going to whip the engine out you may as well put in an S54, get the whole car derusted and resprayed, put in a DCT gearbox and install the new iDrive in it also. Easy.
 
Car back from the garage.

List of things which need rectifying which I wasn't already aware of:

- Lollipop bushes
- Both front jacking points/inner arches going rotten, drivers side has a hole through to carpet!
- Brake pipes

Aside from that, all things I knew about.

The jacking points are weird though because the drivers side has a massive hole and yet the carpet doesn't seem to get wet! Passenger side doesn't have a visible hole but gets wet.

The full list is now:

- Full outer and inner sills both sides (no massive rush as they are pretty solid)
- Front jacking points both sides
- Inner nearside rear arch cut and weld (again, no rush as pretty solid)
- Boot floor cut and weld
- Offside inner front arch cut and weld
- Sump pan gasket + oil and filter service
- Drop links
- Lollipop bushes
- Brake pipes + fluid renew
- Clutch master cylinder
- Nearside front wheel bearing

Think that little lot will come to somewhere between £1500 and £2000.
 
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Guess once it's sorted it'll be in a decent nick.. being an old car it'll continue going wrong i bet but that's part of the fun.

Maybe then you can fully focus on sorting out the paint etc?
 
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