I rang up and went to have a look. I expected it to be rusty but it turned out to have absolutely no rust anywhere at all. I couldn't really see under it but I could feel and there was no bad bits.
The seller (the farmer) told me that he had had engine troubles so laid it up in 1990. He sent the block away but was told it was too far gone to fix, and it was never sent back. Then someone asked and he sold them the gearbox. Then it was pushed into the corner, and things put over it, around it, on it, and it stayed there for many years. He also told me that someone else was interested in it, and I asked them was it [guys name] and it was. I knew this guy - he was fixing up a rusty one and wanted a shell to cut up. I had refused to sell him my project 320i. Instead I sold it to someone from miles and miles away who was going to restore it - only a few days before. Only a week from selling one E21 project to buying another one!
Anyway I agreed to buy it but the challenge was getting it out of the shed! I didn't want to see this one cut up either.
I have no pictures from this time but once i brought it back to my workshop, well it ended up sitting in there, and "then it was pushed into the corner, and things put over it, around it, on it, and it stayed there for many years"... well, I was gathering up spare parts for it in the meanwhile.
Last year (2015) I did a little bit of work to it, got around it, cleaned up any of the dirty bits, few areas of surface rust on things like the brake servo linkage, found and fitted headlights, things like that.
I ran into registration problems around then. It took months to sort - I had the old plates and of course the VIN but no papers, and when I applied for them, the DVLA had no records. It's an original Northern Ireland car and when our licencing moved from Coleraine in NI to Swansea, they "lost" "just 4%" of the database/records, which apparently was an "acceptable" margin. Given how many cars are in NI, it was about 40,000 records! Including one of my other cars which I was using every day...
I had HPI checks done, I sent them pictures of the VIN and plates, and was having no joy at all, when suddenly I found an old style log book stuck inside the car, and with that I was able to prove it had been registered before and got new papers, with the original plate.
After all that I ended up buying another car for spares to get a gearbox. Once that arrived, it was all go.
Engine rebuilt and fitted
And the wonderful joy of seeing it move by its own power for the first time in 15 years...
The paint was poor and it had dents but I decided to leave them alone, rather than restore completely this rust free car with only 76 thousand miles. It didn't seem right to restore a car that was sound, not like one that needs welded up, so it kept all its little dents and scrapes.
Every single part of the brakes was replaced, and new fuel pipes, and replaced bits of old wiring, and then everything worked good.
The idle never went right, up and down and no end of adjustment - I think the carb was not so good any more. But it runs better when warmed up, and passed the MOT first time.
The steel wheels were letting it down, needed refurbished and new tyres but i thought it might suit some alloys, and then somebody local advertised these so I picked them up for it
And took these pictures recently.
Some of the dents
and it is still rust-free
And last week I sold it, to someone who has been looking for one and will look after it I hope, for a fair price I think, maybe cheap but that's ok. It took a few years, but from birth in 1983, to going to sleep in 1990, to being alive again with a new MOT in March 2016, I think it's a nice story and I'm pleased to have been involved with bringing it back.
