One of my good friends and fellow BMW junky, John, gave me a call a few summers ago telling me he'd bought a car from his work. I'd been to his shop a few times before and knew that they specialized in older BMW’s and Porsches, so I figured he maybe bought a 2002 or an E30. He told me that he was going to swing by my place so I could check it out.
I was patiently waiting in my driveway when I first heard his car. The fact that I could hear it before I could see it indicated to me that what was about to pull into my driveway would only be deemed cool to a gear head, but might otherwise be offensive to the general public. I identified the engine sound to be an M20 immediately. Then I saw the car entering my driveway and the smile on John's face. He'd bought a BMW E21 320i, which was not what I was expecting, based on the engine sound.
John had bought a shop car, which had been owned by a few other employees. The car originally came from California which is why it hadn’t rusted away like most cars tend to do in New England. The E21 had also received an engine transplant, a built M20 that used the M20 2.7 ETA block to make some sort of franken-stroker engine. The engine also featured a Hartge long tube header setup, which is why the car sounded so amazing (we later found out these headers are rarer than rare). The rest of the car was original besides the suspension pieces. The paint at some point had been some kind of green, but the clear coat faded leaving a matte-metallic finish.
John let me take his E21 for a spin later that night and the car displayed all of the characteristics that older BMW’s are known for; a super stiff clutch and a really heavy shifter. There was no power steering, which also added another element of rawness to the car. This was in fact a very mechanical machine that was absent of all the annoying nannies that car manufacturers are required to install in modern cars.
After driving the car for the first time, I noticed that there were some things wrong with the car. For one, it reeked of raw fuel to the point where I would start to tear. In addition to an obvious fueling issue, the suspension felt off. I had never driven or worked on a car that was this old before, so I wasn’t sure if it was just the reality of old cars or if there was something in fact wrong with it.
In September of that year, John and I met up with some friends at an autocross event in Hartford. I took my M3 and John took his E21. On one of John’s faster laps in his E21 where he tried to push the car it became immediately obvious from the sideline that something was off with his suspension. Without going into too much detail, the car was not planted at its limit. I had addressed this issue with John and he agreed that we needed to look into fixing the issues.
I did an initial inspection on the car and realized that the front coil springs had been cut at some point to lower the car further. Cut, hacked, or heated coil springs are a cardinal sin in my world. I can talk about it all day and why I have such distaste for it, but I won’t go into it any further than to say my friend John immediately ordered a set of H&R lowering springs through FCP.
John swung by my house on a Sunday afternoon after the springs arrived so we could go about getting his hacked springs out and getting the new springs in. I figured it would be easy because the car itself was relatively simple compared to the other BMW’s I worked on. I’ve never been more wrong about anything in my life. I had originally guessed that it would take 2-3 hours to do the front and rear. It ended up taking more like 6 hours to do everything. Exhaustion and frustration were the key factors that led to the rather lengthy time for a relatively simple job. A bulk of the time was for the front as the rear coil springs were really easy to replace. Never before has a car made me as angry as Johns E21.
During the winter of 2013, John decided to overhaul the car and fix as much of the it as possible. The first thing that we tacked was fixing the fueling issue. The answer to the problem was relatively simple: an oxygen sensor had never been installed in the car and the connector was left hanging free. We welded in an O2 bung with the help of our friend Dean who we always referred to as the “Mechanical Stig”. We also went ahead and replaced the fuel fouled spark plugs to ensure that the engine would run properly. Almost immediately, it became obvious that the oxygen sensor and new spark plug were making a difference. We not only found some extra power that was missing from improper fueling, but the awful smell of unburnt fuel collecting in the exhaust was now gone.
John also made the decision to overhaul the rest of the BMW's suspension. I mentioned earlier how much of a pain it was to do the coil springs (mostly due to my own ignorance of how to work on the car). I met up with him at his work on Friday evening with a 30 pack of PBR and we dug into the car. We flew through the rear shocks, getting them done in about an hour. We then were confronted with the front suspension. The E21 front suspension is kind of a hassle to work on. In the fact, the front sway bar bolts directly to the control arms.
We needed to unbolt the front strut tubes to replace the front strut inserts. This was the bigger part of the job, as it required removal of practically the entire front suspension. At this point, we were both exhausted from having worked a full day and we were burning through our second wind into the early morning hours.
During this seven hour job I spent a lot of time swearing and drinking beer. I may have also thrown a wrench or two.
The final result was worth it, as the car drove off as if it were new. The entire struggle had been worth it. For anybody into cars, there's a great sense of satisfaction when you can accomplish a series of repairs and learn more about cars. His 1978, the E21 was built nine years before I was born. Working on something that old has its own set of unique challenges and rewards. On a professional level, John's car has given me the hands on experience that I needed to help customers who are trying to restore or maintain these classic BMW's.
Without Johns E21 I would only be able to relate using BMW's diagrams, which just isn't enough sometimes. On a personal level, John and our group of friends who are into cars have all wrenched or lent a helping hand on this project. We've all shared good times and memories wrenching together and I hope to see this continue well into the future. It’s kind of crazy to think of how much a 36 year old piece of metal from Germany has added to our friendships and shaped memories that we would otherwise not have.
About the Author
Gareth runs the BMW catalog at FCP Euro, he can be reached at gareth@fcpeuro.com
