Hi all I would like to introduce my new project car Kai
You can see my E36 sitting sad in the background waiting on a new motor.
As far as I can gather it has spent the last 14 or so years parked in a barn on a farm. Before it was parked up it was used as the farmers paddock vehicle.
At some point its taken a minor hit to the front left
Pics of the state of the interior as I purchased it.
The rear hatch and rear right window both currently held shut by duct tape
The plan at least to start with is to tidy it up and get it back on the road. This means cleaning out the interior, giving the suspension and brakes a once over replacing any excessively bad bushings, tidying up all the surface rust, and repairing the impact damage to the front left and making the rear right window and hatch actually stay closed.
There also is a registration issue to sort. Once its all road legal proper modifications may begin. Where this car goes from there I’m not sure yet.
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The Interior
This evenings progress. My starting point the interior. If its a nice place to be it will motivate me to continue work on the rest of the car. I was servicing my dads taxi this evening as well so progress was slow.
I started by removing the front seats. This interior was seriously grotty and gross.
The rear seats and the dashboard covered in dust and dirt. It isn’t quite visible on my phones iffy camera
The next set was to strip the carpets insulation and rear seats so i can inspect and clean the floorpan
I didn’t take any photos but all 4 sections of insulation where damp with moisture the front left being the worst of the lot. I’m currently unsure as to why they were wet but I’m guessing a potential heater core leak if anyone knows what other common points to leak are please do inform me.
It took me longer than I’d like to admit to figure out how to remove the rear seatback. There are two bolts hidden on the lower right of the rear of the seat which detaches it from that hinge and allows you to slide it out of the other side freeing it.
There is a large amount of dirt and junk hidden away under the carpets but surprisingly little in the way of rust.
Also a neat little trick in case anyone’s like me and has bad short term memory. Ignoring my horrid handwriting.
A Bolt organizer that tells you what bolts are for what using a piece of cardboard and a pen. Sadly doesn’t work as well for nuts but I’m sure someone has a creative solution for that.
There was interesting removable plate in the drivers foot well I didn’t grab pics of. I’m wondering if its factory or been added to the car at some point in its life. Ill upload pics with the next post and hopefully someone may be able to shed some light as to its origins.
Stripping is all I managed today, cleaning, reassembly and more progress to follow.
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Nice progress mate. I am looking forward to watching the charade get better. 
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Unfortunately Uni has started for me so progress has slowed right down. We had some serious rain over the past couple of weeks and I’ve determined there is a leak either at the bottom of the windscreen or on the firewall somewhere.
I’m gonna remove the fenders and the panel directly below the windscreen(assuming that is removable) to investigate further. I want to get the leak sorted before I reinstall the interior and then move onto to other things.
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Unis kicked my butt for the past 6 weeks but now I have two week break so we will see some more progress. Today I pulled the radiator which was disintegrating, “fixed” my rear right window which was originally held shut with duct tape and fixed my rear hatch which was also held shut with tape and would refuse to latch.
If anyone could help me source the front left corner light/lens and a RHD front left headlight I would be immensely grateful as I’m struggling to find one myself. The closer to New Zealand the better.
Here is the radiator that was falling apart. The fins and lower outlet were corroded and crumbling to pieces in my hand and the upper tanking had started leak profusely at the seams. I will be getting a hopefully good replacement from a pick a part (local remove it yourself wreckers) tomorrow morning.
Here is the water leak in my passenger foot well I know its not the heater core/matrix as there green coolant in the system and that would be visible if the heater core was leaking.
This zip tie is my solution to my rear right window not staying shut until i can find a replacement latch. If anyone knows if the latch from newer models will fit please let me know.
This was my solution to the rear hatch not closing. For some reason the striker could not get close enough to the catch. So I ground out the mounting holes on the catch with a dremel and placed some metal washers behind the striker to get the two positioned correctly relative to each other.
This junction pipe is the only other leak in my cooling system which I’m probably gonna just JB Weld over until I can source a replacement because it looks a pain to remove and I don’t want to disturb any other components in the engine bay just yet.
Also If anyone here is from NZ and is potentially interested in picking this up do message me as I may end up being forced to sell due to my self inflicted current financial situation.
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