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Maxine the 318 - Rust Treatment July 22 2013

Rusty battery compartment with drill loaded with a wire brush.

Maxine's battery had issues holding charge, and the culprit was a battery that had started to leak battery acid. After removing the battery and the battery tray, it didn't look good. There had obviously been a long history of leaky batteries. This could not stand. To battle this rust, I employed POR15.


Introducing Maxine - 1991 BMW 318iS Project Car May 02 2013

BMW E30 318iS on parking garage roof.

“Runs like a champion,” said the Craigslist ad.

I had been looking for a second car for months. I was looking for a beater that I could drive for times when my 1998 BMW M3 would be down for maintenance and modification. I wanted something to soak up the 30 minutes of daily highway commuting. I wanted something cheap to run on the street and on the track. I wanted something fun to drive. I wanted something easy to wrench on.

I had been looking for a BMW E30 chassis 318iS for four months at the time. I was only able to find 1 in the entire US, and this one just so happened to be within a 3 hour drive. So I made the trip from Dallas down to Austin to check it out. Like a scene out of a organized crime movie, we met at night in a movie theatre parking lot. The owner was a Russian man with a shaved head and a stocky build. He spoke with a moderate Russian accent. “Runs like a champion” he said again in person, as if he was trying to reinforce the slogan from his Craigslist ad. There the car was in its faded red paint. There was a fender that was dented up, and the Carfax showed that the car had been in a fender bender about a decade ago.