$500 1997 BMW 318is Update

Most importantly, earlier this week my new bonnet badge arrived which I fitted immediately. Looks great.

This morning I went to my local wrecker and pulled out a blower motor, cost A$30. I also got a steering wheel slip ring (A$5) and some miscellaneous parts (another A$5).

Now that I had some practice at removing a blower motor I managed to get mine out finally. I popped the new motor in and tried to test it but found that the battery was stuffed (I had been attempting to charge it for the last week to no avail, plus it was date stamped 2005). So A$169 later I have a new battery. The previous battery was a genuine BMW battery and I was quite sad to see it go.

With the new battery in the new blower motor worked perfectly... And I was pleasantly surprised to find that the air conditioning blew cold air.

I ordered some parts from BMA (USA) which arrived earlier this week. These included a new rocker cover air hose which I also fitted today so I could finally put the underbonnet area back together. The other parts were for the automatic transmission so I have now booked in for installation of the new transmission for Wednesday.

I haven't been able to find an inexpensive steering wheel or sort out the seats so today I invested A$23 in a steering wheel cover and seat covers to hide things until I can sort these things out properly (and cheaply). The steering wheel cover actually looks pretty good so maybe it might stay some time.

So things are going well and the car is on track to be driveable and road legal this week. It looks that I will probably have spent under A$2400 including the purchase price of the car to get it back on the road. Plus I need to spend about A$800 for registration and greenslip. I hoped to have the steering wheel, door trims and seats also done for my initial budget of A$2500 but I guess this is still a good price for a 1997 318is 4-door.