Topaz blue Z3 1.9i 2002

Epic

Zorg Addict
Romanian Zeds
Joined
Apr 8, 2018
Points
60
Location
Bucharest
Model of Z
Z3
Hello everyone!
I've been around for some time but never got to introduce myself.

My name is Daniel, I'm from Romania and I am a proud owner of a Topaz blue BMW Z3 1.9i born in December 2001 (at the dealership they consider it a 2002) with only 88.000kms on the clock.

Now for the story ... Everything started on 9th of April this year. Until this date I was only looking around for Z3s and just thinking that some day I will get one. Didn't really find anything I like near me so I was not in a rush. On 9th of April I posted my first message on the forum, the sale section, asking if anyone knew a decent Z3 I could look at, I was considering going outside Romania to get it.
On that date, @Zeti , my fellow Romanian (to whom I am grateful for everything, without him I would not own a Z3 today. THANK YOU!!!!! ), contacted me and started to tell me the story of his Z3 and what should I look for when searching for one. I told him I found one near the seaside in Romania but I was a little skeptical to go and look at it (450km away). He encouraged me and on 13th of April I was on my way to see it. Everything went well but I was not yet decided, due to the strange story of the car.
The car was originally sold in Italy, back in 2001, and had only 1 owner there (leasing company and owner on the papers). 3 years ago, the owner came to Romania together with a Romanian woman and after a short while, something happened and he left. The car remained in Romania and it was unregistered from Italy (on the papers now the Romanian woman above appeared).
During this 3 years the car was never registered in Romania and it stayed in a closed garage. No drive, and no nothing done with it. Only occasional start of the engine (as the owner said).
Hearing this story I was almost thinking of the usual stories with car sellers in Romania, "It belonged to an old lady, used only to go shopping in weekends", and usually those cars are wrecks, with manipulated odometer and hidden defects, or even worse, totaled cars that are repaired and then sold as "no accident" cars.
I called Zeti the next day and told him the story, he saw the picture better than me and told me to go get it, it's the real thing. (after showing him some photos). So I did, on 20th of April I took one of my close friends and drove there (I could not drive 2 cars on return). Changed all the oils and did a rough inspection on brakes and everything else in that same day before driving the 450kms back.
And so, starting from 20th of April I am the proud owner of a BMW Z3 :)2018-04-16 13.18.42.jpg
2018-04-16 13.19.19.jpg
2018-04-20 14.16.21.jpg

Now the improvements begin.

The car didn't have fog lights and roll hoops from factory so I had to retrofit them.
Fog lights I found in Romania, took them from somebody dismantling an e39, seems they are the same, and the smaller covers and the switch for them from @spurs fan in a coupe (Thank you!!)

2018-05-18 21.13.56.jpg
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To be continued in the next post ...
 
Last edited:

Epic

Zorg Addict
Romanian Zeds
Joined
Apr 8, 2018
Points
60
Location
Bucharest
Model of Z
Z3
Also in the same time as retrofitting the fog light I was searching for the roll hoops kit. After a lot of search I stumbled upon an advert posted by @Synclare and it contained exactly what I needed. Messaged him, asked about the condition, price and shipping. Everything went well, and the deal was that I had to find shipping from UK to Romania. This is when the panic installed, I never bought anything from UK (at least not a package of this scale) and didn't knew a bit about shipping companies from there. I started to search for shipping companies but the problem was that no standard company would take the package, it was over the specs for standard shipping (the only option was to do a special shipping but it was costing more then the kit itself).
After a few weeks of searching and chatting with Adrian, I finally found a Romanian company that was doing package delivery between UK and RO and could go and pick it up from Adrian.
Deal done! (I was already happier then ever) Everything was scheduled and I just had to wait.
In the evening of the day of the pickup I received a message from Adrian, the Romanian company wanted to pickup the package at 1 o'clock in the night (yes, 1:00 AM, Sunday morning).
Already in my head I saw the delivery aborted and I was back to the "drawing board", since Adrian told me he cannot go to the farm at that hour, it's too late. In the next 20-30 minutes I had 2 calls with the driver, 2 calls with his manager and 2 calls with Adrian. I was desperate, they didn't say anything about such pickup and on the phone they where very relaxed ... "This is how we pick up, we have a schedule!".
This is when Adrian came with the idea to tell them to pick the package from his house and he will drive to the farm and get it before it gets late. I managed to convince them to make a detour to Adrian's house, but still they arrived there midnight. Everything went according to plan from this point on.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH ADRIAN!!!!!!!! If I ever visit your area I'll give you a call, I owe you more than a couple of beers.

Following instructions found on the forum plus Adrian's tips I managed to install them in about 2 and a half hours (first time I did this).

2018-06-21 22.31.33.jpg 2018-06-21 22.34.13.jpg 2018-06-21 22.39.26.jpg 2018-06-21 22.43.51.jpg 2018-06-21 22.57.46.jpg 2018-06-21 23.00.29.jpg 2018-07-16 18.57.01.jpg 2018-07-16 18.57.10.jpg 2018-07-16 20.18.49.jpg 2018-07-16 20.18.52.jpg 2018-07-16 20.43.13.jpg 2018-07-16 20.43.23.jpg 2018-07-16 21.00.22.jpg 2018-07-16 21.00.39.jpg 2018-07-16 21.10.05.jpg 2018-07-17 20.21.00.jpg 2018-07-17 20.21.07.jpg 2018-07-17 20.21.15.jpg
 

Epic

Zorg Addict
Romanian Zeds
Joined
Apr 8, 2018
Points
60
Location
Bucharest
Model of Z
Z3
Next mod I did is more of a repair. Ventilation was working only on 4th step and I couldn't set the vents through which the air was blowing.
So I had to change the blower motor resistor and to fix the switch for the vents, it had a broken pin. :( It works well now but I still have a doubt everything is OK since even if I set it to blow below the dash or in front of it, I still get air from the windshield defroster area and this creates fog outside my windshield when the outside humidity is higher than normal.

2018-06-13 21.56.55.jpg

Wheels, needed to change the wheels. I didn't like the ones that came with the car at all. They where 16", alignment could be better ... didn't like them.
So I picked a pair of style 68s staggered after I got confirmation of forum that they will fit perfectly. And they did, with the help of 10mm spacers on the back and I think I'm going to add 5mm spacers in the front also, I have the filling they are touching the springs in certain situations (saw marks on springs when the car was on the elevator)
2018-07-12 09.59.39.jpg
2018-07-12 09.59.49.jpg
2018-07-12 10.00.01.jpg

After sorting all of the above, there was only one more thing to handle with priority. The rear window. It was yellow, dirty and with the rubber seal around missing (it broke loose 1 weeks after getting the car but fortunately it had no cracks in the window itself). Found one on eBay, OEM style, so I ordered it.
It took me 3 hours and 8-9 attempts to fit it correctly until I decided I cannot do better. It fitted OK but on the upper right corner it had wrinkles on the window itself. I thought it was a product issue and I settled with it like this. It seems that after staying in the sun a couple of days, the wrinkles almost disappeared but it's not yet as flat as the original.
Another mistake I think I did is with the adhesive tape, I think I positioned it wrong. I have some water infiltration through the zipper itself when using a pressure washer to clean it. (didn't yet catch a rain to see if it is only from the pressure)
2018-05-19 10.16.28.jpg
2018-07-26 19.05.22.jpg
2018-07-26 19.05.31.jpg
In the same time I did a complete cleanup and treatment to the soft top

2018-08-04 06.47.11.jpg
 

Epic

Zorg Addict
Romanian Zeds
Joined
Apr 8, 2018
Points
60
Location
Bucharest
Model of Z
Z3
Other bits and pieces where also replaced, like the side grills (thank you to @mrscalex for them and for the little bonus, the windshield wipers screw caps), light bulbs changed, brake light bulbs changed, complete cleanup, etc.
Also the car came with an adjustable TA-Technix suspension, I don't know when it was fitted, but it's pretty low.

Now the plan doesn't stop here, there's still a long list but all in their time. Have to also enjoy it driving :D
I will update this post every time I add or change something.

Next on the list:
- Stereo + Speakers upgrade
- Brake disks change (probably in the winter when the car will be garaged)
- Repaint the seats
- Replace the seatbelt guides (one is missing and the other only the top half remaining)
- Replace the seat busings (the passenger seat is more of a rocking chair)
- Repaint front bumper (it started to peal off on the bottom lip :( )
- Touch up rock chips
- Replace right door sill molding (the metal roadster sign started to peal off, is there any way to change only the sign?)
- Buy a hardtop (don't know if I really want one yet)
- To be continued ...

In the end, this is how the car looks now. After all the changes and retrofits. Hope I didn't bore you with this wall of text :)

2018-08-28 19.23.37.jpg 2018-08-05 21.03.08-1.jpg
2018-09-01 14.50.01.jpg
 

Mor61e

Zorg Guru (I)
British Zeds
Joined
Dec 20, 2016
Points
94
Love it, good read that was :thumbsup:

Car looks really nice now (not that it didn't before), wheels look great as well :cool:

Are Z3s common or rare in Romania?
 

Epic

Zorg Addict
Romanian Zeds
Joined
Apr 8, 2018
Points
60
Location
Bucharest
Model of Z
Z3
Thanks!

@Mor61e I would say they are quite rare. Especially with engines over 1.9 liters.
 

Shelly

Zorg Expert (I)
Supporter
British Zeds
East Anglian Crew
Joined
Jul 9, 2013
Points
201
Location
Norfolk
Model of Z
Z4 2.0 20i M Sport sDrive
Lovely work has been done on your Z :p
Your Z is looking good ;)
 

Jack Ratt

Zorg Expert (I)
Supporter
British Zeds
The West Country
Joined
Dec 3, 2013
Points
200
Location
TRURO, CORNWALL
Model of Z
2.8i AUTO and 2.8i MANUAL
Nice work @Epic we can tell by your words just how excited you are. You have every reason to be though because your car looks great. Have you thought about doing the Dutch Limborit next year? Dan @Zeti did it a couple of years ago and we all met up in Slenaken in southern Netherlands. It's a great meet and you'll make some lifetime friends
 

Zeti

Zorg Guru (IV)
Supporter
Romanian Zeds
The M44 Massive
Joined
Oct 9, 2013
Points
167
Location
Bucuresti/ Romania
Model of Z
Z3 roadster 1.9
Great work Daniel!:thumbsup:
I love the look of the car and now, after all these years, you can see that someone cares for it!;)
Enjoy it more as possible?:)
Dan
PS: now it's time to post your Avatar!;)
 

t-tony

Zorg Expert (II)
Supporter
British Zeds
#ZedShed
Joined
Dec 31, 2013
Points
226
Location
Torksey Lock,Lincoln, England
Model of Z
E89 Z4 23i Auto
Nice one @Epic, looking very nice. How are things looking regarding banning cars from the City?

Tony.
 

Epic

Zorg Addict
Romanian Zeds
Joined
Apr 8, 2018
Points
60
Location
Bucharest
Model of Z
Z3
Thanks!
The mayor canceled the project, no more tax or ban. But still I'm afraid it's just a campaign move since this year we have elections. We will see in a couple of months.
 
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