New to BMW and need help before purchase

[13oclock]

Went to the local salvage yard today that a family friend owns because he gave me a call. He just bought a package deal at a local auction for some junked cars and recieved 3 BMW's in the deal.

The one I am intrested in bringing back to life is a 1997 318i 5spd that is a flood vehicle...perfect body and low miles but interior and engine are shot. However he also recieved 2 97 325i with the deal with both were in an accident but one is hit from the side and the other the back. One of the 325 is also a 5spd.

He is offering all three to me for $3500, I was wondering if it is possible to swap the inline 6 from the 325i into the 318 body. They look the same in dimension but I figured I would ask here first. Are these cars incorporating the same bodies with just different engine and trans, etc??

Any help you can offer is appreciated. Thank you. Forgive my ignorance about BMW's .

Ryan

[CiscoKid]

it would fit... and since you have all the other components it will end up nice

[camnipotent]

Hey man, be careful with flood cars. I've seen some bad ass cars that were in a flood, but they were no good. One was an M3 for 9,000, 30,000 miles, 98. THe thing with flood cars is all that dirty water gets inthe joints and bearing of the car and after the water is dried out, there is a shit ton of dirct in those bearings etc. Very easy to lock up. Just be careful.

[mikester328]

Also, in the future if you wanted to sell the car, the resale value will be a good margin smaller... of course that depends on who wants to buy it and if the flood damage made permanent marks in the car.

[Silver4evr]

imo, you should just buy a used BMW for about $5k and don't waste a bunch of time/money trying to put junk together. You get what you pay for and in this case, you really don't know what you're getting. If you're not an expert mechanic, you're prolly over your head. (kinda like a flood).