E30 Zone

I have just bought a poverty spec e30 and have the electric bits from my last one that Im thinking of using to upgrade. Do the electrics plug straight into the loom somewhere or is that part of the loom missing on a low spec car? Thanks.

Should all be part of the door loom, and the sockets for the switches are tucked down under the centre console. Be careful though, pre- and facelift cars have different window winder mechs.

If it's a poverty spec car, with keep fit windows, then the door loom will need to be changed.
If you look at the A pillar plug, it only has 4 wires going onto it, these are for the electric door mirrors.
I found this on my can when looking inot upgrading to electric windows, but i'm leaving it as is.

Electric windows take their power from a pin of the accessories socket behind the glove box - actually two pins on UK models, with whether the front doors are open or not deciding which the power comes from.
If the car left BMW with manual front windows, then it's unlikely (but not impossible) to have any of the wiring present. The windows loom is separate from the main body loom, but is combined with the central locking loom, and to change/fit it as BMW intended involve taking out the carpet.
If the carpet's coming out anyway for other reasons, then that's the time to do the job properly, but otherwise, it's easier to strip down and modify a windows loom so that it can be routed behind the dash and centre consoles, rather than under the carpets.
There's also the looms in the doors themselves to consider, which may or may not have the window motor wires fitted. These can either be changed for the correct ones, or two wires can simply be fed through the door plugs and convoluted rubber duct from under the dash into the doors and to the motors, as was done with the dealer fitted electric windows conversion.

Ok thanks for the help guys. So for now I think Ill wait and at some point in the future have the carpets up and do it all properly as it doesnt have central locking either and would be nice to fit that and leccy mirrors at the same time.

zimmermatt wrote:would be nice to fit.... leccy mirrors at the same time.

You have manual mirrors?

Thought ALL E30's had electric wing mirrors

Um haha maybe. I assumed as there are no leccy windows and that the wingmirrors arent colour coded they werent electric. Havent hardly been in the car to be fair and only just got it. My bad, anyone would think I have no clue what I'm on about