Thought it was about time for an update.
With the engine built
http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... highlight=
and the rear suspension finally finished,
http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... highlight=
it's been a bit of a boring year TBO. It's been being used and abused when the weather permits but I have to say, with little left to do on the car, interest has waned a touch.
BUT; If there’s one thing that I'm always trying to improve it's the interior.
1. I've not been happy with the passenger’s seat, the base and lower outer bolsters both have significant cracking so wanted that improving.
2. The driver’s seat has always been a right pain. If I'm not careful getting into the car, my fat arse catches the recline leaver, pushes it down and the seat shoots to the floor!!!
3. Dash has JUST started to gain a few minute sun damage cracks. This will be covered later as I have now secured a MINTY MINT 65k dash from a broken 1 lady owned 316i.
Here’s the passenger’s seat issues as per No1 above:
Adit rang me a while ago to let me know that he had an indigo leather convertible driver’s seat with no split stitching etc. Now with GOOD blue indigo leather trim now getting rare I decided to take a chance and buy it. Apologies to Adit now for the delay in collection but finally, last Wednesday, I got down to sunny Cosham and collected.
I buy as much Convertible leather parts in indigo as I can and have a loft full of it. I figure that if the seats ever get a snag or damaged, I have original parts to rectify it. Plus I’m not a fan of retrims as they never look original to me.
This is what I picked up:
There’s no doubting the seat had been soaked at some stage and was rock hard.
So I bought some of this after investigation on the interweb:
It’s supposed to rehydrate leather saddles replacing the natural oils. It’s a bit industrial TBO and I was a touch scared of using it as it says coat the inner flesh side of the hide. However, I though that may rot the bolsters so only used it sparingly on the outside. It definitely soaked it up and became more pliable.
But before using it, yesterday I decided to strip the seat to the bone to see what could be salvaged.
The frame was scrap. Cracked around the hinge hole and looked like it’s seen the Titanic.
The hides were all in fairly good shape albeit hard (and green in places). So this is basically where we start the process:
I then deep cleaned with ”aCitri clean”a which I use for all my interior work. It’s a natural citrus based product that I got a free sample of with my last batch of TFR. I was so impressed I bought a gallon! Using a brush to get in the grain, the shit that came out was amazing.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CITRI-CLEAN-ULTIM ... 415ab707a6
Then a coat of the Neatsfoot oil and you can see here how it’s soaking it in:
And finally, a copious amount of Autoglym Leather Conditioner has resulted in?????
Well please TBO. Should be a massive improvement over what’s in there!
I next rebuilt the drivers seat using the mechanism’s thrown spare by Adits seat. Result? One straight handle and no more dropping to the deck as I enter the car!
You can see here the bent arm of the old mech:
And here’s the straight one in the car:
Next instalment will see the stripping of the passenger’s seat and reassembly of it using the above parts. More real soon.
B7's Motto. "If it's French, BURN IT!!!!!!"
