Monster Cookie's 1986 325e Bronzit

[mechdonald]

I've been on R3V since I got my E30 1.5 years ago. It is in very good shape with the only major downfall that it is Bronzit. Too bad. Maybe you'll like it when it's finished :)
It actually looks pretty nice all cleaned up.


I did the waterpump, belt, wires, plugs, etc. I am going to wait another year for wheels. TRM C1s are the plan.


Interior plan:
The original car has a houndstooth interior but the PO decided a mismatched set of sport seats in the front would be better. The driver's side is black leather and the passenger seat is black cloth. Looks silly.

I bought RobertK's E36 adapter brackets after finding a full set of black leather seats on Kijiji for $200. No wear showing at all on any of the seats. I have formulated a plan.

I really like the look of the Acura CSX seats below:


I asked my friend to do the same sort of idea using the E36 seats as sketched below:


The rears are a bit more work. The rear bench seat bottom from the E36 fits fine. The rear bench back does not. The E36 rear seat back is split into 4 pieces with the belts going from the center down to the outside which is opposite to the E30. The plan is to recover the original E30 back to match the seat. My friend is going to match the panel design of the E36 for a cohesive look.

To finish things off, my plan is to get a Grip Royal wheel like this:

[Pootis]

I'm interested to see how the wheel looks installed I am looking at the exact same one for mine

[Monster Cookie]

Swap out front E30 seats to E36 seats

As mentioned above, I bought a set of black leather seats from a E36 coupe. Fronts and backs.
I bought the adapter brackets from RobertK many moons ago but only just installed them yesterday/today.

My friend shortened the seat belt slide things. They need to be shorter by 6-9/16" by my calculation. Worked like a charm.
[IMGhttp://i.minus.com/iWtc9Iku8eFy0.jpg[/IMG]

One thing that really helped the install was to buy a couple packages of stainless steel spacers. Here:

http://www.mcmaster.com/#98125a443/=o72l5r

I used them between the floor and the adapters to make up the thickness of the carpet. (That carpet is really thick in some areas BTW.)
I also used the spacers between the seat rail and the adapters.


The rails have ugly square steel feet on them. I removed them.
The front feet came off after a few judicious whacks of a hammer.
The rears were harder until I used a hacksaw to cut through the corner welds. Then a few whacks and they were off too.


The picture above shows the front feet removed. The rear feet are hex shaped where they attach to the rail. Each corner of the hex has a tiny weld. Cut the weld with a hack saw. Not much of a cut is needed. Hit with hammer. Success.

Swap over the seatbelt receivers from the E30.


Do a trial fit


Finish it up. Looks really good.

[agent]

Do you have any large pictures?

[CHIF8008]

woahh

[Monster Cookie]

Do you have any large pictures?

I wasn't sure if they showed up like that for everyone LOL. I'll try to fix that. 'tis annoying.

[Monster Cookie]

It took a bit o' finagling, but the pictures should be a more reasonable size now LOL.

[Monster Cookie]

E36 rear seat in an E30

How to put an E36 rear seat into an E30:
The rear seat bottom will fit... not 100% as the clips don't line up but the seat will actually sit in the right spot.
The rear seat back is the problem. The E36 is a completely different design with 4 sections, 40/40 split, seatback too high, seatback curvature, and seat belts that go the wrong way.
Below is a first attempt at recovering an E30 rear seat back to match the rest of the E36 seats.
Due to the shape of the seat, the panels cause some wrinkling. Later in the winter, we plan on taking another look to see how we can fix it up a bit.
We also used Pleather. The grain is quite similar but the sheen is off a bit. I think that with a bit of reconditioning, I can bring the leather seats up a bit better.

Seeing that this is a rear seat, most people won't notice anything unless it is pointed out to them. I know you guys are fussy though. LOL.