Goodbye Nina... say hello to Veronica

[MC Hammered]

Today we finish off wiping down the trunk and hit the driver side




My OCD side went into full effect and I decided to clean the area under the trunk trim




And the bucket of water



Time to clean off the tail lights

Before






After





Wonder how old this bulb is?




Cleaning up the wiring and reinstalling the tail lights





How the trunk looked before







Pics of the trunk as clean as I can get it






Cleaning up the trunk trim pieces and reinstalling them

[MC Hammered]

Today we install the first new part on the car! It is a new under hood trunk trim panel.

The old one



The new one



The bucket of water after I wiped down the backside of the hood



The last part of the decontamination is finishing off the trunk. Instead of cleaning the vents I

decide to just remove them and order new ones






I found a bunch of mystery wire and determined that it is going to the 3rd brake light and side

markers. So while deleting all these wires I decided to pull out the rear tail lights and got a

surprise

Driver side




Passenger side




Needed a bristle brush and vaccum to break up the dirt




After wiping it all down with a cloth and water



Now the driver side




Started wiping down the trunk



Clean passenger side compared to driver side




The bucket of water

[MC Hammered]

you are having way too much fun with this

I wouldn't really call this part fun... driving the car is fun.

So here is the rear parcel shelf the next day after it dried up




Today we take the headliner out and it is a real PITA. Broke a bunch of clips that hold the headliner up around the sunroof



And these 3 plastic tabs at the back were the most difficult to remove




Why? Because the plastic tab is held in place by this crazy strong clip



Headliner out



Found a DIY and got the sunroof panel out no problem



I ordered 4 yards of foam backed ultrasuede and adhesive to recover the headliner, sunroof panel, rear parcel trim piece and the A & C pillars. I will post up that part of the project when I receive the order.

My friend Terence brought over a industrial strength carpet cleaner to clean up the carpets. First we spray on some carpet cleaner and scrub away at the stains





Hitting the carpet with the machine




Pics of the stains on the other half of the carpet






Hitting the stains on the driver side with cleaner, scrubbing away and then the machine

[Motorsports]

He really is, but I like what you doing .

[CHIF8008]

you are having way too much fun with this

[88SuperETABD]

Please show seats pics!!!!!!!!!!!! Before/After shots :)

[AC Nico]

nice cars :up:

i know those wheels on the vert ;)

[MC Hammered]

Got the car back from the shop, pulled out the driver seat, cleaned with Lexol, smothered with Rejuvinating Oil, bagged and put out in the sun to bake.

With the whole interior out of the car I restarted the decontamination of the interior. I pulled up the rear carpet and found some surprises






In order to pull out the rear carpet to see what is hiding under it I had to remove the B pillar trim and door gaskets



Rear carpet out



Now I can finally remove this piece of left over wire that probably went to the OEM CD changer



While vacuuming under the carpet I finally broke something



Since I don't plan to replace the broken seatbelt adjuster I decided to just remove it entirely.

So here is the other end of it attached to the seatbelt harness



The cable snakes down the B pillar to the adjuster




Very simple process to remove, just push in the tab and pop out the ball



Pull the cable out of the clips




I yanked out the passenger side adjust to help keep the weight balance



I guess I could try fishing with what was left over



I attack the rear parcel shelf with the vacuum and you can see just how much dust there is. Now think about how all that dust got there since the trim panel was sitting ABOVE it.




One half done




Almost done




FINISHED




Well not quite finished as you can see the light gray film of dust that the vacuum could not pick up. So time to break out the old fashioned way of cleaning this up... a cloth and a bucket of water.




Here is what the bucket of clear water looks like now.

[MC Hammered]

While the car was at the shop getting the suspension installed I started working on restoring the interior.

Here are some before pics when I got the car





I was lucky to find a second extended leather console setup, sorted out all the pieces and prepared to get the project going.



Richinvan came over to help out and do his interior at the same time. So here I am vacuuming the rear seat bases and doing an initial cleaing with diluted Lexol cleaner.



Prepping my passenger seat



My center console puzzle



I am going to use Leatherique products for this restoration project. I ordered 32oz of Rejuvinating Oil, 32oz of Pristine Clean, 32oz of BMW black dye and 8oz of Prepping agent.

I poured the Rejuvinating Oil into a spray bottle and started massaging it onto the rear seat base







I covered up the seat using 2 tire bags the create a sauna environment. I placed the seat outside in the sun and let the Rejuvinating Oil work into the leather.



After I completed putting the Rejuvinating Oil on the rear seat pieces I proceeded to work on the console pieces. I did an initial cleaning with diluted Lexol cleaner, massaged in the Rejuvinating Oil, bagged up the piece and let it bake in the sun




Same process for the passenger side seat, bagged and ready to bake. Hans helped outto keep the bag from opening up due to wind





So for all the of items pictured above I used only 16oz of Rejuvinating Oil and that included my dropping the spray bottle and wasting a couple of ounces on the floor



So I baked all of the interior pieces in the sun for 2-3 days and gave the seats a new coat of Rejuvinating Oil on day 2.

[jamesthebikeguy]

Hello Veronica, not often you find a nice e34 m5 any more.

This is one hell of an example.

[MC Hammered]

I see why you could not pass up on the M5, I mean, How could anybody??
But....did you really, really have to let the e30 go? really? Not my business, but you have a bunch of cars on that driveway anyway. Couldn't afford one more?? and who's Stephanie? the audi??
anyway, congrats! big time!

Just because there are a bunch of cars in the driveway does not mean they are all mine. ;)

If I were to keep the e30 I would have to have her resprayed and that was going to be a $4000 job to make it perfect. The vert was fun but it wasn't fast. To make it fast would cost more $$$ so I decided to build the M5 instead.

Stephanie is the Audi and she is up for sale as well. 400hp to all 4 wheels if you want to get groceries home in a flash.

[cbouchez]

Awesome M5

[Gadea]

I see why you could not pass up on the M5, I mean, How could anybody??
But....did you really, really have to let the e30 go? really? Not my business, but you have a bunch of cars on that driveway anyway. Couldn't afford one more?? and who's Stephanie? the audi??
anyway, congrats! big time!

[kalib0y]

I like where this is going

[MC Hammered]

I have taken out all of the interior to restore it and the timing couldn't have been better as parts started to arrive.

I received a nice box of goodies from Ground Control



I have to say that the Koni Yellow powdercoat sure looks nice!



I don't understand why everyone says the Ground Control setup is so expensive. What I think a lot of you do not know is this... the price that is listed is not the price you will end up paying!

Their website shows $1809.00 for the setup including camber plates, that is the quote I got. After speaking to them to figure out the spring rates, the final price shipped to my door was $1658.00.

But you are going to say that is still a lot of money!

OK... take off the following items:

$55.00 shipping
$299.00 for camber plates.
$200.00 for the core charge for using their e34 strut housings, if I send back my stock struts they will refund this amount to me!

So what does that leave us? $1104.00 for the assembled coilover setup that is shortened, powdercoated AND uses a Koni adjustable strut.

I think it is a pretty good deal considering the other options out there cost 85% of this setup and are not nearly as nice.

Since the coilovers are going in I thought I might as well replace the rest of the pieces and bushings and reset the clock at zero.

So upper and lower control arms are going in while waiting for the new front wheel bearings




Front and rear shocks & struts removed




You can see the massive amount of dust that I will need to powerwash out when I get the car back




One side done



The installation of the Ground Control setup was very straight forward and once I get the interior back in and sound system installed I will have a wheel alignment and corner balance done.