Diamantschwarz Forever: An E30 Love Story. Re-shell & Restomod

[freeride53]

Another semi-productive week for the E30.

Completed the in-cabin audio system, with a LF tweeter, and RR Premium Speaker/Tweeter in place. For some reason, my LF door tweeter's wiring pigtail was coming up short and not reaching the tweeter. So I took the same wiring pigtail that I cut and removed from my old shell, and connected them together to extend it.



The LF fit nice and snug with all tabs intact, and heavy duty 3M double-sided for the RF.



And a big thanks again to Charlie for the extra rear premium speaker. Rear complete!



And up next ... virgin crack-free dashboard swap. That will be the interior's pièce de résistance .

[freeride53]

How much that rear window run ya? I need one with a working element for defrost.

I think the retail is somewhere around $200-300? But that is only if you want to have the BMW roundel stamp on it like I did. Which I'm now realizing was sorta pointless, only promoting my OCD

Wow. That carpet. So clean! Also good call cleaning/treating the floor underneath.

Any tips for removing the door sill plates? I've done mine a couple times, but I've broken both original sills and had to replace them. I've tried using interior/plastic removal tools without much luck.

Also, do you have a post on mounting that awesome steering wheel? Spacer needed due to the stalk locations?

I wouldn't have been able to sleep at night if I didn't address the rust. I just lucked out that it was extremely surface, sorta like a film that came off when I scrubbed on it hard.

I was actually pretty careful this time around, and just gently pried on from the side, using a large flat-head. I broke the tab-rivets when I removed the ones off of my old shell, so I was a little more cautious this time.

Steering wheel should be pretty direct bolt-on! I just opted to use an extra spacer - you should have one that comes on your car. Hope that helps.

Love it. This is wonderful

Enough is enough. If you can't hang next weekend, I'm coming to Culver and man-napping you. :hitler:

Awesome job cleaning that carpet up! I've been staring at the dirty carpet that came in my shell thinking I'll never get it clean. I'm seriously inspired now.

I'm honestly still tripping out at how nice it turned out. If I was you, I'd do the same and shampoo it thoroughly before having it steam cleaned. Just pull out all the stops so that you'll have no ragrets. :p

Oooh! My guy! Lookin so flossy #fam


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Hope you're having fun in new york, #fam. Because it's all srs business when u return. :)

[318kid]

How much that rear window run ya? I need one with a working element for defrost.

[sam_]

Oooh! My guy! Lookin so flossy #fam


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[IronJoe]

Awesome job cleaning that carpet up! I've been staring at the dirty carpet that came in my shell thinking I'll never get it clean. I'm seriously inspired now.

[2mAn]

Love it. This is wonderful

[mike.bmw]

Wow. That carpet. So clean! Also good call cleaning/treating the floor underneath.

Any tips for removing the door sill plates? I've done mine a couple times, but I've broken both original sills and had to replace them. I've tried using interior/plastic removal tools without much luck.

Also, do you have a post on mounting that awesome steering wheel? Spacer needed due to the stalk locations?

[freeride53]

Today marked the end of a fantastically productive weekend.

But to be honest, the weekend started last Thursday when I dropped off the old carpet that I had salvaged from my old wrecked shell. Thought it'd be cool to say that "this was the same carpet that came in my old E30 that I grew up with"...but also, the carpet in my new shell/car was horrendously diseased-looking, so it just had to go.

Here is a before shot of the carpet. *Note* this old car's carpet is this state was still tremendously cleaner and more hygienic than the carpet that came in the new car...stay tuned. Also pictured, my old car's rear parcel shelf that I cleaned the living trut out of over the last couple of weeks - that is the finished product that you see below..



And here is the SAME carpet after a thorough shampooing and steam clean. Jesus Christ.



Since I had the local hand car wash do this for me, I was able to talk them into giving me a good deal with a thorough car wash (car was filthy from the snow weekend before last). The i8 you see belongs to a local Chinese mafioso / gangster type. Really cool guy. We talked about our cars while waiting, as well as our feelings..



NOW... here is the aforementioned diseased/horrendous/gross/sickly carpet the new car came with.



And here is the same gross carpet removed..revealing a gross floor! I was initially horrified by what you see..but quickly after some wire-brushing and heavy scrubbing, was EXTREMELY relieved learning that it was only some surface junk that was built from moisture over the years.



PHEW! Now that's more like it. This was after I cleaned the living shit out of it.



But I wanted true peace of mind. So after it was removed, I hit it with some heavy duty rust neutralizing paint/primer. Didn't care to paint it black since no one is ever going to see it again hopefully.



Then I got back to the carpet, itself. When I had removed the carpet out of my old shell, I accidentally tore off some of the foam and it was stuck on the old car's floor, which got crushed. So I took the opportunity to play plastic surgeon and removed some of the good foam from the new car's carpet (which was headed into the garbage can) and grafted it into my new clean carpet's underside.



Much better.



Rear parcel shelf came out too. I spent about an hour scrubbing the hell out of the paneling under the rear seat and removing 26 years of gunk and grime stuck to it and lodged under wiring harnesses.



And then, it was simply time to fit the carpet in. Which was sort of a bitch. But I had the lovely help of my lovely habibi, lovely Abby.



Quick dab for the fam..



And, all of a sudden, we were back in 1991. Suddenly heard "Depeche Mode" and "REM" ringing melodies of 1991. What an awesome year to not have been born yet.



And that was pretty much it for the night. I quickly proceeded to refitting my OEM BMW 1-series front and OEM BMW E30 rear all-weather rubber floor mats after this shot.



And a morning bonus shot of the lovely new OEM BMW Pilkington Rear windshield with a FULLY working rear defroster. Oh glory.



That's all for this weekend folks.

NOT PICTURED:

Tyler, a new local E30 homie hooked it up with the last missing puzzle piece for my trunk, which was a drivers side carpeting panel. It's lovely, and matched the floor carpet, and passenger side carpeting panel. Looks every so complete.

And most recently, Charlie, the other new homie, who hooked it up with a lovely perfect E30 rear premium speaker to replace the blown out one in one of my rear premiums. I'll get snap a pic or two of those when I am able to fix the ghetto wiring connector that P.O. blessed me with on the rear passenger side.

Love,
Sina

[freeride53]

Awesome, glad to see it's coming all back together!

Hope to road-trip back out to Toronto again sometime this or next year. :D

Glad you're alright bro. Sorry for your loss. New one looks clean though!

Thanks, thanks, and thanks! :D

[SteadyAim.]

Glad you're alright bro. Sorry for your loss. New one looks clean though!

[Sea Aych]

Awesome, glad to see it's coming all back together!

[ak-]

Ayee. Might make an appearance.

[freeride53]

Definitely lmk in advance, I think I can head out on Sunday perhaps

Just texted you ;D


I've outlined some goals for the project to accomplish within the next month:

• Totally clean, then swap over Natur Carpet from old shell
• Finish cleaning, dye, swap over Natur Parcel shell from old shell
• Run wiring from head unit to trunk for Amplifier & 2 Subwoofers
• Swap the crack-free dashboard & fix all HVAC panel lighting
• Refurbish Euro dash cluster & install it
• Swap the old shell's Shifter Center-Console
• Procure & Swap on a crack-free, warp-free Front Plastic bumper Assy

And that's pretty much everything the car needs until it's ready for body & paint.

Momentum!

SP

[2mAn]

Let's hang this upcoming weekend. I'm going to be steam cleaning then power-drying then swapping my carpet and running my stereo wiring whilst listening to copious amounts of Hip-Hop music. Or maybe some Habibi music if Abby comes. I might just throw a lil' fiesta.

Definitely lmk in advance, I think I can head out on Sunday perhaps

[freeride53]

<3

I should read more heh

It's okay Mr. Engineer. As strong as you were at Calculus and Chemistry and those types of things, I was weak. Together, we could have taken over the world during our tenure in academia.

Just noticed your shirt. You are moving up in my top 10

Let's hang this upcoming weekend. I'm going to be steam cleaning then power-drying then swapping my carpet and running my stereo wiring whilst listening to copious amounts of Hip-Hop music. Or maybe some Habibi music if Abby comes. I might just throw a lil' fiesta.

Lol! Don't blame yourself too much. OP does take great pics.

Lol y'all too kind and flattering