Project Weißer Regen: 91 318iS Restomod

[Jordan]

That interior looks great. Those door panel pieces look nice and flat without any bunching.

How did you contact John? His website isn't as impressive as his work. lol

The fabric sections were a bit of a pain to get to lay flat, but I managed. Soooo much work upholstering the door panels. At first look you think it won't take long.... but man... 6 hours today to get both rear panels done, and one front panel.

I messaged John on Facebook and he texted back and forth from there.

Rear trim panels



Right rear installed



One front door panel, mocked up with the map pocket and arm rest.

[AndrewBird]

That interior looks great. Those door panel pieces look nice and flat without any bunching.

How did you contact John? His website isn't as impressive as his work. lol

[rzerob]

Those bags are awesome. I was very happy with ninestitch when I made my order with them. I am glad to see you getting to finally start the final parts of the build. Keep up the great work.

[Jordan]

No other projects of my own right now, although Jon keeps me busy with his.

Non original upholstery to THIS E30, which was natur vinyl as factor spec'd, however most originalest I could really manage while refreshing everything. My parts car was Anthracite Cloth, which was still available. From the factory you get the diagninal cloth and the solid cloth in matching dye lots. Unfortunately the solid cloth is non existent, so after much toiling I elected to go with black cloth in the same varient. I think it will fit well with the black vinyl and piping on the seats.

The interior upholstery arrived one day early from John Christy @ Nine Stitch. Everything best I can tell at this point looks great, and he even included two bags custom made with the spare material which will be rad as hell for carrying detailing and touch up supplies with the vehicle to car shows and various outings.




Hopefully I can lay the vinyl door panel sections in the sun tomorrow and they will relax.

I plan to upholster the rear side panels first (upper and lower) and install those.
Then I will do the front door panels.
Then the back seat, upper and lower.
Then finally each of the front seats.

I have quite a lot of work ahead of me this week / weekend, we'll see how long this takes!

[econti]

Makes you realise why a good motor trimmer charges what they want, and people still pay it

[iXguido]

Wow that is a lot of work removing the old material from those panels. Exciting to see it come to this point, although as others have said it's sad to see the build coming to a close.

Do you have any other builds going on at the moment, or future plans for any?

Maybe it's been asked before, but are you going with the original cloth?

[Jordan]

Its been a bit since I had much of anything to update, I've been waiting and waiting for the interior but the day is nearly here. I'm expecting the seat and door panel kit next week, so I spent this weekend cleaning and tearing down the door panels and seat backs, and going over the last of the new parts to be consumed in this process.

Removing the skins from the door panels and seat backs is a lousy task, my fingers hurt, and my garage is a mess. Pretty high up the list of jobs I don't want to do again any time soon.

Front and rear door panels, and sport seat backs:



New seat parts:

[Jordan]

The grease I use for these, along with many many other automotive uses is Loctite LB8034. I've pictured it below for reference.

I have not yet steamed the foam, but I do intend to do so to make sure its plump and the new covers fit as good as possible.

Today I took the seat recline mechanisms to work and let them soak in the parts washer solvent tank for a few hours until the old grease had gone away. From there they got dropped into the 160F ultrasonic tank and cleaned completely of all filth, old grease residue and left over parts cleaner solvent. The heated bath has the added benefit from self flash drying when you pull them out...

After getting them home I lubricated all contact points with liberal applications of Loctite LB8034 and used compressed air to force it inbetween the plates and other places the syringe applicatior could not readily reach. Once done I wiped the excess from the edges and installed the pawl springs.

Shout out to jeffnhiscars for sending me a set of seat shocks to replace the old weak ones. They fit perfectly and I'm sure will restore the seat adjustment functions to as new. I can't really test them on the bench as they will surely rocket the unloaded mechanism to the extent of travel and I wouldn't be able to easy return them! Right now each mechanism is parked in the same bottom and seat back positions for the ease of assembly.

[Pootis]

Did you steam the foam yet to get it fluffed back up? Love seeing your updates

[efficient]

great work . what kind of grease do you use for the seat mechanisms?

[Jordan]

Some more preparation today, cleaning the frames, blowing apart mechanisms for cleaning, that sort of jazz.

The drivers lower frame has the typical broken weld from people bearing down on the bolster over the years. This was stripped of paint and prepared to weld up.




The thigh extender worn screw mechanism was caked with hard, gummy grease. It got cleaned, the worm gear polished, and reassembled with new grease so its butter smooth.




Last task was to disassemble all four recline mechanisms, throw out the old shocks, and prepare them to bathe in the heated ultrasonic tank at work to free up the hard gummed grease inside them which will then be replaced with new so these actuate smoothly. As of now they get stuck and the recline lock doesn't pop back as it should.

[Jordan]

A small update today,,,,

With the interior kit coming very soon I decided it was time to strip the old upholstery off the seats in preparation and get all of the dirty work out of the way and cleaned up before new covers arrive.

The drivers seat is beyond wasted, but I saved a spare foam set from a passenger seat aside some time ago knowing the foam on the drivers was going to be trash.




Removal of the original upholstery is straight forward, essentially cutting about a hundred hog rings and bending a bunch of pointed tabs back that puncture into the material to hold it in place.

All laid out



and all put back away waiting for new upholstery

[luckybk]

Clear bra seems like the way to go. Do you have any intention of a dyno day in the future, or does anyone know how the stroker build spec compares to stock?

[jeenyus]

Not for nothing, but have you ever been to a track event where there's exotics everywhere? lol. I see them putting masking tape and all kinds of things on their cars (have instructed in and driven some, even). I was thinking more along the line of today's paints being lesser quality than the past due to EPA regulations. Original e30 paint seems to last forever, yet you see modern cars with huge sections peeling off etc.

anytime i've been to the track with a bunch of exotics it's always a grand prix or something. They def put all types of everything to hold everything together.

[ForcedFirebird]

HA! Free hand was two words in the OP, thinking free and by hand (a$$umed a friend was helping out).