1983 Henna Red 323i

[Japandrew73]

project thread for the 320i too!

[kdevitt]

updates?

Not much in the way of updates I'm afraid!!

Heres the latest -

The car had a clean cloth interior, but I managed to pick up a very tidy sports leather a few weeks back for small money. There were no rips or tears, but the leather was cracking and in need of some work.

I bought a leather restoration kit from Dynamix Dyes (www.dynamixdyes.com) - they have a full selection of colours available, thankfully black is as straightforward as it gets. The kit arrived quickly - and contains a leather cleaner, a conditioner, the dye, an applicator sponge and a leather scented air freshener.

Heres a few pics of the seats before any work was done -

The interior needs to be cleaned thoroughly using the supplied cleaner, after which I gave it a wipe down with methylated spirits to remove any remnants of waxes or grease. I then gave the seats a sanding with 600 grit paper to remove major cracking. Probably could have done with sanding down a bit further, but I didn't fancy doing any significant damage.

I cut the supplied sponge into three sections and used it to apply very thin coats of the dye. Within about two coats the seats looked significantly better, the amount of dye supplied allowed me to do 6 coats on the full interior. I still need to apply the conditioner to the leather - the seats have to be left for two days before its done.

Heres the finished pictures -

Am delighted with the results - the interior looked worse to begin with than the pictures show, and it came up amazing. Its obviously not like a brand new interior - the cracking can still be seen, but its well worth spending the money on the kit if your interior is a bit tired looking.

I'm collecting an order on Saturday with all the trim pieces for the front and rear bumpers and a few other bits, hopefully the car is being collected afterwards for a full proper respray. Just can't get the finish the car deserves myself!

Not sure if I posted this before - but am also sorting out my brothers 1983 320i - so my time is taken up quite a bit at the moment!

[Japandrew73]

updates?

[Japandrew73]

Basically when you're driving at night the mirror 'darkens' so headlights behind you don't dazzle you. It replaces the little lever you have at the bottom of your mirror to manually do it for you.

The little dot is the light sensor for the mirror.

wow that's awesome!

[kdevitt]

auto dimming? What do you mean? does it have a light on it? Whats the little black circle in the middle bottom of it?

Basically when you're driving at night the mirror 'darkens' so headlights behind you don't dazzle you. It replaces the little lever you have at the bottom of your mirror to manually do it for you.

The little dot is the light sensor for the mirror.

[kdevitt]

your mirror is upside down, flip it. nice project!

Ahem...good spot :oops:

[IRON-E]

Damn man, that's a lot of work but I'm happy to see you're not afraid to take on the tasks @ hand.


Nice work, keep it coming...

[PУCCKAЯ_e30ka]

your mirror is upside down, flip it. nice project!

[Japandrew73]

auto dimming? What do you mean? does it have a light on it? Whats the little black circle in the middle bottom of it?

[kdevitt]

Seeing as this isn't a restoration, I don't mind upgrading a few bits! Haven't see this done on a non cabrio, so decided to give it a go. The auto dim mirror is one of the handiest things in the E46 - so had to have one in the E30.

Bought an E46 and E30 mirror from eBay - didn't want to risk destroying the mirror in the car in case this didn't work out.

You can see that the E46 holder is substantially shorter than the E30, the fitting for it is also completely different - the E46 one twists into place on the windscreen.

First thing was to cut the end off the E30 holder. This allowed me to place it inside the E46 holder, and measure it in place to see where to make my cut.

I marked the piece and cut another chunk off

I would of been happier being able to weld this in place, but I can't weld, or have a welder - so Araldite super resin had to do the job!

This take an hour or so to set.

In order to get the front panel of the E46 holder to fit back on, the E30 pert needed to be ground down

The rubber grommet from the E30 also needed to be cut to fit around the E46 piece

I extended the wires needed - 12v constant, ground and 12v reverse signal, and put the mirror back together again

Once that was done, the mirror just clipped back in.

I didn't wire it up yet - am going to wait for that. Will be doing a good bit of wiring, and will have the interior out too - so only want to be stripping parts once.

[Peterkaczynski]

nice work on the e30

[kdevitt]

Where are you getting all this Hennarot Paint?

Just get it mixed up by a local crowd...

[Japandrew73]

Where are you getting all this Hennarot Paint?

[kdevitt]

Having some decent weather today gave me the opportunity to get some paint down on the quarter panel and bottom of the door.

Its killing me not having a workshop, compressor and gun to work with - I reckon I could get close to the finish I want!

Still, despite being an aerosol job, its better than it was! My prep work is still letting me down badly though.

[kdevitt]

It's crazy how daring you are with your paint!

Its like Dr. Pepper! Whats the worst that can happen.

I'll more than likely end up getting a professional to do the whole car again, but its not too often you get a chance to practice like this, so I'm grabbing the opportunity!!