E90 seats into my e30 sedan with re-dye project

[kdkool]

So I'm about to venture into a new project for the e30...

Currently, I have an 86 325e sedan with cardinal red interior. The front comfort seats are in terrible condition! The leather is ripped, and seams are all busted. The seats don't recline properly and the lever to move the seat back / forward is broken on the passenger side. They creak and moan and are overall pretty uncomfortable.

I've tried looking for cardinal red front sport seats and it's practically impossible to find (especially for sedans!) in decent condition in my area. I've found some decent sport seats of another color (mostly for coupes) but that requires either a re-upholster or a redye. The problem still remains that they too had defective recliners and what not...

Being spoiled by my 335i e92 with heated powered sport seats and lumbar support... I started to look at the possibility of putting newer seats into the e30...

So... after a relatively short search, I came across a cheap set of non-sport heated powered leather seats with lumbar support out of a 07 e90 335i sedan. They are very comfortable and should be pretty nice on my back for the e30 beater project. The only problem is that they of course are not cardinal red!

I will be ordering leatherique's redye kit for cardinal red. I will be redye-ing the new e90 front seats as well as the original rear seats (faded and cracked but has arm rests and head rests!).

Wish me luck guys! First things first, custom seat brackets!

I'll post pictures as the project progresses.

[lambo]

This shall be interesting. Good luck!

[mason6556]

looking forward to following this hope it goes well and best of luck

[kdkool]

So here is a little update.

I managed to install the driver seat only for now... The passenger seat is next.

Installation was actually really easy. The two front bolts slide right in with no modifications at all. The two rear ones required a little extension bracket which I made out of stainless steel plates (about 2.5 inches worth of extension). Power to the seats work. It slides completely all the way up and all the way back with no issues at all as do all the other directions (tilt / raise). Lumbar support also works.

The heated elements appear to be the same exact layout as previous generation BMWs... I'm going to try to find a center console with the original e30 heated buttons and get them to work with it. That'll be for later on...


Here is the old beat to crap driver seat...



Here is the driver seat installed...




The seats feel absolutely wonderful! No more creaky old non-supportive seats! And no more strange glued on piece of leather that pokes my back (remnants of previous owner's work). My back sucks so the lumbar support was a very nice.


After I get everything installed, the next step is to re-dye the leather! Plastic panels are going to be painted black. I'll post updates as I get them done.

:)

[glnr13]

Nice work, pics of the plates/fabrication to make the rear bolts line up?
Why no redye and paint work while outside of car?

[kdkool]

Sure I'll post pictures of the brackets when I make them for the passenger seat.

I wanted to make sure everything worked out before I re-dyed the seats (since I consider the re-dying part much more labor intensive).

I actually already painted all the tan plastics black on the passenger side..

You're probably right though, I should probably just go ahead and re-dye the leather for the passenger side first before I install it.

[kdkool]

I've taken the e90 passenger seat apart in preparation for recoloring. I will be recoloring the plastics and rear panel to black. I am waiting for the leatherique order to come in. At the last minute, I've decided to use my e92's coral red leather as the color sample that the leatherique dye will be made to. As I wait for the redye kit to come in, here is my plastics recoloring...

Seat bottom removed in preparation for re-coloring.




This is the rear of the seat. At the bottom, there are two little "buttons" that need to be cut off. Just buy new ones to replace when you're ready to re-install (They're $0.60 at the dealer).


Just take a pair of dykes and clip them off.


This is the rear panel removed. I will be re-coloring this to black.


First task is to remove the netting. On the back there are several melted tabs that need to be clipped away to remove the netting panel.




Just take some small pliers and clip around the edges.


After clipping around the ten little retainer things, the net will pop right out.




Remove the net and prepare for recoloring. Just take a small flat head and pop it out of the clips.


I'm using duplicolor vinyl and fabric redye. I've used it to redye the rear parcel deck with great success so I'm confident it'll turn out well here too. This will also be used to re-dye netting and the back covering since the back covering appears to be of a vinyl material that is glued on to the plastic. The pictures are after 1 layer. I did 3 layers for each letting it dry 15 minutes in between each coat.





Here's the plastic piece that holds the net. This piece is plastic so it's getting primed for black spray paint later on.


more to come....

[RUFFLZ]

in to see how this turns out
also, if you don't mind me asking; how much you cop those seats for?

[Bearmw]

mmmmm weight addition.;)

[kdkool]

mmmmm weight addition.;)

I'll gladly add the weight gain if it means a more comfortable driving experience.

My plan after all this interior business is to work on the other variable to offset the power/weight ratio. ;)

[kdkool]

in to see how this turns out
also, if you don't mind me asking; how much you cop those seats for?

I paid $500 for the entire set (includes rear seats too but they're no good to me). I'm trying to offset some of the cost of these seats by parting off the parts I don't need when in an e30 (passenger seat sensor, seat airbags, seat belt tensioner, and the rear seats).

[Bearmw]

^ V8 maybe?

[kdkool]

^ V8 maybe?

Nah... I'll probably try to have some fun with the M20 in it. Definitely sticking with an I-6 in any case. Do the stroker build with a turbo setup. That is unless I come across an amazing deal for a N54... :roll:

[kdkool]

So the paint has dried. The netting looks great. A little crispy at first but it loosened up nicely. No flaking so far. The back panel looks really good. I've been playing around with spray paint colors and found the duplicolor semi gloss black closely resembles the e92 OEM plastic black of the car.

Back panel done.


Netting done.


Side trim panel done.


black pastic net holder thing... done


Comparison shot of OEM e92 seat trim and spray painted trim. This is the coral red I'm shooting for when I'm done re-dying the interior.


more to come...

[Vivek]

Is that inside your 335? Coral red is such a nice color.