Interior Swap - Sure was interesting

[Uber Soldat]

The car when i first bought it, Last year March:

http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/9692/out1resize2jh.jpg
http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/3122/int1resize6rm.jpg
http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/8109/int3resize2hm.jpg

[Uber Soldat]

What it looked like in May this year:

The few things changed were: Upgraded OBC,'93 Model year side mirrors,rear reading

lights, stage 2 cams, chipped and fuel management. Oh and a better looking

headunit.

http://img434.imageshack.us/img434/1641/bm37gt.jpg
http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/6310/bm41bb.jpg

Since that i've upgraded all stock speakers and put a sub in the boot.

[Uber Soldat]

Now to get to the point of the thread.
The main reason for me changing the interior, was becuase the material on the door

cards was pulling away and my seats were really worn. And ofcourse i got a very

good deal on the new interior!
PS. excuse the rubbish quality of the camera phone pics.

THis is at about 7am: started stripping. Had my brother and father helping out.
http://img400.imageshack.us/img400/1097/strip16jc.jpg
http://img454.imageshack.us/img454/557/strip24ok.jpg

[Uber Soldat]

Inspecting the "new" dash.
http://img372.imageshack.us/img372/1590/strip3newdash4by.jpg

Little later on that day:
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/7236/strip47by.jpg

We had to replace the foam stuff ontop of the heater core as the stuff on there was

in pretty bad shape:
http://img270.imageshack.us/img270/2583/strip53cx.jpg

Here are both dashboards. We decided to take the wiring loom off my old one and use

it on the newer one. The reason for this is, that the newer dash had a few more

connectors, so we played it safe by swapping.
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/6580/strip6oldnewdash8dw.jpg

[Uber Soldat]

This pic is of the highly advanced contraption for removing the old carpet. We

lifted the heater core using rope so we could get the carpet out without cutting it

(We had been advised to cut it becuase the people we bought the newer interior from

thought it impossible to do it any other way)
http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/8133/strip7carpet0eh.jpg

Here is the "new" carpet before being cleaned:
http://img270.imageshack.us/img270/2185/strip8newdirtycarpet2ju.jpg
And here it is after:
http://img461.imageshack.us/img461/5163/strip9newcarpetcleaned7xu.jpg

This is the interior completely stripped:
http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/7104/strip10stripfinished4ic.jpg

Unfortunately i don't have any progress pics of us putting in the newer interior as

we were to busy actually installing it.

[Uber Soldat]

Here are some pics of the newer interior installed. Word of advice: when installing

the newer carpet, we cut away some of the backing foam to be able to get it past

the heater core. We struggled for half an hour trying to get it in before figuring

that out.

http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/5884/newint15sx.jpg
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/1681/newint22wf.jpg
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/2650/newint31uc.jpg
http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/8933/newint45mj.jpg

Will try to get better pictures of the interior as soon as i can.

[Uber Soldat]

One question i have: Do most US cars not come with this bit surrounding the number

plate?
http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/7863/bmwrear6zm.jpg

[Evan]

Thanks for all the great photos and kudos on a nice looking swap.

US cars don't come with the rear license plate thingamajig... I've only seen them on Euro cars.

Where did you find the new carpet?

[skr]

way cool man. cagratulations on the swap. looks much better. i'm looking into that too, probably next year, curent interior is grey textile, looks good but i want black leather, black door panels, wood trim, etc. how much did it take you to do the swap?

[Uber Soldat]

There is a breakers yard not far from where we live.
We asked them to strip the entire interior from a car that came in with a front end smash.
So the carpet came with everything.

I was thinking about getting stuff like this and exporting to people that need it overseas.
My only problem would be shipping and that US cars are LHD.

The interior cost me about R2500 which equates to about 351 dollars i think.

[Alexlind123]

Thats really cool! The whole car looks really nice now.

[e39dream]

sweet work!

[uflnuceng]

Are you willing to fly to the states to help a fellow brit do the same swap? My dash is already black, but I got to do everything else. Picked up an entire interior sans seats at the salvage yard this past tuesday. The Alpina Recaro's will be here in about 6-8 weeks.

I did cut my carpeting though to make it easier... it'll all be consealed under the console anyway.

[632 Regal]

magnificent job except you ****ed up the directions and they were in reverse. Or maybe it was the pictures were delveloped in reverse, either way nice job!!!

:D

[Alexlind123]

magnificent job except you ****ed up the directions and they were in reverse. Or maybe it was the pictures were delveloped in reverse, either way nice job!!!

:D

Those were pictures of hiiim removing the interior, not installing a new one.

[Nick.Hay]

Excellent work!! A very big job indeed... Especially puuling that dash out!!

Does everything still work, or have you had a few issues??

[Uber Soldat]

Amazingly everything works as it should. We did have one fuse blow because we plugged something in where it shouldn't have been. That was fixed very quickly.

We even got rid of some rattles and the like that i had with the old interior.

@uflnuceng, if you pay for the plane ticket(s), i'll bring the whole "crew" :D
I was seriously considering cutting the carpet at one stage, but my father is stubborn and wouldn't.

Now all i need to do is get rid of the off roading look :p

[shuriken]

One question i have: Do most US cars not come with this bit surrounding the number

plate?
http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/7863/bmwrear6zm.jpg
In the UK, I thought only the M5's have that surround. I may be wrong though.

Nice job on interior swap too.:)

[uflnuceng]

@uflnuceng, if you pay for the plane ticket(s), i'll bring the whole "crew" :D I was seriously considering cutting the carpet at one stage, but my father is stubborn and wouldn't.

I'm fine with mine being cut... if need be I'll cut the current carpeting to match the black I'm going to put in and sew it on for stability, but I doubt that will be necessary. I forgot to mention before but kudos on removing yet another god awful blue interior. Working together... maybe we can all rid the world of one of the worst colored interiors BMW ever concieved.

And lets see... $900 roundtrip air fare on Continental * "the crew" = more money then I got at the moment. I'll be flying over to the mother land in August for my cousin's wedding... its a good thing too because she's already had the kid :D

[brosher]

About how long did it take? Think an able body could do it in a weekend?

[angrypancake]

if you know what youre doing and take your time it could be done in a weekend. the important part is taking the time to separate and bag up all the screws you remove, so you know what's going back to where. I say this in retrospect, because I was like.... oh hell, I'll just remember where it all goes! Wrong! At least I kept them all in one place...

Seats come out and go in easily, 20 minutes for removal. Dash and all that, take your time. But yeah, definitely in a weekend.