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E30 320is update

For those interested...

Made the trip into Birmingham this morning to KMS Parts. Highly recommended, helpful, knowledgable (sp?) staff and good stock. Came away with an electric window switch, full set of brake pads, rear discs (the originals looked a wee bit scored) and.... a set of chrome arch trims. Look, I always liked those on E30s and they are a bona fide "period" accessory. Love or hate thing I guess.

Got home, replaced all the pads and rear discs, roughly 30-40 minutes a corner averaged out over all four, damn this is an easy car for an imbecile like me to work on. Next up, the electric window switch. Cue big screwdriver in lever mode. Click, snap, click, done, hey presto, passenger side windows that go up. Going down was never a problem, but going back up was sometimes challenging. Well worth £21.

Next up, bit the bullet, stripped out the dash, removed the service light PCB, and replaced the rechargeable batteries with a couple of solder-tagged AA cells from Maplin. Ok, that took a while, poor design IMO to have a pair of cells which WILL fail buried so deeply in the dash type area. A quick shufty around the diagnostic socket with an unofficial reset tool (otherwise known as a bit of wire) and the service lights are all showing A-OK. Did an oil and filter change the other evening so it's kind of legitimate ;).

Moving back out into the cold, the chrome arch set was duly applied. I know some people hate these, but to me, they look sweet. Perfect fit, very easy to mount, all for £32. Next up, the spoiler extension. Original equipment on IS cars, the one on mine had been clanged but a replacement was included in the boot of the car as part of the sale. Managed to salvage 7 out of 10 of the original mounting clips, spent some time and bad language with some tin snips and a piece of s/s sheet from an old cooker hood or something fabricating the others. Success! Well, sort of, there is a gap between the front valance and the spoiler extension meaning the bright s/s clips are clearly visible. Must remove the whole lot tomorrow and set to with some white hammerite. Ho-hum.

Last thing, reversed it into the garage, removed the tail lights and put some Alpine White paint onto the previously fettled metallically challenged areas around the lights. Looks good for now, give it a couple of weeks and I'll set about it with some rubbing compound to finish it all off nicely. Busy day.

That's it for now, soon I'll be sourcing a new BMW Sport driver's seat to replace the saggy original, and next weekend will be spent replacing the tired looking engine bay fuel lines and ignition components. I would do it tomorrow, but.... it needs to be driven!

Reply to
deadlock
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Well best of luck with that. They all seem to wear on the side of the drivers seat. Even holey ones sell on Ebay. I'd suggest you buy a passenger side one from Forrin. Actually, I reckon there could be a nice little earner carting secondhand seats back and forth over the channel.

Reply to
Willy Eckerslyke

Willy Eckerslyke (oss108no snipped-for-privacy@bangor.ac.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Apart from the subtle detail from earlier in the thread that this is a LHD car, one of a LHD-only model...

Reply to
Adrian

Is one from a 318is the same?

Reply to
Ken

expecting me to remember stuff like that...

I reckon Sport seats from any 3 Series of the era would be the same. I flogged some from a 325i recently that would have been.

Reply to
Willy Eckerslyke

Willy Eckerslyke (oss108no snipped-for-privacy@bangor.ac.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

By the sounds of the earlier descriptions, they may well not. Possibly same as that shape M3 - but that was... LHD only...

To the OP - Can they not be retrimmed? Might not be as expensive as you may think.

Reply to
Adrian

I thought people were saying that the spec was basically 325i with detuned M3 engine

For some reason I remember an advert in an '80s car mag by some company who were importing SouthAfrican(?) spec 333i cars. I really wanted one of these!

Reply to
Ken

Visiting a trimmer's shop did cross my mind, but for now I'd rather not have the car off the road whilst the driver's seat is being sorted. BMW still offer a full trim kit for these seats so the job can be done on a DIY basis, but the price is predictably way OTT, £460 for the leather cover, £90 each for the pads.

For the record, the seats are BMW sports seats, available as an option throughout the E30 range and standard, I believe, on M3s and late 325i models. Recaro also supplied a version of the BMW sports seat based on one of their standard OEM models, maybe I could find out which one and trawl through parts lists for suitable donor cars. Would be nice if, say, a Calibra (!) seat would go in without too much trouble.

Reply to
deadlock

deadlock (nobody@nowhere_yes_its a_cliche.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

HOW much? Sounds cheap to me.

Reply to
Adrian

Are they actually labelled as Recaro? The ones I flogged off the 325i weren't, but the previous owner insisted they were Recaros. Comparing pictures on Ebay, they certainly looked identical to others claiming to be Recaros, so I listed them with a suitable disclaimer and got 50 quid for the pair, despite the driver's seat's bolster being pretty worn.

BTW, I thought they were pretty uncomfortable and made the driving position surprisingly cramped for a biffer like me.

You anywhere near Dartford?

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Reply to
Willy Eckerslyke

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