Very nice. Keep up the great work.
Nice to see an Estoril without dove grey leather. (read: grey interior plastics/dash). Looks so much better with everything in black.
You already had the Motorsport sills? Last time I checked these were NLA. Unless some vendor had some left.
1998 BMW M3 3.2 Cabrio Alpinweiί III on Schwarz German spec 1 of 12
SMG SRA PDC AUC OBC GSM HK UURS IHKA FGR MFL
IG: https://www.instagram.com/iflok/
Car has come a way! Looks beautiful! Always have and will will love e36 M3s.
1998 BMW M3 3.2 Cabrio Alpinweiί III on Schwarz German spec 1 of 12
SMG SRA PDC AUC OBC GSM HK UURS IHKA FGR MFL
IG: https://www.instagram.com/iflok/
Looking good!
Great car, subbed.
Thanks everyone!
Ha yeah I was pretty pumped to find this combo. I would love to find a set of mint manual mulberry vaders but I think I have better chances of finding a leprechaun.
There is some light cracks on the drivers headrest and bolster from southern state sun I'm guessing. No one has an exact Mulberry (N5MQ) dye so I ordered an close as they could get with a color adjusting kit. I did this on my daily GTI from the same place (Leatherworld technologies) with good results, especially when the entire seat doesn't need to be repaired. Will try to get some before/after pics as it's one of the few interior spots showing age.
Started on the headrest to test my color matching skills as they are technically still stocked by some dealers, of course I forgot the before pics but here's an edit of one of my previous interior shots:
You can see the cracking and tan/white on the right side of the headrest as well as on the bottom of the lobes.
I started with the N6TT BMW gray from LeatherWorld, which is the BMW standard medium gray. It was pretty close to start but a little light and a little too blue. So the color matching kit from LWT I experimented with about 5 batches and small dabs + hairdryer on the underside of the headrest. Best combo seemed to be about .25oz of the dye, 2 small drops of black to darken and an even smaller drop of red to tint in in the right direction. Yellow turned it too brown. I used a little of their finish filler on the deeper cracks (never used that before) but didn't want to fill completely as I've seen some dye jobs before and it looks too obvious if the surface is made totally smooth.
Mulberry is such an interesting color, it varies throughout the interior and even on panels. So after letting everything dry (speeding up with a hairdryer was no problem) you can see in the pics below it's pretty close, however I think I'm going to make another batch a bit darker and try to replicate some of the factory variance the is present in the center of the headrest. They recommend not conditioning for 72 hours so maybe that will add some variance as well.
But I'm confident enough now to touch up the rest of the seats and will post pics when that's all done but probably not for a few days.
Last edited by Zed Sump; 07-13-2017 at 09:57 AM.
So good to see this car cared for properly! Beautiful M3!
Congrats! Great pick up
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Well replaced the cabin filter (pain the ass and it was disgustingly dirty). Then of course the one other time I got intermittent blower motor deal, did not want to work after initial filter test. So ordered a FSU/Blower resistor after some searching. Delayed the leather project a bit but should be able to condition and take some pics this week. Did get a few other things done waiting for dye to dry.
New fuel boot and cleaned that area up (it was a mess):
Replaced lower window seal and trunk seal and did the trunk jams. The trunk seal contact as there was a black ring from the old seal on the paint as well:
Last edited by Zed Sump; 07-13-2017 at 09:57 AM.
Finished the leather finally after travelling for work. Think it turned out great and got the color match spot on. Can still see some creasing on the drivers side but looks more natural imo, having no white cracks is what I was really after.
Last edited by Zed Sump; 07-13-2017 at 09:58 AM.
Beautiful find!
Question for you, did you replace the trunk seal because of the contact ring or did not because the rinv indicated that it was still sealing?
Your doves really make mine look like a pile of crap and that I should throw them in the garbage.
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I'm replacing most everything that is rubber that isn't 100%. I did the rear window seals too so far. 17 year old rubber that wasn't treated periodically will just wear out. Luckily the big door seals that are 300+ bucks are in good shape. I need to do the pop out window inner seal but that's a project I need to save up some patience for!
I did use the finish filler on the outside of the drivers headrest as the cracks were really deep. Went on white and dried clear, it was harder to match the color on those spots. One of my earlier pics of the headrest it's the outside of the right lobe where I used it. I might go back and use a touch on the creases on the drivers side but I'll probably leave it as I have a bunch of other projects I want to do. My main forte is paint correction so want to get started on that before I store her for winter.
There is no such thing as Dove to begin with. It's called Light Grey with code N5TT. Dove is just some made up BS like Vaders (which are just Coupe Sport seats, not to be confused with sedan sport seats). Even if "Dove" is the accepted term, the E46 M3 guys have stolen for describing their N5TT which is closer to mulberry than the E36 Light grey.
Excellent progress OP!Anthracite M cloth + Amaretta - B4AT - BG91, BG92
Anthracite M-Cross cloth + Amaretta - D8AT - BG91, BG92, BG93
Grey M cloth + Amaretta - B4TT - BG91, BG92
Grey M-Cross cloth + Amaretta - D8TT - BG91, BG92, BG93
Black Nappa leather - N5SW - BG91, BG92, BG93, BK91, BK92, BK93, BK03, CD91, CD92, CD93, CD03
Black extended Nappa leather - L7SW - BG91, BG92, BK91, BK92, CD91, CD92, CD98
Light Grey Nappa leather - N5TT - BG91, BG92, BG93, BK91, BK92, BK93, BK03, CD91, CD92, CD93, CD03
Light Grey extended Nappa leather - L7TT - BG91, BG92, BK91, BK92, CD91, CD92, CD98
Modena Natur Nappa leather - N5AY - BG91, BG92, BG93, BK91, BK92, BK93, BK03, CD91, CD92, CD93, CD03
Modena Natur extended Nappa leather - L7AY - BG91, BG92, BK91, BK92, CD91, CD92
Magma Nappa leather - N5AX - BG93, BK93, BK03, CD93, CD03
Magma extended Nappa leather - L7AX - BG91, BG92, BG93, BK91, BK92, CD91, CD92
Sand Beige Nappa leather - N5SN - BG93, BK93, BK03
Classic Red Nappa leather - N5GD - BG91, BG92, BK91, BK92, CD91, CD92
Classic Red extended Nappa leather - L7GD - BG91, BG92, BK91, BK92, CD91, CD92
Mulberry Nappa leather - N5MQ - BG93, BK93, BK03, CD93, CD03
Mulberry extended Nappa leather - L7MQ - BG91, BG92, BG93, BK91, BK92, CD91, CD92, CD98
Hazelnut extended Nappa leather - L7HS - BG91, BG92, BK91, BK92, CD91, CD92
Violet Blue extended Nappa leather - L7MA - BG91, BG92, BK91, BK92, CD91, CD92
Champagne extended Nappa leather - L7CM - CD98
Anthracite extended Buffalo leather - M7AT - BG91, BG92, BK91, BK92, CD91, CD92
Thanks! E46 N5TT is actually what I started with before mixing on my dye job to get to Mulberry. Cars been collecting a bit of dust between work/baby life. But I did finally find a set of somewhat beat OEM contours! (My stock rears have rash already as well)
So fully refinished 8.5" square set with 245/40 Pilot Super Sports inbound.
People don't seem to be big fans on contours. I think the square setup matches the cars lines quite well.
Last edited by Zed Sump; 07-13-2017 at 09:58 AM.
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