rebuilding a stripped interior?

[tsmith25]

So, a stripped 95 m3 just popped up near me. It has pretty high mileage, but seems to be intelligently modified, not necessarily the "correct" brands according to the forum, but functional, and relatively current on maintenance. The price might be too good to pass up.

has anyone started with a car that only has the dash and front seats and then rebuilt it?

If so, how much of an enormous pain in the ass was it?

Since I am consistently inspired by the grip missile thread, the other option is "grip missile: the cover band".

Also, because RACE CAR!

[lbennyboobool]

The most annoying thing is finding all the little pieces and bolts and screws and knowing where they go if you have not taken these interiors apart a few times.
If you don't mind not having any interior, go for it!

[JEC928]

Best plan is to acquire a complete non-M parts car and swap interior over, that way you have fasteners. You can pick up M-livery rear seats on Classifieds if you care about that.
Downside is that a cheap parts car with perfect interior will usually be guarded by leprechauns mounted on unicorns (slightly rare).
The vast majority of inexpensive E36s existing in 2017 have trashed door panels panels, sagging headliner, unraveling seams, and various broken mounting tabs on trim pieces.

I plan to replace much of my trashed interior with custom fabbed pieces... been toying with the idea of 3D printing my pillar trims.

[lbennyboobool]

been toying with the idea of 3D printing my pillar trims.

That would be very cool to see! Has anyone done it before and recorded it?

[tsmith25]

Best plan is to acquire a complete non-M parts car and swap interior over, that way you have fasteners. You can pick up M-livery rear seats on Classifieds if you care about that.
Downside is that a cheap parts car with perfect interior will usually be guarded by leprechauns mounted on unicorns (slightly rare).
The vast majority of inexpensive E36s existing in 2017 have trashed door panels panels, sagging headliner, unraveling seams, and various broken mounting tabs on trim pieces.

I plan to replace much of my trashed interior with custom fabbed pieces... been toying with the idea of 3D printing my pillar trims.

That's a good thought. Unfortunately, my totaled M3 is a sedan, so many of those parts will not fit the coupe. I was already thinking about eventually making it a 2+2 by adding race seats in the back. The main thing I need right away is a back seat, since I have a 2 year old. I have considered making a custom car-seat mount instead of the rear seat initially.

[ECSTuning]

I've played that game in the past. I became very frustrated to find a ton of spots where bolts "should" fit had been drilled out, ended up taking double the time I expected it to take to install a new interior.

-James

[ChuckDizzle]

Sometimes during the build process, people will remove unnecessary mounts and tabs from the interior when they strip it out. That would be the only problem I foresee when returning it back to stock. If they left everything as-is and just unbolted all the trim and seats then it should go back together just fine.

[Moron95M3]

I just scrapped an entire black coupe interior to build a 'dash only' race car