Glacier Blue 6-speed build thread

[petejk]

I can’t honestly say that I would like to go through this process again! It has taken many hours to complete, and I can’t say I want to see the inside of a car seat anytime soon..

After stripping the seats down to the frames, and swapping memory components over, I had three more tasks to complete before reassembly.
Fitting the heated seat elements, dyeing the leather from black to blue, and fitting and connecting driver and passenger side lumbar pumps to the Corbeau bladders.
This involved fun with zip ties, hog rings, and in the case of the e36 lumbar pumps, replacing the female molex with male molex connectors.
Also use of a pneumatic staple gun and spray adhesive was necessary to fit the heated seat elements, and allow sufficient access to dye every bit of seat leather.


As I had swapped over both drivers and passenger harnesses over, there were no cabling surprises, other than a head scratcher when I could not remember where the seatbelt buckle switch connector went. It turns out (thanks Facebook!) that it connects at the front of the seat as pictured.


I had intended to use the lumbar switches as pictured, but the wiring diagram defeated me. I’m pretty sure I simply need to tap into three wires, but I’ll come back to this at some point in the future. If anyone has done this modification, please let me know!



Seats complete, and out of the house again! I was able to have chrome trim rings fitted when I had the belts rewebbed with ‘M’ stripes - more fun than the original blue belts.



Original blue seat plastics fitted. Will fit in the car and test soon.



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[jimmythefish]

Incredible work! Thank you for sharing.
James

[TexaZ3]

Looks good. Passenger side back looks a bit crooked? Perhaps just a lens distortion.

[TedBobo]

Wow! If this “8” ever makes it to BaT this thread has to there too. Incredible effort has gone into restoration & improvement.

[LappingLuke]

Yeah those seats look amazing!

[Albert850i]

Can you buy these chrome trim rings for the belts separately?

[petejk]

Can you buy these chrome trim rings for the belts separately?

The rings are part of the seatbelt assembly, and not available separately. In my case, I acquired a set of rings that had been removed from a pair of facelift belts before sending them with my belts for rewebbing.

My sports seats ended up being from a 94, so I have a spare pair of belts with chrome rings, but I will at some point sell these spare belt assemblies complete.


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[petejk]

Moving house has meant putting this project in storage for the time being. The positive part however was driving the car out of the garage under its own power for the first time in 2 years!


It was then transported to storage via flatbed. She definitely needs a wash!



Ignoring the CSi plate trim that will need to be repainted, and the grilles that need to be realigned, not a bad front view of where she’ll be sitting for the time being.

599 mufflers, Wokke x-pipe, and Magnaflow cats to install at some point


Seats were the last thing I reinstalled before moving the car. Definitely one of the projects I’m most proud of.

There is still a long list of things to do, ranging from the shorter list of items to get roadworthy, to the longer list to include retrofits of some options that did not come on this US spec car, but for now they will have to wait.


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[petejk]

Thanks to forum and FB community members for all the help getting to this point!


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[bmws1000rrbah]

Nice restoration project

[LappingLuke]

Glad to hear you could drive it out! Hopefully the move is smooth and the project continues soon. Can't wait to see it in real life!

[TedBobo]

Outstanding!
Is that an E31 specific roof rack? I haven’t had mine on in years.

[petejk]

Thanks, it will be a while before I can get to it again, so getting it outside for a couple of photos was a plus.


The roof rack is made up from Thule Wingbar Evos, along with the brackets and feet that are listed in another couple of threads