Maytag: The Alpine '87 529i

[tig]

With all that has been done I'm wondering how long it can be before an e to i conversion?

I already have an i harness and other parts...

But... Turbo?

[davintosh]

With all that has been done I'm wondering how long it can be before an e to i conversion?

I already have an i harness and other parts...

But... Turbo?

Why not? All the cool e30 guys do it.

[tig]

How you know you geared your 5-speed swap too low: Your 18 year old son tells you he's given up using 2nd gear at all. "Why does that transmission even have a 2nd gear? I just go straight from 1st to 3rd."

Also, he doesn't think its any peppier with the chip either.

Maybe I can get him to install the 3.25 while im at work this week (he's back from college and doing nothing useful).

[tig]

This morning I prepped Vlad's old passenger seat to become Maytag's new driver's seat. I have never dyed leather before but after seeing these seats again after they've been tucked away for so long I think it will be worthwhile to spruce them up a bit before installing them. It can't be too hard a process, right?

EDIT: Searched for "Leather Dye" and found a thread mentioning "Doc Bailey's". Sounds like just what I need for this job. Ordering some.
https://www.leatherclear.com/cgi-bin/store/pid_01.htm

Old driver's seat. One big gash in the thigh bolster; not all the way through the leather.


Old passenger's seat. Great shape with just some minor cracking and fading of dye.


Swapping sides is really just as simple as pulling off the outside panel that holds the thigh bolster control, re-routing the wire for it to the other side, and snapping in the panel from the other seat. You have to poke two holes in the leather on the "new" side and the old "outside" will now have to unsightly holes, but they will be out of sight once installed.



This evening, after opening presents, I dug into the donor passenger seat and Vlad's old drivers seat. I recalled that the place where the old seat was rocking was primarily at the big pivot point at the front. I re-verified that and confirmed that on both Vlad's old passenger seat and the donor passenger seat that joint/bushing had far less play.

This is Vlad's old seat mechanism. As you can see the mechanism and frame are in really great cosmetic shape.


That big round pivot point has about 1mm play in it which I believe is the primary cause of the seat rocking so badly.


Sadly the donor is not as cosmetically pretty. But I haven't cleaned it up yet and I'm sure that once I do, and perhaps judiciously apply some POR15 and spray paint, it'll be just fine.


The donor seat was disassembled by removing the frame and all the various parts like the shield and seat-back motors. It's really easy to do once you get started. In the end, this is the piece that will be transplanted onto the seat from Vlad. I have tested the motors and they work fine. The track is filthy and needs to be cleaned and re-greased. And as I said before I may do some touch-up paint to prevent the minor surface rust from spreading.


This is the pivot point on the donor frame piece above. It has almost no play when wiggled.

[tig]

Putting the seats in today.



I'm stumped though.

There's no power to the thigh bolsters. None of the 4 seats have a connector plugged into the power source pins for C260/C261 shown circled below. Where does this wire come from? Could it be under the carpet? Was it not installed in comfort-seat cars? I searched and couldn't find anyone else struggling with this when doing a comfort->sport swap.



Can someone with E28 sport seats look under the front of their seats and see where the plug that goes here comes from?

[dsmith]

I just ran into that, but wasn't going to address until after winter. You learn me about the wiring and I will learn you that you'll want to get the sport seat belt assemblies to go with the seats.

[tig]

I just ran into that, but wasn't going to address until after winter. You learn me about the wiring and I will learn you that you'll want to get the sport seat belt assemblies to go with the seats.

Now you tell me. Just got the seats in and realized the belts don't work. Arrgggg!!!



Do we adapt the too short comfy-seat belt connectors or do we obtain sport-seat seat belts?

On the topic of thigh bolster power, this molex connector is under the carpet in front of the seat support. I suspect that there's a pig-tail on sport-seat cars that plugs into that, has two wires (red/yellow and brown) that go to a black connector to the C260/C261 connector in the picture above.

[tig]

I just hacked the comfy-seat belt recepticles by bending their bases flat. They went on the sport-seat frame just fine and work fine.





All that's left to finish this 'job':

• Treat leather.
• Get connectors for thigh-bolsters and wire them in. This will require removing the seats so likely will never happen (haha).
• Get a black rear seat.
• Figure out what antrachite interior pieces I want to swap in to complete the 'Mostly black, but two tone' look

Oh, and the old driver's seat (now passenger seat) still rocks. Sigh. The new driver's seat is solid. Yay.

[2 5's and a 7]

Your big on the two-tone..........

[tig]

Not really, I just know that ill probably never swap the carpet on this car. I really hate beige.

[travisj]

I just hacked the comfy-seat belt recepticles by bending their bases flat. They went on the sport-seat frame just fine and work fine.

That is exactly what I did when i swapped from comfort to E30 sport seats. Definitely easier than swapping the whole belt.

I'm heading to Copper tomorrow, but it looks like you are already back home. If you happen back this way, let me know and I we can meet up for a drink on the slopes!

[1st 5er]

Our super eta doors.


We now have a black rear sest set.

[tig]

Before:





During:



After:





Stuff works great. Make sure you buff it out after an hour or so because your close will pick up black...

Also, Maytag is now ready for skiing.

[Stevo12]

Looking sharp! I love the 535i wheel and sport seats. Also, get outta my head, I'm looking for gutter racks daily so that I can mount my bike racks in the spring - and I have those ski carriers for my Jetta. It also reminds me to stop dragging my feet on installing the sport seats from my parts car. My only saving grace is that my sport seats are BEIGE

[tig]

Before:



During:



After:



Basically traded the old vinyl comfort fronts & rears for this near perfect black leather rear, so my out of pocket costs were negligible.

Julie drove Maytag this week. She said she approved of the 'new' seats ("much more comfortable"). I asked her opinion on the two-tone, and what parts of the trim I should convert to black to finish it. She was adamant: "Don't do ANYTHING! I love the way it looks now. This is how BMW does interiors now and they look great."

Ok, so she actually said something POSITIVE about one of my cars. I'm going to leave it alone then!

[kzolee]

Kzolee likes this interior.

[tig]

Fixed the when-cold-brake-howl. It was the e-brake; I failed to adjust it when I did the big brakes (new rear rotors).

Noticed a few drops of coolant on the floor. God-dammit, fucking, mother-fucking, son-of-a-bitch, i'm so pissed I could spit, frick, frak, shit! The flipping heater control valve is leaking.

Fuck me.

Excuse my french. But really?

[leadphut]

Before:

Stuff works great. Make sure you buff it out after an hour or so because your close will pick up black...

...and don't forget to clothes the cap.

looks great Man!

[m-racer]

Very nice indeed!!!!!!!!

[davintosh]

Fixed the when-cold-brake-howl. It was the e-brake; I failed to adjust it when I did the big brakes (new rear rotors).

Noticed a few drops of coolant on the floor. God-dammit, fucking, mother-fucking, son-of-a-bitch, i'm so pissed I could spit, frick, frak, shit! The flipping heater control valve is leaking.

Fuck me.

Excuse my french. But really?

Look at it as an opportunity to improve upon the e46 heater valve retrofit.

[tig]

Look at it as an opportunity to improve upon the e46 heater valve retrofit.

I know. Would I be a bad person if I just said fuck-it and ordered a new OE E28 valve. I'm pissed enough and tired enough of futzing to do just that.

[Kyle in NO]

I would if I didn't have a used one.

[davintosh]

Look at it as an opportunity to improve upon the e46 heater valve retrofit.

I know. Would I be a bad person if I just said fuck-it and ordered a new OE E28 valve. I'm pissed enough and tired enough of futzing to do just that.

Yes. Bad Charlie. No donut.

[KrautnotRice]

Just read this entire thread. For the second time.
Once while I was shopping for a E28 and now again, after picking up an ETA.
There is a wealth of great info here and I can appreciate your attention to detail. Thanks for taking the time to document all this work.

What did you decide to do regarding the (nth) leaky HCV?

[tig]

Just read this entire thread. For the second time.
Once while I was shopping for a E28 and now again, after picking up an ETA.
There is a wealth of great info here and I can appreciate your attention to detail. Thanks for taking the time to document all this work.

What did you decide to do regarding the (nth) leaky HCV?

Glad my particular form of insanity is useful to someone else.

The old hcv is still in, slightly leaking. A brand new e28 and e46 hcv are on the backbench in a battle to the death to decide which I install.

[87royal]

[*]Figure out what antrachite interior pieces I want to swap in to complete the 'Mostly black, but two tone' look[/list]

If you want that same cupholder in black, I have one available.

[tig]

Maytag got a bath today.

[leadphut]

Now it's ready for shadowlining, window tinting, euro bumper conversion, staggered headlights, euro M5 spoiler, rear trunk spoiler, M-Tech flares, and better rims.


looks great Man!

[tig]

Now it's ready for shadowlining, window tinting, euro bumper conversion, staggered headlights, euro M5 spoiler, rear trunk spoiler, M-Tech flares, and better rims.


looks great Man!

Thanks.

I plan to keep this car mostly original cosmetically. I'm still fantasizing about a turbo. And what the f**k do you mean "better rims"? :-)

(These are my snow rims; they have Nokains on them... I just sent my RZs off to be re-finished; they will go on this car).

[oldskool]

You owe it to yourself to turbo that car. . .