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Originally Posted by Lordblood
Congrats on the buy! That car looks absolutely stunning, I love old BMW's!
The interior looks gorgeous from what I can see of the pictures, mind snapping an interior photo?  |
Thanks! Actually, while all there, it was the interior which suffered greatest from all the time the car was 'stored'. '70's era plastics were notoriously poor and the dash has a couple cracks. The carpet is basically dry-rotted - not really dry rot, but hard and needs replacing. BMW stuffed their seats with Horsehair padding rather than foams and this too has shrunk. I spent a day disassembling the seats as the adjustment mechanisms were basically siezed. The headliner needs a good clean-up. But, the internal chrome work (door handles, window handles, etc.) is good and the instrument panel and switch gear is in great shape. The door panels are stretched over fibreboard, essentially heavy cardboard and this too will require replacement - lazer-cut replacements of treated Luan plywood are available. Both the windshield and rear glass rubber gaskets are totally dried out and will need replacement - I tried to replace the chrome locking strip on the rear, and when inserting the tool, the rubber just crumbled so I stopped and bought 13 ft. of appropriately sized vacuum tubing and worked it into the locking slot until I can replace the whole gasket in spring.
Most of the interior bits are available, though spendy - $400@ for the horsehair pads - 2/seat +$400 for each seat reupholstery kit in original german vinyl! I'll spend the winter cruisin ebay and other sources assembling all the bits I need to 're-do' the interior in the spring. This will include Sport Recaros to replace the base seats. Another option is to transplant the interior of a newer model - the 318i and 633i interiors fit into this car nicely adding leather instead of vinyls, so this is also an option.
I'd prefer to hold off photographing the interior until get it better sorted. I have cleaned it up and it's fine, it's just that it truly looks it's age.
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