Black Friday and ’02 Update

We hope you had a very Happy Thanksgiving!  We enjoyed the day with family, eating delicious food, playing games, and relaxing.  We woke up bright and early to hit some of the Black Friday sales before coming to the shop to host our first Black Friday event of our own.  If you are out and about today and in need of some parts, stop on by!  We’ve got plenty in stock from Leatherique to doors to window motors to glass, alternators, starters, ignition coils, brake master cylinders, ABS components, brake calipers, sealed beam headlight assemblies, switches, and MORE!  All at “doorbuster” deals!

Last Saturday, Reggie got a little work done on the ’02.  The to-do list is always longer than the amount of time we have, it seems, so he didn’t get as much done as he would have liked, but that’s ok.  Here are some photos of what was done. Reggie’s going to take over from here to give you a more detailed account of what he did.

I still hadn’t removed all of the seat mounts from my first venture into this project, so my first order of business was to finish this part. This was difficult because when the seat “adapters” were welded to the factory mounts, it was done in a fairly permanent manner. I’m sure I “could” have removed the added pieces without sacrificing the original mounts, but it would have been more difficult and time consuming.  I still wasn’t sure what seats I was going to use, so I figured I’d start with a clean slate.

I was really leaning towards using e30 sport seats in the old ’02 because I have a couple of very nice pairs in inventory right now, and they are so comfortable on long trips (which I plan to take in this car on select occasions). In fact, I have a set in hounds-tooth cloth that would have really looked great in a vintage ’02.

After testing with a convertible sport seat, I confirmed what has been said on 2002faq several times, they are just too tall. I thought with the factory seat mounts out of the way that I could sit them on the floor, like in an e30.  Unfortunately there is still a ridge on the transmission tunnel where the factory mounts were.  You can put the seats next to the ridge, but then they are off-center…..nope.  Putting the e30 seat on top of the ridge is still too high. So my choices are getting down to the following:

A. cut this “ridge” out of the trans tunnel – This is exactly where I draw the line in modifying my ’02’s floor…..Especially when I look underneath to find that the center support bearing mounts would be affected.

B. modify the seat mounts on the e30 sport seats – This looks complicated, and I’m fairly certain I’d loose a lot of the seat’s adjustability.

C. find different seats – preferably some vintage sport seats. e21 Recaros have been done a million times, but I still like them as well as anything in an ’02.

I chose C., which has brought an early end to my project for the day, but the end results will be better. Honestly, the e30 sport seats were always kind of a compromise “just because” I have access to them. In the end, I will like the look of the e21 Recaros better.

The next day I bought a 1983 320is……for the seats :). The spare diff and 5-speed won’t be bad to have around either. If anyone needs “other” parts from a 1983 320is, please let us know (photos will be up soon)!!

Have a great weekend!