Interior Decorating

I'm finally feeling that I'm making forward progress with the rebuild of the BMW. I've stopped taking things out or apart and moved into the additive phase of the project. Case in point, the interior.

The rear seats had a non-stock re-covering, of which I'm okay with. But not with the color, a light blue out of place with the dark blue interior panels, the black front seats. And with the new carpet and the dark metallic blue outside paint accents, it looks horribly out of place.

Lighting makes it look darker than it really is.

The only thing to do then is to dye the fabric. Off to the kitchen!

Navy Blue and Black dye cook job

The seat cover was removed from the seat frame.

And then for an hour long soak in the washer with the hot dye solution.

This is probably best done when your wife or girlfriend is out shopping.

And finally after a couple of rinse cycles and a day of drying, attached back to the frame using the built-in sharp points and crimped hog rings. Repeat for the top half of the seat.

Ready to be stuffed back into the car.

While the seat job is in progress I have been dutifully sound insulating the interior, covering most of the surfaces with FatMat Rattletrap. This is a aluminum foil back sheet of tar which will dampen sound and harmonics. Once I ran out of the FatMat, I headed off to a local Lowes store and picked up some Peel and Seal which is basically the same stuff, used for roofing.

Looks like something from NASA in the 70's

 Once this is done, it's time for my new carpet set from Esty.

A fair chunk of time was spent test fitting, adding more sound padding, etc to get it all to lie smooth, especially around the transmission tunnel. Eventually it was glued down using some 3M interior adhesive.

The rear panels, rear seat, e-brake cover, seat belts and hardware in place. I've started with some of the quarter window seals - what a PITA! Starting to look like a car and not a shell.  I'm nowhere anywhere close to finishing, but it's looking pretty sweet now.

You say Spaghetti, I say Klippan

The bad taste of the Lime Rock weekend is still lingering so I left the 944 in the trailer for a future date and went back to work on the '02. One of the 'quirks' of my car was it came with the infamous Klippan seat belts aka Spaghetti belts. The design is kind of a set once and forget since it's such a pain in the ass to ever change them again. Since I'm the driver and my size if pretty much fixed, the lack of adjust-ability mainly affects any passengers. This usually led a to 5 min adjustment session or just the 'hell with it, just hold on!' So a set of retractable belts was in my future. But I did like the vintage elegance of the main clipping hoop and didn't want to loose that. I bought some new AutoLoc retractable 3 point belts from Amazon, removed the belt tongue and some other bits. Next disassembled my Klippan's and re-threaded the harness through it and riveted it all back together. And ta-da. Stylish, vintage, comfortable and safe.

1970's safety technology

Klippan receiver loop just behind the e-brake

New retractable belt cassette mounting in original anchor point

Shoulder belt mounted in original belt anchor point

And clipped to the receiver loop

And released, now tucked up and away on the B pillar instead
of flopping around the seat and floor.