ATL ZHP v2.0 - A Silbergrau Owner's Chronicle

[zj96sc]

time for a new belt?



so my armrest has looked like this since purchase:



Didn't want alcantara for a frequent skin contact item...or to spend the hundreds for an OEM replacement...so decided to try an ebay replacement cover. got this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/131402195363

from 'kar-designers' on ebay. $32.99 shipped, real leather. fit is OK. the cover is about half a cm too wide which requires a lot of pulling and tucking to get the surface taught. also results in the seams not sitting in the channels cut in the foam rubber padding. If they shrunk their pattern about 5% in all dimensions and flattened their seams to where it really had to be stretched onto the padding the fit would improve significantly IMO.

disassembly:





old cover off:



new cover test fit:



here you can see how the cover is too wide - this seam should sit up higher on the cutout for the ebrake handle. to get it right you have to pull the seam quite a ways down.



new cover going on for real:



done, came out looking ok:







but the devil is always in the details :





probably my biggest screwup, trimmed up too far on this corner not realizing how much the plastic trim left exposed:





back in - looks like its time for another round of leatherique on my driver's bolsters.



......so call me OK satisfied. Worth the $32 i spent and way better than the completely destroyed original.

[BMWCurves]

Really doesn't look that bad at all! Nice work.

[danewilson77]

time for a new belt?



so my armrest has looked like this since purchase:



Didn't want alcantara for a frequent skin contact item...or to spend the hundreds for an OEM replacement...so decided to try an ebay replacement cover. got this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/131402195363

from 'kar-designers' on ebay. $32.99 shipped, real leather. fit is OK. the cover is about half a cm too wide which requires a lot of pulling and tucking to get the surface taught. also results in the seams not sitting in the channels cut in the foam rubber padding. If they shrunk their pattern about 5% in all dimensions and flattened their seams to where it really had to be stretched onto the padding the fit would improve significantly IMO.

disassembly:





old cover off:



new cover test fit:



here you can see how the cover is too wide - this seam should sit up higher on the cutout for the ebrake handle. to get it right you have to pull the seam quite a ways down.



new cover going on for real:



done, came out looking ok:







but the devil is always in the details :





probably my biggest screwup, trimmed up too far on this corner not realizing how much the plastic trim left exposed:





back in - looks like its time for another round of leatherique on my driver's bolsters.



......so call me OK satisfied. Worth the $32 i spent and way better than the completely destroyed original.

Thanks for sharing. That's about as good as you can do, unless you do 100's of these per day.

Sent by the Pixel XL

[holyc0w]

Yeah, that looks very nice.

Even the stock one doesn't look perfect.



I'm guessing that's original.

[Sockethead]

Yea, looks pretty damn to me too!

[zj96sc]

picked up a bimmian cell phone bracket - and caseco 360 mount - based on prevailing popular opinion here and on E46F. found the bimmian bracket fit to be OK, but obviously built for larger cradle style holders. decided to try to adapt it a bit for use with the caseco.







after a quick game of cutty-weldy - still suck at painting:







trusty S4 still getting the job done:

[slater]

that's actually a great idea - modifying the panavise mount like that - it really cuts down on the passenger-side interference.

i love the caseco products - i bought two of their vent mounts (i don't like the idea of sticking stuff to the dash and i didn't think about the route you took), and a mil-spec case for my iPhone SE. they've been absolutely superb. i put one mount in the montero and one in my sedan, and put a magnet mount on the back of mine and my wife's iPhones. she told me it was stupid at first but yesterday she thanked me for getting them because she uses it all the time now.

[zj96sc]

lingering issue i hadn't gotten around to - broke the passenger side airbag retaining clip when doing the condenser. connector isn't available anymore from BMW except as a part of a $70 airbag repair harness.

scoured ebay and found one in latvia (yes latvia) for $7. took about 15 days to get here but was exactly the right part.





re-pinning from old to new:



done!

[theothersawyer]

Great work! Where in Atlanta are you?

[zj96sc]

i still exist. guess i swing around every 3-4 years?
zhp still pounding pavement.
working a headliner refurb and A/B/C pillars. pics to follow...

located OTP north.