Interior Change 3.8 Alcantara v 3.6 half leather - The Unofficial BMW M5 Messageboard (m5board.com)

davidoli · 25th August 2007, 00:45

Despite my better judgement , I made London Mike an offer that he simply couldn't refuse for his 1995 Alcantara interior and door cards .

I had always promised myself that I am not going to get hung up on the cosmetics of the Mauritius 3.6 as she will never be a minter , has done over 168,000 miles , has a peach of an engine and I would prefer to focus on the mechanics .

However , Mike's interior became available as my driver's seat began to display visible wear and the time seemed right .

I began by removing the rear seats and all four door cards :

quite straight forward , so no problems there .

I then fitted the alcantara rear seats and all 4 door cards , no problems .

The only things that remained were the front seats :

I purchased an E14 Female Torque socket from Halfords £2.50 approx

Which was handy because this is required to remove the torque bolts holding the seat rails to the chassis

and also the torque bolt holding the seat belt to the seat .......incidentally the seat base must be raised to it's greatest height to gain access to this bolt .

Everything was going swimmingly well and I got the alcantara passenger seat into place fully operational .

Finally , the driver's front seat with memory function was removed and the wiring plugs underneath differed from the passenger seat with only one white plug as pictured below :

The driver's seat had a yellow plug , a white plug and a black plug as well as a further black plug that connected to a female black plug separate from the first 3 plugs which were all connected to a black plastic box affair fitted to the underseat frame by two phillips screws .

This is when the problems began , as the alcantara non memory function driver's seat only had the one white plug similar to that of the passenger seat :

My dilema is , do I , start chopping about wiring at the risk at ending up with 2 driver's seats with non operational electrics or switch the alcantara trim onto the original driver's seat frame with half leather and the memory function thereby retaining the original wiring .

Or perhaps there is another option ?

London Mike may now understand why I was reluctant to start messing about with cosmetics now , although I am sure that this situation will be resolved in due course .

Any advice is welcome and appreciated ........

gurman · 25th August 2007, 03:32

Does the white plug fit into the plug from the seat? You could connect it and see if the seat works to a satisfactory level. The other ones may be for the memory function and heating function maybe ?!. A trial by elimination might provide the answer for you this time if you're happy enough to have a few loose connections floating around under your bum.

davidoli · 25th August 2007, 08:59

Hi Gary ,

The white plug from the alcantara seat doesn't pair up with the seperated black plug present in the set of 4 plugs coming up from the chassis under the driver's seat .

When I put my original driver's seat back in last night I connected the 3 united plugs i.e. the yellow , the white and the black to the box under the seat but left the solitary black plug disconnected momentarily ....... all of the seat's functions , other than the memory setting , appeared to work .

Ho hum....

Sebring NL · 25th August 2007, 16:32

Davidoli

Good work being conducted here!

I see you also use the blue surgeon's gloves ( so no-one will be able to link your fingerprints to the scene of the crime!) .

About the connectors, I'd see if I could make some sort of adapter piece of cable.

Try to get 2nd ones of the connectors that don't fit and make a connector cable which you could easily alter.

That way, the OEM cables stay in place and who's gonna be able to tell for an extra bit of cable underneath the seat?

davidoli · 25th August 2007, 20:50

Good thinking Wout ......

davidoli · 29th August 2007, 01:10

The white plug which can be seen in the picture with the screwdriver seems to be the main driving force behind the electric movements of my original half leather seat , as with all the other plugs removed apart from the white plug , the seat moves in every direction ......

With this in mind , I am going to get a plug connected to those wires contained within , that is compatible with the white nine pin plug on the alcantara seat .......

We'll see !

gurman · 29th August 2007, 01:53

Hi davidoli

In respect to hugging and grip-ability is the alacantra alot better?

I'll leave this question open for the next week or so, gving you time to fling the LE around some curves

davidoli · 29th August 2007, 02:01

Hi G ,

This alcantara interior has been fitted to my Mauritius 3.6 and I am hoping to have the driver's seat wired up by tomorrow .....at present it is just bolted in the set position that it was removed from it's donor car . Luckily , this position is adequate for me to be able to drive in , although not ideal !

As soon as I get the wiring sorted , I'll start flinging her around a couple of bends and give a response to the gripability question !

Mmm-Five · 29th August 2007, 11:04

I've noticed a huge difference in grip from the seats between my old alcantara shod seats and the new leather ones. It's not just the lateral grip from the alcantara bolsters, but the seat also seems to keep you from sliding forwards too.

I wonder how much it would cost to get my seats retrimmed in champagne alcantara - while I'm at it, I should propbably get manual sports seats of another e34 (not necessarily an M5 of course) and trim them instead

davidoli · 29th August 2007, 11:14

Maybe you should get some alcantara trousers made up Tony .......

Mmm-Five · 29th August 2007, 11:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidoli

Maybe you should get some alcantara trousers made up Tony .......

Funny you should say that, as I've got a pair of moleskins that I might try.