This is the easy stuff I'm dealing with right now. The exterior will have to come along before the interior.

Blah


The badges have seen better days.


I've gotten negative remarks about my fog lights...Really people? Yeah, and I realize that my kidney grilles are beat up. Those are expensive to replace. Very.


Here's my Bosch fog lights and my Hella turn signal lens. Thing is, the dude who sold me the fog lights said that they'd fit my E24. Well they don't. And I've found out that Hella is the brand I'm looking for. That's going to be twice as expensive, but at least it will look nice... *sigh*



I figured that in the future I'm going to replace all the interior lights (except the dome lights, which I will be adding another) with energy-saving LEDs. I just can't decide whether I should go for bright orange-ish-red or more of a deep scarlet.

Welcome to my restoration blog!

So I bought this beautiful 1986 635csi for $1800 on craigslist on April 30th, 2013. It was owned by an older gentleman from 1986 to January 2013 when he passed away. His daughter took ownership and did not take care of the car very well. Fortunately, the original owner's nurse purchased the car from the daughter, and I purchased it from him. I am a first-time Bimmer owner, and I am confident I can work on this car.

The body is in immaculate shape (with BBS rims!) and has been garaged for most of its life. But like many older BMWs, it has problems, mostly interior:

-Upholstry peeling from sunroof head-liner
-Sunroof has a problem tilting up without me using my hand to push it.
-Knocked-out fog lights
-knocked-out turn signal light
-Dash lights are very dim or do not turn on at all
-Various interior lights are dim or burnt out
-Emergency brake does not work
-Odometer is broken
-Exhaust leak on brand new catback kit (passed smog though!)
-Broken driver's seat
-Rear right window does not roll down
-Cracked dashboard
-Broken temperature gauge (have auxillery temp gauge in place)
-Autotragic doesn't like downshifting from 4th to 3rd, the car stalls out
-Crap window tint that needs removal
-Heated seats do not work
-Funny readings on the Check panel: headlights and taillights are read as "out"
-Paint cracking on spoiler
-Cracked fuse box cover
-Worn BMW logos

Current projects:

1. Removing the window tint.

It's a complete bastard. No matter how hot I get the rear window, I CANNOT get it off in one piece. Just a nightmare with the little purple strips littering my interior. I gave up for the moment so I can do the other thing below...

2. Washing and re-upholstering the sunroof headliner!

I'm tearing the headliner fabric from the metal frame and throwing it in the washing machine since it is VERY dirty. I will also post a really nice guide with pictures on how to remove the headliner, because there is NO guide that I found with pictures.


Stuff I bought:

-2x 82mm BMW logos - $5.99 each
-2x original Bosch fog lamps - $47 for both
-1x front-right turn signal lens
-1x blank key