Alex325
New member
I just thought I should share the harrowing tale of the time my friend Mike and I changed the dash in my E30 (which had been cracked and sun-damaged over time) for a nice, newish unit from a scrapper.
First of all, I was a FOOL for thinking it wouldn't take as long as it did, so we started at around four in the afternoon. We started by taking out the front seats, and the centre console, and cleaning under that (all sorts of wooly crap, in there!)
Then, we took off the radio, steering wheel, the switches (which I had carefully noted were uni-directonal, so I couldn't POSSIBLY screw up reinstallation, right?), the HVAC controls, and the glove box, whose latch I broke, and later replaced (you'd THINK they'd make the latch out of metal, eh?
That was the easy part. Getting the actual dash board OUT was another matter entirely. It hadn't even crossed our minds that we should undo some of the interior trim, and remove the A-pillar covers, in order to facilitate extrication of the old dash board, and ease the new one in. It also didn't help that I don't have tilt steering!
So, then, it was time to slide on the new dash board, and slip all the proper wires into the proper wire guides, and through to the proper holes, all without tangling them... and there are hundreds of them, folks, beleive me! As soon as we thought we had it right, it was time to force the piece under the A-pillar covers (remember, I hadn't even THOUGHT of removing them...), which happened with a fair amount of sweat, swearing and cramped backs.
At this point, it'd been almost seven hours, and Mike had fallen asleep, in the passenger side.
Then, once I'd gotten the whole mess into place, it was time to fit the switches, radio, guages, HVAC, steering column switches (what a mess!) and the steering wheel. I'm proud to say I didn't have as many left-overs as I thought I would (two bolts, no rattles!), and that every switch did indeed have its place.
So, I started the car up, and pulled out onto the street, at which point I immediatly took note that in order to use the turn signals, the dash lights had to be turned off (via the dimmer), which now happened without any graduation (just on and off, no in-between).
It had been nine hours.
It took me a further six hours of fettling (at this point, by myself) to re-arrange the switches (I reversed the defrost switch and the hazard lights, which just happend to have not quite, but almost entirely dissimilar terminal connections!)
Looks good, no sqeaks, and everything works fine. Couldn't ask for a more hacked job, either.
Looking back on it now, I'd kick my own ass for being such a moron. 'Course, I'm going to a mechanic's school, now, so I'm much better informed; but, still, every time I get into Betty (my 325), I can't help but to think of all the work that Mike and I had done to get rid of a few unsightly cracks and creaks.
First of all, I was a FOOL for thinking it wouldn't take as long as it did, so we started at around four in the afternoon. We started by taking out the front seats, and the centre console, and cleaning under that (all sorts of wooly crap, in there!)
Then, we took off the radio, steering wheel, the switches (which I had carefully noted were uni-directonal, so I couldn't POSSIBLY screw up reinstallation, right?), the HVAC controls, and the glove box, whose latch I broke, and later replaced (you'd THINK they'd make the latch out of metal, eh?
That was the easy part. Getting the actual dash board OUT was another matter entirely. It hadn't even crossed our minds that we should undo some of the interior trim, and remove the A-pillar covers, in order to facilitate extrication of the old dash board, and ease the new one in. It also didn't help that I don't have tilt steering!
So, then, it was time to slide on the new dash board, and slip all the proper wires into the proper wire guides, and through to the proper holes, all without tangling them... and there are hundreds of them, folks, beleive me! As soon as we thought we had it right, it was time to force the piece under the A-pillar covers (remember, I hadn't even THOUGHT of removing them...), which happened with a fair amount of sweat, swearing and cramped backs.
At this point, it'd been almost seven hours, and Mike had fallen asleep, in the passenger side.
Then, once I'd gotten the whole mess into place, it was time to fit the switches, radio, guages, HVAC, steering column switches (what a mess!) and the steering wheel. I'm proud to say I didn't have as many left-overs as I thought I would (two bolts, no rattles!), and that every switch did indeed have its place.
So, I started the car up, and pulled out onto the street, at which point I immediatly took note that in order to use the turn signals, the dash lights had to be turned off (via the dimmer), which now happened without any graduation (just on and off, no in-between).
It had been nine hours.
It took me a further six hours of fettling (at this point, by myself) to re-arrange the switches (I reversed the defrost switch and the hazard lights, which just happend to have not quite, but almost entirely dissimilar terminal connections!)
Looks good, no sqeaks, and everything works fine. Couldn't ask for a more hacked job, either.
Looking back on it now, I'd kick my own ass for being such a moron. 'Course, I'm going to a mechanic's school, now, so I'm much better informed; but, still, every time I get into Betty (my 325), I can't help but to think of all the work that Mike and I had done to get rid of a few unsightly cracks and creaks.
