Friday, June 24, 2016
New Leather Arrives
The leather arrived this week in the form of two boxes, the second being sent because GAHH forgot to include the headrests in the original shipment. I shrugged it off and began examining the leather and developing a plan of attack for its installation.
Almost immediately I got a sinking feeling that the covers were not what I expected. The first and most obvious were the rear seat bolsters. They looked nothing like the factory covers and could never have been installed as is because they lacked the necessary attachment points, J-channel, etc. I talked to GAHH about this problem and at their request provided pictures for them to confirm the differences.
 The bottom of the rear bolster shows a gray material with black piping bonded to it. The hog rings clamp around this piping to hold the cover to the bolster. Note also the J-channel along the near side. |
 Here I'm in the process of removing the cover. I removed the hog rings on the bottom flap and that exposed this small flap of leather that is tied directly to the bolster with two hog rings. |
 I've completely removed the hog rings and am just about to separate the cover from the bolster. The last thing to do was simply pop the J-channel free of the bolster flange. |
 The rear of the cover shows some dacron or other thin fabric sewn in, most likely to produce a bit of a pillow effect and smooth any imperfections in the underlying foam. |
 Mostly a glamour shot of the cover removed. I put my name on the cover because it will be sent to the manufacturer and I want to make sure I get it back. |
 Clear evidence that the leather has darkened with age. The side near the J-channel is the original color protected by nearby structure, while the upper face has been burnt by the sun. |
I tried to install the rear headrests next. I didn't realize it until now but the rear headrests are smaller and differently shaped than the front headrests. The problem was GAHH had provided four front headrest covers despite specifically ordering two front and two rear headrests for a sport package car. I pointed this out to them and they said "We'll call you in two hours". Well, it didn't take more than that to realize I had yet more problems.
 The rear headrests are among the most heavily sun-damaged parts. The leather on this headrest is so hard that I wonder if I'm going to damage it attempting to remove it. |
 The bottom of the rear headrests shows how the leather is installed. A plastic piece is sewn into the edges of the leather and then pressed down into a plastic channel. |
 The second of several issues with the new covers -- the left is a front headrest cover. It is clearly quite different than the rear headrests. It will have to be patterned. |
I decided to pull the rear seat base out of the car and compare it closely with the new cover. Not even close. Several of the seams did not line up, mostly in the rearward portion of the seat which is a bit more recessed on the sport package cars. The rear center of the cover did not properly fit into the cutout provided in the foam for storage of the seatbelts, and it lacked similar cutouts (and the associated seams) for the seat belt receptacles on the far left and right -- despite sending them pictures of the seats ahead of time and being told "we have everything we need to proceed". It was painfully clear to me at this point that GAHH was using generic patterns for this stuff, or at least reusing an old pattern for a non-sport package cover and trying to adapt it as required to make it work.
By now I knew I wasn't going to waste any more time dismantling my interior so I took the rear backrest leather out to the car instead, tilted the rear backrest forward and attempted to fit the cover over the existing cover. The first thing that I noticed was that the leather was not precut for the seat belt / backrest release mechanism. Okay, fine -- I could probably do that myself. However, I then realized the top portion of the cover was about 1.5" too wide at the top. Also there was a break in the J-channel on one side along with a cutout in the leather for what appeared to be a latch of some sort. As the latches are at the top of my seatbacks this confirmed that the cover was built for another vehicle entirely.
 A top-down picture of the existing rear seat, mostly to point out the deeper recessed seat bases and the additional cutouts for the seatbelts. Unfortunately the cover GAHH provided doesn't look anything like this. |
 The closeup of the rear corner of the seat base shows the sharp curves and seams needed to closely fit to the underlying foam. |
 The seat base foam has a sharp cutout in the far left and right sides to accommodate the seat belt receptacles. The leather isn't just pressed into that recess -- it is tailored around it. |
 A closeup of the rear corner of the seat base, this time with the base upside down. Note the white fabric sewn into the edge of the leather and the hogrings that are installed through it to grab onto a heavy gauge steel support molded into the foam. |
 The center recess is molded into the foam and tailored with leather with seams at all corners. GAHH's cover had a bunch of seams in this area but it would not fit my foam base. |
 A closeup showing the seatbelts properly folded and inserted into the recess. If the leather isn't tailored into that recess these components simply won't fit properly. |
 A better perspective of the recess and the tailored leather. Note also the flap of leather that extends beneath it. I'm not sure why this exists but on the back of that leather is a label... |
 The label on the back of the flap at the rear of the cover shows some manufacturing data including the all-important color code and manufacturing date of 19 years ago this month. |
 Another label most people who own E36s don't know exists. A list of the package codes for this vehicle. While BMW was quite the forward-thinking company even I'm surprised they were using dot matrix printers into the late 90s. |
Frustrated, I walked back inside and sat down for a moment. Without much consideration I wrote GAHH an email requesting a full refund. Then I spoke to my dealer and asked for them to clarify whether a full set of leather could be purchased. The predictable answer? No, of course not. I then spent about 20 minutes Googling for upholstery shops and New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. I found nothing for which I'd drive 2+ hours each way. My last option was, as I've mentioned previously, an aviation upholstery shop, but I knew I'd pay top dollar for that. At my wits end, I realized I still needed a solution to this problem and giving up was not an option. So in an attempt to minimize the amount of custom work I figured I'd have to do at this point I decided to take the front covers out to the car and fit them. Amazingly, those appeared to be a good match.
About an hour passed before I got the email response from GAHH, who were willing to allow me to return all the products for a full refund. But by this time I had calmed down and wrote another proposal to GAHH -- simply put, to keep the front seat components and return all the back seat components....along with my original covers -- one bolster, one headrest, one backrest and the seat base, assuming they were willing to template my covers precisely. I spoke to them the next day. They were concerned about the timeframe I had mentioned in another conversation, particularly given that some of their staff would be on holiday around the 4th of July, but I confessed that at this point my original schedule was not possible and I would be willing to accept any reasonable timeframe up to 60 days to receive first articles. They suggested they could easily meet that schedule and would ship some of the simpler pieces likely within a few weeks, so we agreed to proceed.
 The new front seatbase cover appears a close fit though GAHH did not use the same technique to fasten the base to the thigh support. My factory cover uses a single piece of leather between the two that droops when closed. I see GAHH's version as a dirt collector but I have to pick my battles. |
 The rear of the cover shows the basic construction techniques of all the covers provided by GAHH. Center white batting, the fabric doubled over itself to allow a wire to be inserted, and the reinforcements behind all the double stitching. |
 A closeup of the cover reveals that in order to insert the fastening wires into the tubes created by the fabric doubled over itself I will have to cut one end. In a perfect world GAHH would have cut this and provided replacement wires to provide a turn-key solution. |
 The backrest uses similar construction techniques as compared to the seat base. Unfortuantely the leather on the top of the seat is not pre-cut for the headrests. I presume this is to allow for fitting, but again, in an ideal world this would have been designed to fit properly out of the box and those holes would serve as alignment marks. |
 Another picture of the front backrest that better shows the top and bottom flaps of leather that wrap around the foam. The top flap is clearly not cut to accommodate the headrests so I'll be making those nerve-wracking cuts after it is properly fitted. |
 A closeup of one detail not present on the other covers -- a small black plastic piece cut and punched to allow connection of the single hog ring in that area. I am curious to know whether the factory did it this way or if GAHH is taking liberties here. |
So it appears once again that I'm blazing the trail. While this was the last thing I wanted to do it's fair to say that the work I coordinate with GAHH over the coming weeks will benefit not just me, but all E36 owners with sport package interiors. If all goes well you'll be able to buy a complete leather set from GAHH with confidence that your covers will fit and the knowledge that my covers made it all possible. You can hit the new Donate button now if you would be so kind. Rest assured, every click will help lower my blood pressure a few PSI.
Broken Bolster Mounting Flange
In the process of pulling the bolsters out of the car for fitting I noticed my driver's side bolster's mounting base was cracked where the rectangular extension snaps in place. I don't recall how it broke -- I may very well have done it at one point while trying to figure out how to remove the cursed things. A minor issue in the grand scheme, but I went in search of possible fixes, my first choice being a new bolster.
My dealer confirmed that only four bolsters of one side and one bolster of the other side are left in worldwide inventory (all located in Germany). The downside? They were all black leather. So I could probably replace the bolster if I really saw a need to do so but I'd have to toss the factory leather cover. I didn't bother to ask the price, but my guesstimate was "are you out of your fucking mind?" So it's probably just as well that I've decided to repair mine. As the pieces that broke off are nowhere to be found I think I'll just buy a sheet of ABS and leverage the remainder of that plastic epoxy I used to fix the ZKW mounting rail to repair this part.
Oh, and incidentally I also asked my dealer about the rectangular extension as that was a separate part in ETK as I didn't know at the time whether that was broken as well. Yup. You guessed it. No longer available. I'm beginning to get the idea BMW wants me to buy a new car. Fine. Put the E30, E36, or E46 back into production and I'll think about it.
Hog Rings and Pliers
While at the dealer I also picked up two 100 count packages of hog rings. Then, on the way home, I stopped at Eppy's and bought a GearWrench branded set (part number 3207D) of two hog ring pliers (one straight, one 45 degree offset) for $38. Not cheap, but they appeared to be of reasonable quality and, as I discovered soon after getting back in the car, the BMW hog rings mated perfectly with the tool. A particularly smart feature of these tools? A spring that, contrary to the operation of most tools with such things, keeps the jaws closed so you can load up a hog ring and not worry too much about dropping it in some nook or crevice of the seat.
Now all I need is a set of covers.
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