So last week I came across a Recaro interior from an ST170 that was written off when the owner crashed it DUI. Put in my absolute max budget as an offer, quite a lot lower than the original asking price, expecting a rejection or some haggling, but he accepted. That was money sidelined for my exhaust, so that will have to wait a bit longer now.

Collected it on Sunday 23rd, nice 120-mile round trip in some pretty nice weather and good countryside views to pick it up, before my shift at work started at 12 noon.

Got home from work at 1am that nice, and decided to fit it then, cos why not do an interior swap in the middle of the night.


Had to swap my seatbelt pre-tensioners because these ones had fired off in the crash, but that was a fairly simple job, and had the whole lot done within 2 hours, then a further hour of cleaning, drying and conditioning the leather.

Unfortunately the doorcards won't fit, as it's from a 3dr and mine is a 5dr, but not too bothered by that, if I can find some on ebay I may get some leather 5dr ones, if not I'll maybe look at retrimming the fabric for leather at a later date.


Here's some pics, cos



Loaded up in the car. Took up all the space available with the rear seats folded down. Much like my bowl of cornflakes... "contents may settle during transit"... was a lot easier to get out that trying to fit it all in





Fitted









How the car currently looks... but not for long. Plans are to fit the springs later this week, perhaps if I'm short for time, rears one day, fronts another. Figured it's probably better to ride low on the back rather than the front, will reduce the chance of scraping and scrubbing then.







In other news:
- Car will (or at least should) be going in to Source Sounds on 27th Dec for the headunit fitting.
- Washer fluid won't flow. Wipers still work when you press the button, but no fluid and no pump noise, so need to figure out which fuse it is, and then check the motor/pump out and possibly replace.
- Knocking sound coming from what seems to be front left. Suspect droplinks, went on my old car too, so will investigate further during front spring change, and replace those.
- All parts for colour-code now in possession, will get my friend to quote me happy and then post them off to him.
- Due to a seemingly high amount of condensation in the car (yet no damp carpets in the cabin or in the boot, and no apparent leaks anywhere) I've left out a big bowl of rice in each footwell and one in the boot, hopefully it'll draw any latent moisture in the air and at least improve things slightly. Got a long trip back to Soton on NYD so might drive it with air con and heat on and try to get rid of it that way too.