interior swap questions

[Morgenster]

Well I took a look at car number 1 and made an offer.
The seats aren't electrical, but that's not really a problem. I don't think there's much of a difference in pressing or pulling a small lever or pushing a button. It's less hassle. And the seats are in good shape (way better than mine: they're starting to tear). It's the electrics for the windows that I worry about.

I'm going to use the seats, rims (original basketweaves) and the M-tech leatherbound steering wheel. The car has intact green body parts, an M20 block (broken though) and an intact diff and tranny. Maybe I'll do as Shogun suggests and strip the car of anything of value. I might even make a profit .

Car number 2 I still have to look at but that one would serve mainly for body parts because my doors have taken a beating over the years.

One thing though, car number 1 had some sort of vertical rollswitch below the dash on the right that mine doesn't have and I can't figure out what it serves. It's marked with two pictograms resembling a fat T topside and the same symbol upside down underside. Anyone know what this is?

[Morgenster]

I finally bought car number one and I'm scheduling the first week of august to do the restoring/swap. I'd still like to know if the wiring for electrical windows is going to be a BIG problem. any ideas?

[Morgenster]

Well the windows are controlled by the black boxes under the back seat... So if your car never had them, you might need new black boxes, and a whole lot of wiring. If you're lucky, everything might be in place. E34's are wonderful for pre-wiring. I'd say if you have wiring for the switches and motors, it could be plug and play.

Well I could always try to scavenge the wiring in the donor car. There's definitely a bunch of black boxes under the rear seat of my car. I'll see what happens. The only thing that worries me is the complexity of wiring these switches and motors.
If I'm taking out most of the interior and the carpet it'd still be easy to put in wires myself, but I'd need to know if there's any separate control units, fuses, etc. that are normally in the loop that I might overlook in the proces. Somehow I don't think it's as simple as hooking up a light switch. I'm no electrician, but I know some electricity so it's a challenge.

[Morgenster]

come to think of it. Anyoen have decent wiring diagrams for windows? The ones I have are illegible.

[skr]

your car has the "LOW" rm(relay module). you nead the "HIGH" version. all the wiering is there, waiting for. the RM is under the rear seat, one of the two big modules.

[Morgenster]

your car has the "LOW" rm(relay module). you nead the "HIGH" version. all the wiering is there, waiting for. the RM is under the rear seat, one of the two big modules.

Think I can just swap the high RM from the donor car into mine then?

[skr]

yes. that's wht i did. my car had the low RM, wich couldn't control windows,sunroof and probably electric seats. after i put everything together windows still didn't work. after a lot of studying the diagrams (thanks dave voorhis) i figured it's the RM. fortunatly it's a straight swap, pull the old one, plug in the new one. if u want the diagrams they are on dave's site.

[DaveVoorhis]

Wiring diagrams are here: http://shark.armchair.mb.ca/~dave/BMW

[Morgenster]

Supercool! Now I just hope the fact that my car's a 91 and the donor's a 89 doesn't screw things up for me. Megathanks!

[Morgenster]

OK. So far I've dismantled most of the interior from the donor car and cleaned and stored it . In three weeks I'm going to attack mine and do the swap. It took me one day by myself to remove all seats, panels, steering wheel, center console and rear seat belts and some trim. Cleaning all of it thoroughly and treating the leather to a wash and conditioning took the longest time.

Now, before I go forward I need some additional info on which the bentley isn't too clear:

- the door window motors: can they be removed separately or do I need to get the whole assembly out including the window as the manual states? Also they seem to be riveted, which can be dealt with but seems a bit of a pain. Any tips on that?
I tried swapping my battery to the donor car but couldn't get the electricals to work and if I need to get the whole assembly out what can I do to get the windows down?

- The wheels (which I want) are bolted on with an anti-theft bolt for every wheel and guess what: the PO didn't have the keys. How do I remove those locks safely?

When I go at it three weeks from now I'll make sure to take plenty of pictures so there's some future reference for others .
Many thanks!