Immaculate low mileage 2004 Silver Grey CSL Inspired Build

[Casa de Mesa]

Car looks absolutely brilliant, man. Nice work on this thing!!

Everything reinstalled. Along the way, I broke some clips which will need to be replaced at a later date. For now, I will be leaving the headrests out as well. The headrest holes were plugged with a rubber BMW blind plug. Thank you to Casa de Mesa for the idea. I will update once the new speaker grills and replacement clips arrive.

Not sure how I missed this, glad the idea worked out for you. It's such a simple thing but cleans up the look a tad.

It's probably not legal where we are, no front plate is, but WDGAF

You can abuse children, you can shoplift, you can take a shit on the sidewalk, you can do drugs, but God forbid you touch your car at all.

Man ain't this the truth. We're fostering a shelter dog currently. Based on the way the little guy reacts to certain movements people make, apparently you can kick a dog too and it doesn't matter.

[maksezzy]

Love the clean euro rear parcel shelf and all the ceramic coating, looks mint. I also removed my rear headrests and windshield wipers. Makes for a cleaner look for sure, and why wouldn't you want to ceramic coat your windshield preventatively anyways...

[Tbonem3]

It's probably not legal where we are, no front plate is, but WDGAF

You can abuse children, you can shoplift, you can take a shit on the sidewalk, you can do drugs, but God forbid you touch your car at all.

[karter16]

Wiper delete.

Dawg.

That's next level lol.

Yeah that would not be legal in my country haha

[Sharocks]

Wiper delete.

Dawg.

That's next level lol.

[heinzboehmer]

Acetone will help with the finish on those 3d printed parts. Lots of videos/guides online on this in case you want to mess with it some more.

[Avedis]

To me, the windshield wipers have always stood out and cluttered the front end, which is otherwise near perfection. At this point in its life, this car is a once a month, perfect weather, SoCal coastal/canyon run type of treat.

I have a long term plan of deleting the windshield wiper motor, arms, and plugging the holes. Until then I still wanted to get rid of the wipers. I picked up a set of No-Coast engineering threaded windshield wiper delete caps. They are 3D printed and are model/chassis specific.

First I removed the wipers/arms


Then taped everything off and polished the windshield



Windshield was then coated with Gyeon View coating


3D printed texture was a bit too unrefined for my liking. I put them on the end of a drill and sanded them down. Texture didn't turn out perfect, but far better than how they looked when I received them. This is the before photo. After texture can be seen in installed photos.


Ceramic coated the windshield cowl with CarPro Dlux, then installed the wiper delete caps. Final look, much cleaner.

[SeñorEnglish]

How do you feel about the spacers? Could have gone larger?

[Avedis]

New through-loading cross member trim, seatbelt outlet guides, retaining clips and speaker grills came in. I ceramic coated all the parts prior to installation. The euro parcel shelf project is complete. Looks amazing. In person it looks so fresh and so minimalist.





Some random photos from a costal cruise this week

[Avedis]

Looks good, keep your ear out for buffeting with the windows cracked as the cabin vents are in the trunk and it looks like those holes are the air passages.

This makes sense, thanks for the heads up. When the new clips/speaker grills come, I will remove some of the acoustic mat over the oval shaped holes so that the air can properly move.

Did you buy the Euro rear deck new or find it used? Think I might need one of those. I cannibalized my US one anyway for the BK rear deck harness mounts that I don't want anymore since I can just use a QFP for my occasional track days.

Don't forget you can get a slimmer carpet and larger tray for the driver side of the trunk since you deleted the nav stuff.

I purchased the Euro parcel shelf new from getBMWparts.com, BMW Part No. 51466955325
Thank you for the reminder on the carpet/tray. It is on my to do list, the back burner at the moment. Trunk space is a low priority right now.

[repoman89]

Did you buy the Euro rear deck new or find it used? Think I might need one of those. I cannibalized my US one anyway for the BK rear deck harness mounts that I don't want anymore since I can just use a QFP for my occasional track days.

Don't forget you can get a slimmer carpet and larger tray for the driver side of the trunk since you deleted the nav stuff.

[Bry5on]

Looks good, keep your ear out for buffeting with the windows cracked as the cabin vents are in the trunk and it looks like those holes are the air passages.

[Avedis]

Part # for the speaker grille blanks? Didn't know they had 'em!

BMW Part No. 51468243667 and 51468243668. Weirdly, one is 3-4x times the price vs the opposite side.

This morning I continued on with the rear deck project. I remember seeing Tbonem3 build thread where he added acoustic mat to the holes in the rear deck. Great idea, so I stole it. Although I want to remove some of the weight from the car, I don't want it to sound stripped out and unfinished. I created some templates and cut the acoustic mat to shape.

Factory sound deadening foam removed


Templates cut and installed




I then test fit the new rear parcel shelf. I checked my work from the outside of the car and saw that the area between the rear windscreen and rear parcel shelf vented trim was dirty. I had to take out the sound insulation foam, then remove the vented trim. While the trim was out, I ceramic coated it with Carpro Dlux. It was incredibly time consuming but worthwhile due to it being exposed to UV constantly.



Window was deep cleaned



Everything reinstalled. Along the way, I broke some clips which will need to be replaced at a later date. For now, I will be leaving the headrests out as well. The headrest holes were plugged with a rubber BMW blind plug. Thank you to Casa de Mesa for the idea. I will update once the new speaker grills and replacement clips arrive.

[Tbonem3]

Part # for the speaker grille blanks? Didn't know they had 'em!

[Avedis]

Spent the morning continuing on with the radio / audio components delete. I started with the trunk area and removed the SOS module, navigation, radio, HK amp, and mounting frame.





I bundled up all the wiring harnesses in a microfiber towel then wrapped it tightly with friction tape. The bundle fit nicely in a little nook. I will find a more legitimate wrapping solution at a later time



Everything back together neatly. I then removed the emergency m-mobility system.




Next up was the HK under-deck mounted subwoofer


In addition to removing the speakers, I also had planned on replacing the rear parcel shelf with the streamlined Euro version and new c-pillars. Although the c-pillar trim was not faded, the fabric had started peeling from the edges closest to the rear windscreen. First the rear seat backs were removed.


Rear bench removed


Side bolsters removed. Next up was the removal of the plastic through-loading cross member trim. The plastic rivets were 100% stuck, and I had to cut the heads off just to get the trim off.


I then removed the c-pillars, unbolted the seatbelts, removed the seatbelt cover outlet, latch systems, speaker covers, speakers, and speaker mounts. I did not photograph everything step by step, as I kind of got into a nice work groove and did not want to stop to take photos. Here is everything removed.




The new parcel shelf and c-pillars were treated with Carpro fabric coating to reduce UV fade. Some new vs old photos below



I wanted to keep the parcel shelf as sleek as possible. I purchased the latch delete plugs for the speaker grills to plug the hole.



I attempted to install these into my new euro parcel shelf, only to realize the new shelf uses the smaller speaker grills! Turns out I purchased these, ceramic coated them, and installed them into the speaker grill for absolutely no reason. Oh well, smaller speaker grills already purchased and awaiting shipment.


While the c-pillar lights were out, I swapped out the hideous blue wedge bulbs one of the previous owners installed. They were swapped out with Sylvania long life 194 bulbs. The blue ones went directly into the trash can.