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I just got a qoute on a bumper respray from a very good body shop and it’s less than the value of the diffuser, so I’m going to do that and sell the diffuser to cover it. Now I just need to decide if I like my round single tips with no diffuser. They seem a bit off without it.
I emailed Lance about this, but then decided to expand on it here since some of you may have input or like vintage things.
my wife has wanted a sports car for a while. I decided to sell my daily is350. She sort of just… claimed it. It’s pretty clean and not replaceable for a 2008 car, so now I guess im
modifying it as well. She wants much sportier seats, and suspension on it. The oem seats are truly terrible.
We want to drive it on long weekend trips, so adjustment matters. My options were Recaro experts / specialists, or these Konigs that I had a line on. I have no idea on the age, but I’d wager 80s era seats, possibly newer or older. Since these were 1/4 the price, I decided to get them, restore them, and install them.
They have some thick leather. I’m rather impressed with how they have aged. They need some conditioner and love.
Me being a millennial, this is very new ground for me. I’ve never dealt with old seats. They are manual adjustment, with one side having some form of wheel mechanism to recline. The other side is simply just a pivot mechanism, with no lock built in. Is this common on older car seats? I think modern seats lock on both sides. It had me double thinking the safety of these seats if only one side locks.
Locking side
Non locking side.
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Very unique seats. Seem to be extremely high end from the time period. They need conditioned, and the locking mechanism only has a slight amount of slop. At first that was concerning, but the passenger side has the same amount and it’s practically unused. That may just be normal for this design, as nothing looks worn.
If we have any vintage car guys in here, Id love to hear input. If safety is an issue, I’ll lean toward some new recaros. If these things will stay upright in a catastrophic wreck, then I’ll save roughly 2 grand by using them. I’m sure I can easily unload these for what I have in them in my local market.
I attacked the passenger side wiring harness. This is all you need to make the passenger side SRS fully functional.
It’s wild how much wiring you can get rid of. I put some sheathing on these and taped them back up for an OEM quality harness. This is much simpler than running the entire seat harness and having a rat’s nest under the car seat.
I had mostly decided on moving these along and buying my wife some Recaros, but she loves these old things. So I disassembled one and restored it. I didn’t know leather could soak up so much conditioner. I’m still surprised by the leather quality on these old Konig seats. My research revealed that Konig used to make some of the seats for the RUF porsches, and used the highest quality leather they could get their hands on. I believe it. It makes me wonder why they couldn’t compete with Recaro.
This is a great example of why I don’t like buying used stuff anymore. Some yobo installed these rails with self tapping screws, some of which were missing threads. There were plenty of shavings in the seats from where threads used to be. These will need drilled and tapped, with grade 8 hardware installed, for safe use. Those Recaros started looking good again, as they will bolt directly to the Recaro Japanese rails I ordered for her car. Boy oh boy.
I decided I’d go the Recaro route, so I ordered some Specialist M seats in black leather from a US retailer, and the Recaro IS specific sliders from Japan. I found maybe the only 2 in stock. Unfortunately, the leather is real loose on one and kind of loose on the other, and one has a broken **** right out of the box. Fortune hasn’t been smiling on this seat project for my wife.
I consider these seats 5 pounds of potatoes in a 10 pound sack. They are poorly fitted and put together, so they are going back. The bottoms
of both seats have been taken apart and reassembled at some point, as there are numerous hog ring holes in the netting. It’s like an intern put these together. I may take a break from this seat project for a while. These seats are epically comfortable compared to OEM IS350 seats though.
On a happy / sad note, the IS350 suspension started to make some noise today. I’m not willing to go through 13 year old suspension on the ground, so a lift is getting ordered tomorrow. Hopefully getting a hold of one during the pandemic shortages isn’t going to be painful. This will be a goal decades in the making, and the crown jewel of the garage.
What’s the forums take on certified versus uncertified lifts. Going certified raises the price pretty substantially, about 1650. I’m assuming certified is much more professional grade, but is it worth the extra?
The Japanese spec Recaro rails for the ISF showed up today. I had almost forgot I bought them. I’m a great example of someone with too many projects going on, mostly house related.
I’ll try to assemble a set this weekend, as I think a couple of you wanted weights. I’m curious if these will be heavier or lighter than a planted bracket with sliders.
Prep work for the lift. As it turns out, there isn’t one square surface in the entire garage, so I decided to square the lift off the door… which also isn’t square with the wall. Oh well. As long as the lift is installed correctly, it’ll work.
I finally found my centerline, and can now clearance the ceiling.
How far off are the tiles from being square with the door? I am thinking it would be better to square it off with the tiles if its not too far off. I think that would be the more noticeable difference.
How far off are the tiles from being square with the door? I am thinking it would be better to square it off with the tiles if its not too far off. I think that would be the more noticeable difference.
Not super far off. Visually, it should blend when the tiles are back in.
If you buy a lift from a company that installs them, you will spend extra, but avoid a decent hassle. Lifts can’t be delivered via lift gate unless you buy a MaxJax. I had mine shipped to a buddy’s business, and picked it up. Since I had to clearance the ceiling, I knew paying for install wasn’t an option… no company would deal with that. Honestly, install wasn’t a massive hassle outside of the sheer weight and the ceiling clearance. We couldn’t walk up the uprights, so we used a rolling dolly and moved the base as we slid the uprights into the ceiling. This is a certified 9k baseplate lift. The pictures don’t truly depict it’s size. It weighs 1,730 pounds, and makes my 800 interior sq ft garage look much smaller. Everything lined up on that bay perfectly, and the posts came out 100% square. You can have some variances, but I’m OCD, so the posts are 100% parallel and square with each other.
We still need to run power and add hydraulic fluid, but we got a late start and called it a night around 11 pm.
Not super far off. Visually, it should blend when the tiles are back in.
If you buy a lift from a company that installs them, you will spend extra, but avoid a decent hassle. Lifts can’t be delivered via lift gate unless you buy a MaxJax. I had mine shipped to a buddy’s business, and picked it up. Since I had to clearance the ceiling, I knew paying for install wasn’t an option… no company would deal with that. Honestly, install wasn’t a massive hassle outside of the sheer weight and the ceiling clearance. We couldn’t walk up the uprights, so we used a rolling dolly and moved the base as we slid the uprights into the ceiling. This is a certified 9k baseplate lift. The pictures don’t truly depict it’s size. It weighs 1,730 pounds, and makes my 800 interior sq ft garage look much smaller. Everything lined up on that bay perfectly, and the posts came out 100% square. You can have some variances, but I’m OCD, so the posts are 100% parallel and square with each other.
We still need to run power and add hydraulic fluid, but we got a late start and called it a night around 11 pm.
Nice, are those can accomodate 3 inches height of lowered cars? Im planning to get one too.
leo
Nice, are those can accomodate 3 inches height of lowered cars? Im planning to get one too.
leo
Ill let you know this week. I found different measurements and I’m not sure which is accurate. It helps that I bought another 1/4” clearance with my floor tiles. The arms are currently locked in their position. It’s not easy to release them until the hydraulic fluid is in it, and the arms are extremely heavy. Should have it fully running this Friday.
Leo - I’m betting the pads will be roughly 4 inches high. My lift is missing the unibody pads, and only came with the frame rail pads, so I can’t give you an exact measurement. The frame rail pads are 4 inches high. My other pads will hopefully be in the mail soon.
I anticipated that I would want to vault the ceiling for height, but I’m not so sure now. Leaving 5 inches of clearance between the ceiling and the pilot, I still have 46 inches of ground clearance. It’s plenty to sit on this Whiteside rolling creeper and comfortably work on stuff. It’s honestly more comfortable than standing for me. This also means the Lexus will have roughly 60 inches of clearance, which is more than I need with the rolling creeper seat. I bought two seats so my buddies/kids can join in on projects. The garage is in disarray from installing the lift, but there is plenty of room to maneuver around even our biggest vehicle. I just tossed some hubrings on the wife’s car. I also wanted to put her car on the lift first. If something failed and I dropped a car, I couldn’t let it be mine 😂. Now this is going to be a pain. With her car approximately centered, I couldn’t get out of the driver seat. I had to hop the console and come out of the rear doors. Sadly, this will be an issue for most smaller 2 post lifts. Hopefully the Lexus has a little more wiggle room. I may load it off centered, but I’m not sure if that’s a safety hazard yet.
All in all, this goes in the “why didn’t I do this 10 years ago” category. It was very easy and simple to do a basic task that normally would tax my bad back. It was worth every penny, and I’ve barely used it yet.
One concern I can’t overcome is there is no ceiling stop. I can run a car clear through the ceiling, which would likely crush the car before it would tear through the robust ceiling joists. I marked this line for the Honda Pilot (HP). This leaves 5 inches of ceiling clearance as a buffer. The latches engage every 3 inches, and I’m not comfortable running it 2 inches from the ceiling, as I’d have to lift it even further to release the latches. This could become a very expensive mistake, if ignored.
Looks great! Killed me when you said you put your wife’s car first so if it failed at least it was her car hahahahaha….had me dying for a bit because that’s exactly what I would have done lol especially centering it and making sure it’s parallel (OCD just like me).
07-21-21, 07:04 PM
