{"id":188,"date":"2012-10-28T18:06:44","date_gmt":"2012-10-28T18:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/goatsurfer.com\/retromtb\/?p=188"},"modified":"2013-08-03T16:14:34","modified_gmt":"2013-08-03T16:14:34","slug":"pimp-my-ride-astra-interior-upgrade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goatsurfer.com\/retromtb\/?p=188","title":{"rendered":"Pimp My Ride – Astra interior upgrade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amongst (many) other vehicles I have owned seven Land Rovers over the years but have also had a Vauxhall Astra obsession for a very long time and have owned several: Mk1 estate, 2 x Mk4 LS estates, a 1.7 CDTi ECO4 Mk4 and my current baby a Mk4 1.6 SXi Dual Fuel.<\/p>\n

Duel Fuel is working out kinda neat with this whole Global Recesssion thing as I can fill the LPG tank for \u00a330 and get around 360 miles out of it (not to be sniffed at!!). Of course I would really like a 200BHP GSi Turbo but I have a long commute for work and the petrol bill would suck so I have the SXi Dual Fuel to be ‘sensible’.<\/p>\n

I’m very attached to this one and have done over 150,000 miles in it, we’ve been through all sorts together and now and again I show it some love, this time with switching the cloth interior for a set of Full Leather from a Bertone Turbo Coupe, complete with heated front seats \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Switching Astra interiors is relatively easy if you have the right tools – a good quality Torx set (T40 and T50), flat blade screwdrivers, phillips screwdrivers and a wrench for the battery terminal.<\/p>\n

First and foremost disconnect the negative terminal on the battery, this is required as the front seats have electronic Pre-Tensioners linked to the Airbag system (that need taking apart) and this will freak out the ECU, lighting up your dashboard and requiring a visit to your local GM\/Vauxhall garage to have them reset stuff with their OpCom…<\/p>\n

\"Disconnect<\/p>\n

Now you can start ripping stuff out.<\/p>\n

Rear seats ‘before’ shot \ud83d\ude42<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Detach ‘hidden’ brackets for seat back on both sides…leave the spring tensioned bracket attached.<\/strong>
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Seat belt mountings, left and center (T50 Torx)<\/strong>\"\"<\/p>\n

Check out all the detritus under the seats from years of having Mountain Bikes in the back…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Rear mounts for seat back (T40 Torx)…stuck under the chassis for the LPG tank!<\/strong>
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So that’s the rear seat back and bench out, plus the seat belt mounts<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Time for the new leather seat backs to be fitted to the old brackets….then the new bench<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Front seats. Remove the two rear T40 Torx, lift the seat from the back and tip. Disconnect the Pre-tensioner (pull out the orange lock pin and squeeze the black tongue) under the seat and slide it out from it’s housing.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Remove the lower front seat belt mount (T40 Torx) and out come the front seats<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Reverse the sequence and re-connect the pre-tensioner into the new seats, in go the new fronts…nice eh?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\nJust need a good clean and some leather restorer to detail them now \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amongst (many) other vehicles I have owned seven Land Rovers over the years but have also had a Vauxhall Astra obsession for a very long time and have owned several: Mk1 estate, 2 x Mk4 LS estates, a 1.7 CDTi …<\/p>\n

Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[165,170,164,167,166,168,169,163],"class_list":["post-188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cars","tag-astra","tag-coupe","tag-gm","tag-heated","tag-leather","tag-seats","tag-turbo","tag-vauhxhall"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hERH-32","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goatsurfer.com\/retromtb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goatsurfer.com\/retromtb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goatsurfer.com\/retromtb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goatsurfer.com\/retromtb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goatsurfer.com\/retromtb\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/goatsurfer.com\/retromtb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290,"href":"https:\/\/goatsurfer.com\/retromtb\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions\/290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goatsurfer.com\/retromtb\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goatsurfer.com\/retromtb\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goatsurfer.com\/retromtb\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}