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One of my hobbies in my younger years was car audio. In most of my older cars, I’ve typically installed head units with Aux-In capabilities to play or stream music from an iPod or iPhone. My go-to head unit is a Harmon Kardon Traffic Pro. The navigation is useless now that we have Waze and Google Maps, but I like the DIN size, simple look and matching BMW red lighting. I also usually use a/d/s amplifiers and speakers, which are not necessarily period-correct, even if the brand definitely is.

Over the course of months I assembled pieces of the system until it was time to finally install everything. This required removing a lot of the interior, except ironically the dashboard, which had already been through enough. Once all the seats were removed, it uncovered a secondary project, which was to detail the interior carpets. They had accumulated over a quarter-century of mostly coffee stains (pre-cupholder era), chocolate(?), and dog hair. Although the loose change found was not enough to compensate me for my effort, the payoff was a much cleaner car.

I couldn’t get out every stain with the steam cleaner I had. I’ve since acquired a new steamer that might be able to get even more, but perhaps it should be left to a professional with the right chemicals to get everything out (if possible). I also took the opportunity to clean up the front seat bases. Finally, people often comment that the rear deck is somehow blue, but really it’s just sun-faded after all these years. I used some SEM spray paint to bring it back to its Anthracite glory.

One of the most common issues with old E28s are cracked dashboards. This is usually caused by years of exposure to heat and sun. This M5 was not spared and it was one of the worst issues in the interior known to me when I purchased the car. After owning it for a while, I had gotten in the habit of watching the parts classifieds on www.mye28.com and also searching my local Craigslist.

In January of 2015, my persistence paid off, as a nice crack-free E28 dashboard was found about an hour away. I had cautious optimism, as I had already driven across a bridge once to look at a claimed “crack free” dashboard, only to find that it was covered in small cracks. The seller was apologetic and I learned this is just part of the process. The dashboard I found was not perfect – it had one small tear near the front, which wasn’t visible at all while sitting in the car.

I went through the process of removing the vents and ducts from the old dash, running them through the dishwasher, and transferring them to the replacement. This also included the VIN tag, which required drilling out the rivets. The VIN tag didn’t want to just pop off, so I used a little “gentle” force to drive them out with a hammer. Much to my horror, I had actually introduced a little crack in a thin part of the dashboard! This is just one of the many tough lessons I learned about scarce and NLA parts. Again, just part of the process.

After my horror subsided, I decided that the dashboard, while not perfect, was still a million times better than the terribly cracked original and the rest of the car was not perfect either, so it was pretty on par. I went ahead with what most online posts would describe as a big pain-in-the-ass procedure, especially with the windshield remaining installed.

I’m pretty good at following instructions and there are some good ones out there. Like many of the procedures I’ve followed, this one was found on this site. In the end, it wasn’t too bad and the new almost-crack-free dash improved the interior 1,000%. This was a big win for me.