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      03-24-2013, 04:22 PM   #1
cakeater
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Thumbs up DIY: Cakeater's Rear Seat Delete Panel

I recently did a rear seat delete to begin the overhaul on the interior of the 1er. The exposed seat floor isn't the prettiest thing in the world and it always bugged me that the rest of the interior was so clean and that was exposed. So I decided to try my hand at building a panel to clean up the back seat area. The result was shockingly sexy. Best $30 mod I've done.



What you'll need:
- One 4x8 or two 2x4 1/4" or 3/8" plywood sheets (I used Two 2x4 3/8" so I could fit it into the trunk)
- A couple yards of black automotive trunk liner.
- A big piece of cardboard
- Jig Saw
- Scissor
- Marker
- 1" Wood screws
- L brackets, 3/8" screws
- Stapler, 1/4" staples
- Industrial Velrow
- 6-8 hours of your day

I decided to go with two panels so it was easier to take in and out of the car. It also allows easier access to under the seat panel if I ever wanted to use it for storage. You can build it using a single panel if you prefer. The steps aren't much different.

First off, rip your back seats out if you haven't already.



See, not the prettiest thing you've ever seen. Time to fix that.

Grab your big ass piece of cardboard and cut it to about 2' x 2 1/2'.



Get comfy in your back seat and start trimming away the edges. Measure and mark the center point of the seat bench since you need to line each panel up to it. Be patient and take your take, cut a few millimeters at a time to ensure you have a nice snug fit. After that, you should have something like this.



Now take a marker and trace around the cardboard template onto your piece of plywood. I used the straight edges for the front and side edge of the panel to ensure they were perfectly 90 degrees. Do this twice, one for each panel.



Now take your jig saw and cut them out. You should have something that looks like this.



Now fort he most tricky part of the whole project. Take your panels and test fit them in the back seat. Make sure everything lines up right, and if it doesn't, mark where it's hitting and trim accordingly. This is why you want to take your time with the template at the beginning. I took my sweet time and the panels will fit 100% perfect like a glove, no need for trimming.

After you took your seats out you probably noticed the little knobs in the front that held the clips on the bottom of the seat. We will use these to secure the panels in place. With the panels sitting in place, take a Sharpy and trace the sides and front of the knobs onto the bottom of each panel. There are 2 on each. (I forgot to photograph this step, sorry!)

Take the panels back out of the car, flip them over, and check out the markings you just made. Now take some paper, fold it over a few times, and roughly trace the shape of the knobs onto the paper. The knob itself tapers larger towards the bottom, so make sure to add about 3-5mm of space all the way around of what you just traced on the panels themselves to make sure the knob seats we are making will allow the knob to sit fully inside. Take the paper template you make and fit it over the knob to make sure it's the right size.

Now take your template and trace 8 of them onto your plywood. With your jig saw, cut out all 8 of them. Go slow and don't rush to ensure you don't break any of them since there is very thin material between each. Below you can see the template I had created and the pieces I cut.



This isn't a necessary step, but I did it to make the panels look extremely clean. I'm really glad I did this step, so I recommend you do too. Cut two 2.25" x 25.75" strips of plywood to attach to the front of each panel. This hides the knob seats we are using to secure the panels in place and sits nicely on the small lip our cars already have in the back seat.

Drill and screw 1" wood screws about every 3-4 inches to attached the front lip to the panels. MAKE SURE YOU DRILL! You will split the thin plywood if you don't. I also used some small L-brackets to ensure there woudn't be any forward force being applied once I stretched the carpet over the front. You should now have a panel that looks like this...



Next, lets attach our knob cutouts to where we marked the positioning of the knobs on the bottom of our panels. Stack 2 of the cutouts we made and use the 1" wood screws to attach them to the panel. Keep in mind that the knob tapers larger towards the bottom so your markings are not 100% correct. I positioned my cutouts about 3-4mm forward of where I had actually marked, which ended up being the perfect spot. The bottom of your panel now looks like this!





The hard parts are all done now folks. Take your panels and test fit them to make sure everything is lining up right. I got lucky and the fitment was PERFECT my first try. You might need to adjust the placement of the cutouts if you didn't line them up with the knob markings just right though. Notice that the right hand panel uses the bracket towards the back to use to be for the pivot point for your folding seats. The left hand panel doesn't have this, so it will sit kinda wonky. We will fix this issue later, so don't worry. (If you don't have folding seats, let me know if this bracket doesn't exist so I can come up with a solution for non-folding seat 1ers)



Get them fitting just right, then pull them back out. Now it's time to wrap them in some black automotive trunk liner carpet. This is fairly straight forward, just start by stapling one end, then pull things snug and start stapling up one side at a time, pulling things tight every couple staples. Once you get to the front where the lip is, pull the material as tight as you can and wrap it up around and staple nice and tight. Some of the corners are tricky and require some folding and some extra staples to hold things down, but again just take your time and you should be good. Trim off any access to clean things up.

This is what it looked like as I was going...



Once you wrap your two panels, we need to do a few minor additions to make sure everything sits flush and secure once they are installed.

First thing we need to do is attach a little lip to the right hand panel so that the left hand panel has a place to rest in the rear. The right hand panel uses the bracket that is the pivot point for your folding seats. The left hand panel doesn't have a place to rest in the rear so we need to attach a lip to the right hand panel so the left panel can rest on it. it also ensures they sit flush with one another. Cut a little piece of plywood about 4x1" and attach it to the bottom of the panel towards the rear and on the center straight edge. Go ahead and wrap it in velco once it's been attached.




Stick some velcro one the opposite side on the other panel so they attach nicely once installed.



Now lets stick some velcro down inside the cutouts we attached earlier to ensure the panels stay in place over bumps.



Your panels are all done. Damn they look fly!



Just a few more steps to ensure they stay secure.

Stick some velcro to the four knobs at the front of the seat. This will ensure the panels do not jump up out of place if you hit any big bumps. It also ensures there will be no knocking sounds from them sliding around ever so slightly while you drive. Also, stick some velcro on the bracket that supports the back end of the right hand panel.




The last step is to fit the panels in place and make sure they still fit nice and snug. Take one last piece of velcro and stick it on the bottom of the right panel where it rests on the seat bracket in the rear. This ensures everything is secure from pumping/jumping around.

Once that's done, THAT'S IT! You're done! The final result should look something like this...





I'll take some better photos with my DSLR soon. Hope this helps anyone else looking to do the same! Enjoy!

Last edited by cakeater; 03-25-2013 at 12:21 AM..
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      03-24-2013, 04:27 PM   #2
cakeater
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Also, in case anyone was curious, I had previously wrapped the parts of the rear seat that attach to the rear sides behind the seat belt. I wrapped it in the same trunk liner so everything in the rear was consistent.



Last edited by cakeater; 03-25-2013 at 12:21 AM..
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      03-24-2013, 05:27 PM   #3
SukSqueezeBangBlo
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Great job, looks like a clean install!
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      03-24-2013, 05:49 PM   #4
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Great work and thank you for contributing to the forums with this solid DIY. I have been considering a rear seat delete for a while and you may have just convinced me.
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      03-25-2013, 12:24 AM   #5
cakeater
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ilikebmxbikes View Post
Great work and thank you for contributing to the forums with this solid DIY. I have been considering a rear seat delete for a while and you may have just convinced me.
The first of many! I hope to do many more throughout the process of modifying the car

You should do it, it's my favorite mod I've done to the inside of the car so far!
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      03-25-2013, 04:10 AM   #6
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Great DIY, looks super professional!
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      03-25-2013, 10:48 AM   #7
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Looks fantastic. Excellent install and instructions. Thanks for taking the time to share this.
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      03-25-2013, 08:09 PM   #8
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Looks fantastic! Nice job!
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      03-25-2013, 09:43 PM   #9
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Great write up cakeater! Looks real clean and final product has that professional finish.
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      03-29-2013, 02:55 PM   #10
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NICELY Done!!!
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      03-29-2013, 05:10 PM   #11
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Well done. Am I right that this wouldn't interfere with an RB roll bar kit? Sure looks like it wouldn't...

Are you able to make a raised lip on the front of the package shelf to keep stuff from sliding off under heavy braking?
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      03-29-2013, 05:28 PM   #12
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How much weight did you remove with the back seat extraction?
Your design looks really clean, good job!
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      03-29-2013, 06:38 PM   #13
cakeater
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I give up, I will not be offering to build these anymore. You can thank the bogus 1addicts rules for not allowing me to offer this friendly gesture to the community.

Enjoy the DIY and make some badass panels!


Quote:
Originally Posted by Suds View Post
How much weight did you remove with the back seat extraction?
Your design looks really clean, good job!
The weight savings before the addition of the panels is around 55 lbs (I removed seat belts too). These panels added about 10 pounds back, but they are very easy to remove when you want those extra pounds gone!
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      03-29-2013, 06:47 PM   #14
cakeater
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Walter_Sobchak View Post
Well done. Am I right that this wouldn't interfere with an RB roll bar kit? Sure looks like it wouldn't...

Are you able to make a raised lip on the front of the package shelf to keep stuff from sliding off under heavy braking?
From what I can see from photos online, it looks like this would work perfectly fine with the BR roll bar. I can't guarantee it though.

You could very easily build the panel in a way that the front lip extends upwards and forms a lip on top. You'd probably just have to use some upholstry adhesive to make sure it stays snug tucked down into that 90 degree angle on top.
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      03-31-2013, 07:34 AM   #15
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Pretty excited about trying this. Fantastic DIY! Thanks for posting for the rest of us!
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      03-31-2013, 09:35 AM   #16
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That's a job well done!
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      03-31-2013, 09:52 AM   #17
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Hey,
I think your thread got closed because you put it in the Vendors Section. Only paid sponsors are allowed to post there. if you do want to make this, you should do it in the General Marketplace. Foxomar and several other people have done similar things in the general FS.

Last edited by ilikebmxbikes; 03-31-2013 at 09:58 AM..
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      04-07-2013, 04:31 PM   #18
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Very nice! And now no one is complaining about you ruining your car like they did in my rear seat delete topic.
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      06-06-2013, 08:28 PM   #19
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Where did you get the carpet from?
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      06-10-2013, 10:12 AM   #20
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WOW! VERY VERY clean install! Excellent job!
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      06-27-2013, 09:13 PM   #21
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awesome DIY - I will be doing this with my own twist. Gonna try to make an amp rack out of my floor pieces, fitting them in a recessed area so it looks clean and hides all the wires.

great work again!
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      04-19-2014, 02:38 PM   #22
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can someone make me one. i dont have the resources or the the tools or i would make one here in germany. im handy just dont have a place to do it.
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