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Subject: Fitting a Pass Through Ski Bag (Long) Author: farnarkler : member since February, 2004 : 1367 posts Posted on: 2007-09-10 02:56:05

I have always wanted a Pass Through Ski Bag (PTSB) - not that I'm a avid skier - but do help out family members with a bit of renovation work on their homes from time to time - and I sometimes need to carry long timbers.

I was fortunate to pick one up from Scubaa on ebay recently. (He is so good to deal with BTW).

The PTSB came as a two piece unit incorporated into a new centre fold down arm rest and in case anyone needs to tackle this job in the future, here is how I went about it:

The rear head restraints can be removed by pulling up and out. The base of the rear seat can simply be lifted straight up and out. Four bolts (10mm?) are then exposed at the bottom of the two seat backs to allow their removal. There is no need to remove the backs completely. Just lift them up and swing them aside once their mounting bolts are removed. The centre arm rest can then be unbolted and removed. No pictures for any of this because it has all been well described before.

I then removed the grey vertical sound panel in the trunk behind the rear seat and the small internal rubber panel covering the ski bag hole. This exposed the metal panel between the trunk and cabin. It seems all E38s have this panel already cut then joined back together by a rather firm goo. Time to cut the goo away:



I ended up giving the metal panel a few direct belts with a hammer to speed up the process and it popped out cleanly. I then started to fit the new grey vertical sound panels in the trunk. Note that these are now two smaller pieces instead of the one larger panel:



Once these panels were held in place by their plastic screws, I fitted the internal component of the bag assembly by sitting in the car and pulling the assembly in from the trunk. It is held on with two upper plastic spring clips and a single lower bolt. I then fitted the new internal arm rest assembly inside the car which was held on the same way as the original arm rest.

The colour matches perfectly to me. You wouldn't know the ski bag was there.



The arm rest is not as deep as the original model as you can see when it is down but that doesn't matter to me:



The mechanism to operate the bag can be seen when the leather flap (held by velcro as before) is dropped down:



When the two lower orange levers are squeezed, the arm rest lowers down right onto the seat:



The middle lower orange lever between the arm rest lowering levers opens the rear door in the trunk and the upper two orange levers open the matching door in the cabin area exposing the ski bag:



When fully unfurled, it looks like this:



I'm very happy with my new addition. It should come in very useful. No skiing for me though, I prefer to stay warm.

Hope it helps.

Farnarkler - '97 740iL Double Glazing, Tiptronic, Tow Hitch, UGDO, 16 X 9 Display, Hybrid TV, Mk4 NAV (V29.1), Reversing Camera, Ultrasonic Alarm, Trunk Ski Pass Through Bag

• Fitting a Pass Through Ski Bag (Long) (pic) - farnarkler 2007-09-10 02:56:05 (9797 views)
  • PLEASE - ANYONE QUICK ANSWER- NEGOTIATING ON ONE! - eismark 2007-09-13 06:26:04 (307 views)
  • Ski Bag pass through for sale (url) - scubaa1 2007-09-10 20:38:54 (564 views)
  • I punched mine out and use the trunk as a mobile dog house! (nt) - Mitch 2007-09-10 14:30:29 (378 views)
  • Re: Fitting a Pass Through Ski Bag (Long) - davidsoine 2007-09-10 11:50:40 (325 views)
    • Sizes are: (pic) - farnarkler 2007-09-10 20:36:01 (469 views)
  • Good writeup! Now I want one - as a frequent skiier. - eismark 2007-09-10 10:20:22 (262 views)
    • Cost me US$149.99 plus delivery. (nt) - farnarkler 2007-09-10 20:39:51 (326 views)
  • Congrats looks good! great job. (nt) - Edwin 2007-09-10 03:32:51 (235 views)
  • Nice mod! - 04sshd 2007-09-10 03:09:16 (209 views)