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Hey guys, Im new here, my name is Blake and am looking to simply post for entertainment value and advise if need for the following. My dad owns this 1998 GS400:
He has been the owner since new, passed it along to my brother, who dropped it and put the wheels on it. And now its back in my fathers hands at 269,xxxkm/168,xxxmiles, and he has been looking to do something with the interior and other bits. Mainly replace the front seats for lower milage units or something. I was at the junk yard looking for some Audi gear, and stumbled across a 430 with near perfect black interior. I've always hated the GS400 tan interior and steering wheel, because there is no wood grain on it, and the emblem is just plain. But the 430s steering wheel wood trim is beautiful on top of being black. I can acquire the entire interior for $375USD, which covers pretty much anything that is black. I'm no stranger to interior swaps, steering wheels coding, motor pulls, etc, but mainly with Audis. I am aware that it will take a lot of time and patience and to spend this amount of effort like this on an old Lexus is not everyones cup of tea. But its always a good time bonding with the father.
After some reading, here is what I know, I'll edit as I verify/get clarification:
Pillars: B-Pillar is different in height and fastener locations due to the side air bags. Sounds like the headliner needs to be done as well, which is probably for the best seeing how the tan one is tan. But some holes dont line up on the B-pillar, and might need to get creative to fix the panels. Curious to see how true all of this is.(update: it is all very true, the contour of the top of the b-pillar are different between the two and the 430 fastening arrangement would need to be cut down. We kept the 400s A,B,C-pillars and headliner).
Seats: Appear to have mixed information, some say plug and play, other say re-pinning the connectors, no problem there but will confirm. Also the 430 seats have locating pin going into the floor board, which either gets cut off or drilled in the floor board. I'll probably just cut it off.(update I just cut the pins off with an angle grinder. Plug and play, no re-wiring or airbag lights)
Dash: Only note I find is to remove the wiring harness from our 400 and put in place of the 430, and it sounds like a squillion fasteners for the harness. Dash removal looks pretty simple.(update: real easy to swap the harness from the 400 dash to the 430 dash than what people complain about, MAYBE a dozen phillips screws. My dad, who does not wrench swap it all over with zero complants)
Wheel: 400 single stage vs 430 dual stage, simply swapping the 400s device into the 430s is all that is really needed to my knowledge, but not confirmed. No RX300 business required.(update: I bought an airbag off ebay, a GS300/400/430 airbag is what they called it, and it was single stage, I returned the OG430 to the junk yard since it wasnt in the greatest condition.) The 430 also has radio control buttons, but cannot be integrated to my knowledge, I'll get the blank of cover for the wheel controls. 430s did not have E-Shift, but the 01+ GS300 sport design did have E-shift with wood grain wheels. Will be using the 430 sans E-shift and sans radio controls.
Radio/HVAC: Only mentioning this because our 400 has that fake laminated wood trim on the radio and I am hoping the clean 430s ML unit works and drops in place of it all. I dont think there are radio codes, but will get there soon enough. We have the Nakamichi, and some 430s have the ML which is more of an awareness for others which sounds like it isnt plug and play. If we have to keep ours, or source others, then so be it. (update: we used a clean 400 radio without the wood grain laminated)
Asides from that, its just popping pressure pins and fasteners. I'm still debating the steering wheel and what direction to go. Have not found much on swapping airbag components under the covers.
Plan is to head to the junk yard this Saturday with 6 mitts and go at it. Calling for -20*C/-4*F, so that should make the plastic pins pop out with ease! :S
Stay tuned!
Last edited by Gosser; 04-14-21 at 05:55 PM.
Reason: Punctuation.
Yes the B pillar will probably be different because the updated body style included side curtains in addition to the side airbag in the seat that the older models have. Seats should be plug and play for the most part but the connectors may be different when the body was updated. Dash is the same for both. For the wheel you would need to use the single stage airbag like you said. You would also lose e-shift as the 430 did not have it. Not sure about how to make the radio controls work but supposedly others on the forum have done it. The ML is not swapable like you said but your original stereo should still plug right in if you keep the same harness.
Hi there. I just did a complete interior swap on my Black 2000 gs300 and my Gray 2001 gs300 so I thought I would share my issues and how I am updating the interior. I literally changed everything including cd player and trunk trim and there were only 3 pieces that didn't match/fit. 1. the trim that goes over the steering wheel (which I posted for help) doesn't fit on one of the cars because there is an extra bar. 2. the side trim that covers the seatbelts are slightly different at the top part so I am going to have to rig something (wish I knew that before I died them) and 3. the dashboard had an extra plastic piece on the ends because it didn't need space for the side airbags. Because I switched out the cd player the wiring harness stayed with the dash and everything else on the wiring harness was compatible.
As for updating the interior I don't have money so this was the cheapest way that definitely made a huge difference. I wanted an all black interior and for some reason the hood, front pillars and side trim were the same light gray color in both cars. Also the black leather looked more like a blue color and drove me nuts. So I died them myself using RIT dye. This completely changed the interior to like brand new again. I got lucky and black fabric on the door seal is pretty close to the color I dyed the trim. As you can see I didn't switch out the back seals before taking the picture on the right. Just thought this might help if you get stuck trying to match something.
Looks like we're stuck without the E-shift. Small compromise I think. More reason to swap in a manual transmission.
Looks good ohyarr! Thanks for the insight. I am going to definitely grab the headliner then to avoid that B-pillar situation. I just hope its going to fit in an NX, Forester or a B7 Avant for transportation. I'm definitely going to grab as much as I can;CD Player, head unit, HVAC controls, airbag, and then clip all the connectors. But I'll only cut the connectors once I have the dash out so that I dont mess up its harness. I wonder if I should grab the steering column while Im in there to avoid that steering wheel trim issue. I will probably skip it and that'll be the first thing I check when we drop off all the goods.
Hey I stumbled across this guys thread: https://www.diyauto.com/manufacturer...d-by-sevenevez
and he happens to have the exact steering wheel I want! It had the E-shift and wood trim... I wonder where he sourced it from?
Mother nature held her end of the bargain, starting at -22*c/-7.6*F and warmed up to -19.5/-3 by the time we were done. Went very quick actually. Started with just my father and I at 11:20, the brother joined by 12:30, and we were doing the final walk by 2:00. We left the carpet and headliner, which I'll grab next weekend. Total bill out the doors $530cad/$399usd.
Only broke two of the seat rail plastic end caps, two pressure clips and the brace under the glove box. I thought we would have broke way more, but this stuff is pretty stout.
So it turns out the car has a ML system. I'm wondering if its a matter of swapping the components only. I'll do some research, but if it is, then I'm definitely grabbing all the speakers, sub, crossovers and amps. The 400s nakamishi systems cuts out at 50% volume. Its terrible. Would be a nice upgrade while doing all of this.
Still debating the headliner, and the upper b pillar situation. Can I not keep the 400s upper b-pillar and just dye it? Then dye the rest of the 400s pillars and the 400s headliner? something we were thinking about instead of messing around with 430s and trying to rework the pins and all, seeing how we would be dying the 430s anyways.
Anyhow, will be looking for a few nicer bits online, like an arm rest, front floor mats, and front ashtray(someone happen to pull that only item).
Everything will be pretty much on hold until the spring when the car is out of storage and its somewhat warmer to work in where we can lay out and take out time, but cannot wait to replace this:
with this:
I am going to wait until the spring to do the swap. But it only took us 3 hours to rip the black stuff out and we're going to take our time putting the it all in. I estimate another 8-10 hours.
Welcome to the dark side, of interiors that is . A few months ago I wrapped the upper half of my interior in black suede like material from Joann Fabric which was a very nice material to use if you go that route.
Here are the pillars which those alone will make a nice difference:
Here is how the headliner turned out:
But overall once the sunroof cover was done it turned out great especially with the fiber optic twinkle star effect:
Nice shwalker! How did you turn all the handles black and the light/hanger holder? Just paint? Or was there ever a black headliner option in the 2nd gen GS that you pulled everything from? What does the sun roof controls look like? I know S model Audis have black headliners, and has me hoping some GS did.
Thanks Gosser. I just wrapped everything including the handles in the black fabric. On the plastic pieces I dissembled them and painted it with some black vinyl paint from AutoZone. The black headliner was never a option but I always wanted a complete black interior. I will say it is very dark inside the car at night especially if you have no added lights inside but I also put 3 small leds in each door panel for the door handles, pockets and grab cup to brighten it up. Here is a quick video I made and you can get a quick glimpse of how the other pieces turned out.
01-17-19, 10:22 AM
Interior Swap
. A few months ago I wrapped the upper half of my interior in black suede like material from Joann Fabric which was a very nice material to use if you go that route.
