Lessons Learned: Headlights

[ProZak]

Remember these?

OK, so I broke a low beam lens. Shopped around a little read the board, read the books, seemed about as cheap to just replace the bloody things. Besides, the old ones were pretty foggy (rock chips and such).

So, getting the grill off isn't so bad, although the bottom clips on the center piece were pretty stiff.

Getting the right side assembly out was a little tricky. I ended up dismounting the windshield washer reservoir to get it out of the way. No big deal, done in 10 minutes.

Getting the left side off ... holy crap. Qube, why didn't you warn me? I had to move the freaking charcoal evaporator thingie to reach the middle rear screw. Madness.

Anyway, the lights are installed after a certain amount of fussing with getting the corners lined back up, all I have to do now is figure out how to convert from the 9005/9006 that came with the car to H1, using this wiring harness adapter:



Notice the 9005/9006 connectors on the left. Beauty. Notice the bare wires on the right. Not so beauty - I need to find that connector.
Anybody have some ideas? Grr.

New lenses look good, though; I'll upload photos as soon as I get the bulbs wired.

-Zak-

[liquidtiger720]

I've posted the source before.


www.rallylights.com

[Qube]

It isn't that hard once you get the grill off. The headlamps are held on by what... four screws accessible from the outside (front)? I'm not sure what the trouble part is you're talking about

If I were you, I'd just cut the 9005/9006 and splice them. Given the age of the car, the connector is probably brittle and the wire ends going into it is on the edge of fraying. Just splice it.

[ProZak]

Unfortunately, not quite that simple; there's nothing to splice to. IE, the headlights themselves take H1, and the socket on the back of the light is what I need to match. My OEM wires are actually in really good shape, and the wiring harness adapter they sent will work fine as soon as I find a plug to fit the European spec socket on the back of the lamps.

Oh, and I don't know if they changed year over year, but my lamps have 3 screws in the front (2 on top and one to the side) and 3 in the back (on the corner marker side) I'll post pics later today.

-Zak-

[Qube]

Right. What I did was just snip off the 900x connector and made them H1 ends. I don't anticipate going back to 900x ever again so it doesn't matter.

Regarding the screws... I know of one screw that holds down the sidemarker which is a pain to get to. I never put that one back on anymore. Not sure about others


WAIT! OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I see now! The stupid cap on the back of the lights has that connector. Sorry about that. On all the halo projos that I got and have, the end cap just as wires feeding through... no connector like that. My mistake

[SC David]

http://www.m3bmw.com/e34
http://www.m3bmw.com/ee.html

Both of those links provide some part numbers you may be interested in. Temporarily, or not so temporarily in my case, you can use the wiring they gave you if you're willing to go without highbeams for a while. But LEAVE THE 9005 HIGHBEAMS CONNECTED or else your fogs will not work. Take off the lowbeam 9006 bulbs and plug in the connectors for the new lights. Connect the end of the matching yellow wire and brown ground wire to the caps. Put in some new 55W H1 bulbs and everything should work fine.

The plug for the highbeams is essentially worthless because it has wiring going no where, and you probably don't want to go through the trouble to ground it somewhere. Instead go to the site that Liquidtiger mentioned and buy those connectors and solder them on. OR chop off the 9006 connectors and make them H1 connectors as Qube did. I wasn't brave enough to go chopping through my car's wiring. Good luck!

[ProZak]

Update at new thread, here.

-Zak-