Replacing headlight covers/adjusters on E39

[clarkerussell]

One of the easiest things I've done so far... Total of 1.5 hours. Thanks for the writeup!

[zemlin]

Did mine last night. Was going to add two tips, but upon reading the thread, they have already been posted - but I will repeat.

To release the lights from the stepper motor, you don't need to pull the socket off the motor. Twist the plastic hex 90 degrees and the headlight reflectors will lift right out leaving the socket on the stepper.

When putting things back together, pop the new adjusters into the sockets first. I backed up the sockets on my work bench and popped the adjusters in with a not-so-gentle hit with a hammer. Then I lined things up and drove the screws into the adjusters. MUCH easier than trying to snap things together with the adjusters in the housings.

Thanks for the write up!

[Dualnames]

Truly pretty straight forward. The little balls did break off and they were so brittle I took a small screw driver and pushed down on them with medium pressure and wiggled it around. The balls disintegrated and I blew the dust away from the socket. Much easier than using a drill in my opinion even though the drill might be a little safer

[jkholt]

I just bought a 2000 528i in Titanium Silver Metallic. I love the car so far. Headlights would not adjust so I started researching and found this forum...great place with lots of info. Ordered the parts and as soon as they come in I will tackle this so I can safely drive at night.

[540mob]

I think my headlights may be "internally oxidized" how would i fix this problem?

[lekkerbmw]

I have a complete set of headlights that are broke down to reassemble for any1 interested. Just pm me sorry for thread jack

[hans530i]

Big thank you to everyone who has contributed to this DIY thread. I would never have tried to do this before I got into reading the detailed step by step instructions.

I installed new adjusters, depo covers with clear corners on both sides, and silver turn signal bulbs which thankfully came with new sockets (they old ones break easily).

I stumbled a few times during the job. Biggest pain was getting the new depo covers to line up and get on far enough to get the black plastic holding tabs to latch into place. I think the new covers extend a bit farther than my stock originals so I had to take out the seals and trim them off a bit so that I could get the covers on.



My car has xenon lights and is auto-leveling so I was worried that the depo covers for sale on eBay wouldn't fit. Several sellers specifically say "does not fit OEM Xeon headlight". Now I'm not sure what Xeon lights are but I decided to pay a little more and bought from a dealer that knows their Xenon from their Xeon. The ad also showed a picture with the right glass lenses (with the circle in the middle) so I saved myself the extra step of cleaning and swapping the old lenses.

[Camarok]

Thanks so much man, Took me less than 2 hours for both. Excellent detail and pictures helped a bunch, good idea with the drill worked wonders!

Just need to buy new lenses ....

[dantegiani]

I have a complete set of headlights that are broke down to reassemble for any1 interested. Just pm me sorry for thread jack

Hey man how much do you want for the set?

[lekkerbmw]

Hey man how much do you want for the set?

$50 plus u pay shipping sound good? It has eyebrows attached to headlight covers to

Sent from my iPhone using BF.com

[300kplus]

You then also have to remove the holder for the turn signal. If you are un-lucky as I was, it was also brittle, so it broke when I removed it. After a trip to the dealer (they had “one” in stock!), I was able to finish this part:




Put back the rubber seals – be careful not to press/push too much of you can break the adapters again!. Once you have those back in place, reinstall the high beam bulb and the HID connector.



Here is the completed assembly, ready to be put back in my car:




Here on the driver’s side I have the new one, and still have the old one on the passengers’ side:







Once I turned them ON, look at how bad the old assembly looks like compared to the new one:







Then do the other side. Seriously. It took like 3 hours to do the first one, but only about 1 hour to do the other side.

Later that night, I used my wife’s 330i to set some markers on the ground and in our fence, and I used those to adjust mine:







I then drove around (since it was at night), and after I came back I did some minor tweaking. They are now perfect, but the best part is that I can now actually see at night – that alone was reason enough to call this a job well done.

Well, I hope this helps others. Thanks again to Vince for the original writeup. Good luck!

Where did you get the new lenses and how much should I expect to pay.
Also, can I replace just the lenses or do you have to buy the wholw headlight assembly?
Thanks.

Can anyone recommend a place/vendor that sells these replacement headlight lenses?

Thanks.

What about the adjusters--where's a good place to pick those puppies up?

[callmedavie02]

Disclaimer: Note this is for my 2000 BMW 540i with HID and adjustable beams. From 2001-2003 a different and much harder procedure is needed.


A fellow BMW owner (Vince) wrote this several years back, but with few photos:
Replacing broken headlamp adjusters ...

Although his descriptions were spot-on, I decided to redo it with with a "lot" more pictures to make it more clear to follow - so to be clear, my goal is to make his procedure clearer - kudos to him for figuring this out and putting the document together.

In addition, since after 8-9 years the actual headlight covers/lenses were blurry, I decided to install new DEPO covers with the European-style clear turn signals at the same time, which takes no extra time since you have to remove the originals anyway - why not put new ones for just $99 for the pair?

So the adjusters were broken. How can I tell? Besides the lights pointing down and being downright dangerous and almost useless at night, I had no effect by turning either adjuster (side to side or top/down). Now, the lenses: this is how they look before the “operation”:






Here is the box with the new DEPO units:







So to remove the driver’s headlight, there are 4 screws, just like Vince points out in his excellent write-up. Two on top:





And two more screws on the bottom of the headlight assembly (one is easy to spot, the other is a tad harder to see):





To get the one that is hidden, I used my newest buddy/tool from Sears – this little magnet is rated to lift up to 5 pounds, and it has an LED at the end which you can turn on/off when you need it!:



OK, enough with the tool porn. Once you get the 4 screws out, you can slide the assembly out, but don’t pull out completely yet as you have 4 connectors to remove (high beam, low beam, turn signal, and the servo/control for the adjustable feature in my car):







Here are the 4 connectors:

A big thumbs up to the guy who wrote this DIY guide. Saved me a few hours of surfing the net and looking for something similar that actually makes sense.

offtopic:

I bought replacement headlights from a somehow "shady" shop on the net for $20 Is it too good to be true?

[540iiii]

Where can I get some good headlight adjusters that aren't $90 for the puny things

[biggsxr]

Just an FYI when removing and installing the servo socket. Instead of popping the ball out of the housing and possibly breaking it.
Turn the white tab that is sticking out to either the left of right. It doesn't matter which way you turn and the servo socket gets released from the housing.

THIS should be at the top of the First page!!!
Not till i did my second light did I scroll down thru to find this. So Easy! (And this is definitely how BMW wanted it to come apart/together)
On the first light, I have my foot up on the table, holding the light down and yanking as hard as I could to pop it out of the socket!
I can't believe the little stepper motor takes the abuse.

- - - Updated - - -

Big thanks to "wquiles" for documenting this 6 years ago!!!
It's still a great resource!

Some more tips;

IMG_20130615_103550.jpg

This is how I dug out the remains of the ball inside the socket.
It's a hooked "dental" Pick, actually a mechanic's Pick.
Very Very useful to have a set of these in your tool box! I use them all the time for releasing little clips and things.

I also used them to release the little black sheet metal clips that hold in the glass plate fresnel lenses.
I removed the Depo lenses and installed my original BMW/Hella lenses after I wiped them down with 91% Isopropyl Alcohol.

+++ To Isopropyl Alcohol for cleaning all of the optical surfaces!!
--- (Gently, with a soft fully soaked paper towel ((This dissolves the oils and carries away the dirt without scouring the surface)), then even more gentle with a dry paper towel. - The reflector coatings are aluminum and of course you don't want to scratch them)
IMG_20130615_113319_sm.jpg

[E39540i62000]

Hi all,

I am considering replacing the lenses on my 540i/6 2000 with factory xenons. I would like to fit the hockenheim depo type replacement lenses with angel eyes, can anybody advise me if these would fit?

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/400620162850?...84.m1423.l2649

Also would these require modification to the lighting wiring harness or are they plug in.

I also cannot see any of the pictures in the original post. Maybe it is just my browser (google chrome). Could a mod fix this please. Thanks!

[five40eye]

It's not a browser problem. I'm in the same position, I really need this write-up, but the pics are gone. They were hosted on M3 board. Bad, bad idea. always use a photo hosting service.
I will try to follow the text, but pics are so much better.

Hi all,

I am considering replacing the lenses on my 540i/6 2000 with factory xenons. I would like to fit the hockenheim depo type replacement lenses with angel eyes, can anybody advise me if these would fit?

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/400620162850?...84.m1423.l2649

Also would these require modification to the lighting wiring harness or are they plug in.

I also cannot see any of the pictures in the original post. Maybe it is just my browser (google chrome). Could a mod fix this please. Thanks!

[ViolinARC]

THIS should be at the top of the First page!!!
Not till i did my second light did I scroll down thru to find this. So Easy! (And this is definitely how BMW wanted it to come apart/together)
On the first light, I have my foot up on the table, holding the light down and yanking as hard as I could to pop it out of the socket!
I can't believe the little stepper motor takes the abuse.

- - - Updated - - -

Big thanks to "wquiles" for documenting this 6 years ago!!!
It's still a great resource!

Some more tips;

IMG_20130615_103550.jpg

This is how I dug out the remains of the ball inside the socket.
It's a hooked "dental" Pick, actually a mechanic's Pick.
Very Very useful to have a set of these in your tool box! I use them all the time for releasing little clips and things.

I also used them to release the little black sheet metal clips that hold in the glass plate fresnel lenses.
I removed the Depo lenses and installed my original BMW/Hella lenses after I wiped them down with 91% Isopropyl Alcohol.

+++ To Isopropyl Alcohol for cleaning all of the optical surfaces!!
--- (Gently, with a soft fully soaked paper towel ((This dissolves the oils and carries away the dirt without scouring the surface)), then even more gentle with a dry paper towel. - The reflector coatings are aluminum and of course you don't want to scratch them)
IMG_20130615_113319_sm.jpg

Thanks for trying to help but NEVER, EVER use a paper towel as it will scratch the delicate surface of the reflector.

The best thing to use would be a quality microfiber cloth (soaked in 90% alcohol as you describe) and even with that, you have to be careful about scratching that uber sensitive reflective surface. Absolutely zero pressure can work but the tiniest bit of dust or any abrasive specs of plastic will cause scratching (use canned air to clean well). Don't ask me how I know...

[Skitzo91]

We need these pics fixed
wanting to change mine with aluminium but i heard you don't have to take apart 2000-2003 540i

[gembrain]

I could desperately do with the pictures as well! Any likelihood?

[SexPanther]

The pictures are all gone

[MrDucky]

I heard that the aluminum adjusters give a light bundle that jutters? anyone with the same problem? iam looking to replace mine.

[QtheGenius]

I replaced mine last weekend with the plastic ones. took about 90 minutes overall to replace both sides. very easy on the 99 wagon.

[Leroy08]

I did this repair on my '99 (pre-facelift) with Xenons a few months ago. Most of the info has been covered, but since the original pictures are gone I wanted to add my writeup and a few pictures from another board in hope that it may be of assistance to others in the future:

I'm writing this followup for anyone who may encounter this thread in a search

The loose and wobbly behavior of the headlight was due to a broken adjuster. It was the outboard one (closest to the parking lamp). Because mine are Xenon with leveling, the other plastic adjuster (center) and the leveler basically created a vertical pivot that would allow the entire "bucket" to rotate. I did all four adjusters and the ones that hadn't broken were brittle little time bombs.

Also, just adding some pics for clarification and additional info:

As has been mentioned, you don't need (or really want) to pry the bucket off of the leveler. There is a white plastic piece that can be rotated to unlock the mechanism from the bucket as shown below


Leveler Locked to bucket




Leveler unlocked



Leveler mechanism with bucket removed




There were also two other findings that aren't normally mentioned in write-ups of this repair that I encountered. First was that the locking clips on the top of the housing were "welded" by apparent use of heat (which melted the plastic). They still pop off, but don't hold properly on reassembly (re-melt it with a hot piece of metal):

"Welded locking tab on top"



And finally, the rubber boot around the Xenon connector had four metal clips that presumably keep the boot from slipping off. These clips come off and on pretty easily, except one (at the bottom) is obscured by the HID high voltage cable routing. Two are indicated in this pic:

HID Rubber boot retaining clips


I replaced both adjusters for the broken headlight and went ahead and did the same for the other side (they were intact, but very brittle). For my '99 I bought the replacements for around $5 a set (P/N 63120027924, made by MTC). Hopefully this added info can be useful for future members.

[scooper]

E36 poster here. Thanks to all who have posted in this thread. So to replace the adjusters on a pre-face lift e39 driver's side headlamp assembly, I will need 2 sets of:

63120027924

? One set for L-R and one set for Up-down? So I would need 4 sets to do both pairs of headlamps? Uncle's car is a 97 528i. Thanks for the confirmation.

Also, do any of you see much difference between BMW OE brand, MTC, and URO? I can only say that BMW OE brand usually has the best quality e36 parts save for a few parts here and there. Both MTC and URO are mostly crap in my experience.

Due to price differential do the BMW OE brand plastic parts last 5x as long as the other brands? Thanks.