Goodies are coming!

[kahlilj]

pictured: new VCG's, painted VC's (powder coated "orange aid"), MB60 air intake (painted "aluminum silver"); new cluster display cable ribbon; Cree LED license plate bulbs (orange); rear anti sway bar from e39 sport (15mm instead of 16 in the M5)

not pictured but on the way: 6K light swap; 6K COB on LED AE's; white face gauges

Yummy! Christmas came early for me

[haynes740]

Nice, that's gonna look awesome The sway bar mod has been on my list for a while.

Sent from my iPad using BF.com

[Chief Rocka]

Goodies are always good.... looks like it's gonna be a good day!

[sealbeach740]

Hope you plan on favoring us with some pictures once you get your engine put back together.
Should look great!

[Jamos]

Beaut!

[kahlilj]

Thanks fellas. I plan on posting pics as soon as I get time to do all of this stuff.. just waaay busy with family/work stuff

I did replace the rear license plate lights already though. lol!

Can ya tell orange is my accent theme color?

[kahlilj]

Well first run of mods didn't go too well. I got the white gauge faces yesterday in time to do both that and the silver ribbon replacement in one sitting.


I was able to get the cluster removed from the dash and outer housing off after some tinkering with those automatically recoiling crosses and clips. I found a removal idea on e38.org worked best for me here.

housing removed showing original black face gauges:



After a couple of hours of tinkering around and reading more then realizing there was only 2 known ways to remove the dial face from the board (either removing needles which seems to be very challenging and requiring a special tool to re-install or by drilling holes in the dial face). I decided to drill the holes. This was necessary to replace the display ribbon.

And this is where I ran into problems. After exposing the heads of the screws I couldn't remove them. The pic below shows one of the 4 locations where I drilled along the dial face (beneath the original black, plastic gauge face):


My t10 torx driver would not fit them. I'm not sure if I mistakenly stripped part of the torx head when I was drilling, or if the holes are not sufficiently lined with the fastener's head to get a good bite on it or if they are some other size? after fiddling around with this for a while I gave up & decided to try the installing the white face gauges.

The set I bought were 4 separate emblems rather than 1 or 2 larger ones. I felt this would be easier to install. So they look good buttoned up in the dash:


but during the install I messed up the fuel & temp gauge faces:




that being said & screwed up, the other faces went better. I did have a similar snafu with the tach & fuel mileage face tho. however I do like the effect once installed. Here is the cluster at night with the headlights on:


Another with different coloring effect:


I'll probably get a replacement set since I now know how to access this part, but probably won't do so again until I figure out how to separate remove those dang torx screws.... HELP PLEASE!

[AquilaBMW]

I would suggest this would be a great time to paint the dial needles / hands Red.

[pizzaman09]

Nice stuff! The last photo of your gauges comes very close to the color of the gauges in the e39 M5, it is a much softer orange then on most BMWs of the late 90s.

BTW, being an engineer in product development, I very much appreciate your signature quote.

[kahlilj]

I would suggest this would be a great time to paint the dial needles / hands Red.

I considered painting the needles a different color Michael, but after seeing other pics of how the needles look with the white face I prefer to keep them white because at night they become orange (in keeping with my orange them for the car).. That glow effect look is real & pops at night too. me likey

Nice stuff! The last photo of your gauges comes very close to the color of the gauges in the e39 M5, it is a much softer orange then on most BMWs of the late 90s.

BTW, being an engineer in product development, I very much appreciate your signature quote.

Ahhhh, a fellow Engineer. kool! I had never heard of the guy until a few years ago when I came across his quote and thought "exactly!" how very true, but occasionally that scientist part of us has to come out no?

Soooo any suggestions on the torx screw removal?

[pizzaman09]

I considered painting the needles a different color Michael, but after seeing other pics of how the needles look with the white face I prefer to keep them white because at night they become orange (in keeping with my orange them for the car).. That glow effect look is real & pops at night too. me likey



Ahhhh, a fellow Engineer. kool! I had never heard of the guy until a few years ago when I came across his quote and thought "exactly!" how very true, but occasionally that scientist part of us has to come out no?

Soooo any suggestions on the torx screw removal?

I am often paid to do the scientist part, I work in development so my job is to be creative sometimes but still be creative using the skills my employer is good at.

I am not sure which torx screw you are talking about, if you can't find a bit that is small enough, I often revert to using a very small Allen key that fits inside the torx head or a small flat head screwdriver that just fits bridging across two points of the head.

[kahlilj]

I am often paid to do the scientist part, I work in development so my job is to be creative sometimes but still be creative using the skills my employer is good at.

I am not sure which torx screw you are talking about, if you can't find a bit that is small enough, I often revert to using a very small Allen key that fits inside the torx head or a small flat head screwdriver that just fits bridging across two points of the head.

Good idea. Now that I think about it, I was probably so tired that evening that I was ready to be done with it & didn't think about it. might give it a go again when I get some more gauge decals.

[kahlilj]

So the shop was finally able to get my Zionsville radiator removed from baby I and installed on baby II. Also got the powder coated valves covers installed. I'm not really feeling the resulting look of the vc's on the car. It's a metal flake type, "orange aid". I wanted a deeper orange almost copper or burnt orange hue, but they look more reddish orange. Funny thing is, red is my favorite color and a color I had considered trimming this car with, but wanted something a bit different.

So what do y'all think?





next up swap out the kido coilovers into baby II

[kahlilj]

Today I removed the SRAI from baby I. One day I might get around to reconnecting the air temp sensor, but it didn't seem to cause any problems with my first car so I'm not pressed about getting it done with this one.





still gotta get the kidos in and the COB LED AE's

[kahlilj]

So engine bay went from this :


to this:


6000K AE's without headlight on:

[1badturboe38]

Looking good!!!!....my next project is the usual timing chain deal complete reseal of anything leaking and powdercoating parts along the way to clean it up....

[kahlilj]

Looking good!!!!....my next project is the usual timing chain deal complete reseal of anything leaking and powdercoating parts along the way to clean it up....

Are you powdercoating a lot of parts? or just the VC's?

- - - Updated - - -

I wired my AE's into the feed for my DRL in the e-box just like I did with umnitza V4's on baby I (those were 4300K though). So here are the AE's only:



and during daylight:



then with low beams on:





me likey

[purplecty]

Where did you get the AEs from?

[kahlilj]

Where did you get the AEs from?

Ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/BMW-E38-E39-...item1c41f77b87

Be warned though - no instructions were included, but that was not a turnoff for me since I have installed AE's before. Also their customer support is lacking although they are quick to respond. I do like their appearance even more than umniza v2's that I had on baby I. The detail is a more solid light display and consistent appearance than the conventional LED's. They have some pics on the ebay ad trying to show this difference.

[BATTLERATTLER]

how did you disable your original daytime running lights?

[purplecty]

Have them coded off with DIS or NCS.

[BATTLERATTLER]

is there an amateur way to do it? like maybe just squeeze the bulb real hard with some needle nose pliers..

[purplecty]

Have someone who has the software do it is a better route

[BATTLERATTLER]

What about unplugging it from the back? It seems pretty simple, but will it mess with the wiring of the angel eyes because the circuit isn't closed or something?

[kahlilj]

how did you disable your original daytime running lights?

Have them coded off with DIS or NCS.

+1 exactly..
actually my car came with factory DRL's already disable. however the wiring is active and i simply connected my AE's to that wire as I described earlier.

is there an amateur way to do it? like maybe just squeeze the bulb real hard with some needle nose pliers..

What about unplugging it from the back? It seems pretty simple, but will it mess with the wiring of the angel eyes because the circuit isn't closed or something?

Yeah if you don't want to or don't have access to the easiest & best way which is to uncode this feature using DIS or NCS, then you can undo the wire in the ebox. but make sure that wire is completely removed from both ends or taped off so it doesn't short.

It wont affect your AE's if they are not connected to that circuitry. if they are (like mine are), then umm yeah! it definitely will stop them from working.

hope this helps.