High OBC Retrofit in the year 2020

[TerraPhantm]

Gotcha, thanks. What tool did you use to crimp the pins on the wire?

The real deal tool for MQS contacts is quite expensive. I've used the AMP Service Tool II which isn't really meant for those contacts but does work if you're careful to align everything just right. Though the price on even that seems to have gone up recently. I imagine you can use any open barrel crimper with success. But most of those don't crimp the portion of the insulation correctly for MQS contacts (they should just wrap the insulation rather than biting into it).

I wouldn't recommend needle noses, those won't get a good crimp. If you do go that way, I'd add a dab of solder to at least get a good electrical connection (you won't have the mechanical strength of a good crimp though).

[TerraPhantm]

Think I found a good kit to make the harness adapter. BMW part number 61116964410

Comes with the male black and white connectors along with a ton of the male pins



Also comes with some connectors that you don't need.

[//m320is]

Think I found a good kit to make the harness adapter. BMW part number 61116964410

Comes with the male black and white connectors along with a ton of the male pins

That looks like it would work great, however a quick search reveals that the cost of that kit is over $60.

After listening to everybodys opinion I went back and decided to see if I could do without a proto board. Building a PCB would be cost preventative and really for someone to build harness's would be hard pressed to break even I think. Anyway this is what I came up with.
38922917-1968-4913-9E2B-7647B12F282D.jpg
8A684001-7B77-46A8-B7C5-258BC3D526CD.jpg
4BF9211D-F574-4FE7-9918-967457AC7A2D.jpg


Three main looms for the 3 main connectors of the High cluster. I will add the ground, Kbus and gong connector once I pin and install the actual cluster connectors. They will match the white,black and blue connectors of the cluster itself. The white 26 pin from the car will plug into my yellow connector after you swap out the white casing with a yellow one, its pretty simple, the white slides off and the yellow slides on. The black 26 pin from the car will plug into my blue connector without modification.

I think this will work better I will secure everything with zip ties to make sure its not bouncing going down the road.

[TerraPhantm]

That looks like it would work great, however a quick search reveals that the cost of that kit is over $60.

After listening to everybodys opinion I went back and decided to see if I could do without a proto board. Building a PCB would be cost preventative and really for someone to build harness's would be hard pressed to break even I think. Anyway this is what I came up with.
38922917-1968-4913-9E2B-7647B12F282D.jpg
8A684001-7B77-46A8-B7C5-258BC3D526CD.jpg
4BF9211D-F574-4FE7-9918-967457AC7A2D.jpg


Three main looms for the 3 main connectors of the High cluster. I will add the ground, Kbus and gong connector once I pin and install the actual cluster connectors. They will match the white,black and blue connectors of the cluster itself. The white 26 pin from the car will plug into my yellow connector after you swap out the white casing with a yellow one, its pretty simple, the white slides off and the yellow slides on. The black 26 pin from the car will plug into my blue connector without modification.

I think this will work better I will secure everything with zip ties to make sure its not bouncing going down the road.

Yeah it's not cheap, but the total cost would probably still be in the ball park of what the original kit cost before the firesale.

Your current setup will probably be reliable. Ideally there'd a real AMP equivalent part number for those BMW connectors, but I can't find them for the life of me.

[//m320is]

Yeah it's not cheap, but the total cost would probably still be in the ball park of what the original kit cost before the firesale.

Your current setup will probably be reliable. Ideally there'd a real AMP equivalent part number for those BMW connectors, but I can't find them for the life of me.

I myself have looked and looked, I found a Russian site, and even emailed them, however I got no response. It was the only place I could find that used the original amp number, disappointing for sure.
I do not know what the original cost was for the retrofit kit, do you?

I probably have about $25 in parts and a couple hours of work into this harness. I switched from 18 gauge, to 22 gauge wire, and that made a big difference. I couldn't find a source to buy multi-colored 22 gauge wire in bulk (100 feet or more) so I bought some off ebay in 25 foot rolls and probably paid way too much for it.

I will update once I get the cluster connectors on and the engine harness built. I still need a new cluster but with this whole virus thing going on I'm trying to be frugal with spending of moneys.

[TerraPhantm]

I myself have looked and looked, I found a Russian site, and even emailed them, however I got no response. It was the only place I could find that used the original amp number, disappointing for sure.
I do not know what the original cost was for the retrofit kit, do you?

I probably have about $25 in parts and a couple hours of work into this harness. I switched from 18 gauge, to 22 gauge wire, and that made a big difference. I couldn't find a source to buy multi-colored 22 gauge wire in bulk (100 feet or more) so I bought some off ebay in 25 foot rolls and probably paid way too much for it.

I will update once I get the cluster connectors on and the engine harness built. I still need a new cluster but with this whole virus thing going on I'm trying to be frugal with spending of moneys.

By the time they were clearancing it, the official kit was down to $25 (which is when I bought it). Before that it was somewhere around $150 iirc. I very well might not be recalling correctly, but I’m positive it was more than $25

[bret2094]

Commenting to bump this thread. I've been looking to high obc retrofit my cars as well. Sign me up for 2 harnesses. I've sent a PM as well

[TexasTouring]

I'm revisiting this project as I just bought another wagon and I want to retrofit nav and high OBC. This time I'm using the SES jumper method to create a plug and play harness, and it's coming out much cleaner.

You do need 4 or 5 jumpers to get enough of the male pins to fill out the cluster wiring, even though you only need 2 jumpers to serve as the receptacles for the existing cluster connectors.

I am just pinning the SES jumpers to match the existing cluster wiring and soldering the wires to the corresponding wires from some high OBC cluster wiring from a junkyard. Not seamless but pretty clean nonetheless.

Pretty cheap too, as the local scrapyards tend to have lots of E39s and E46s to pull from and only charge a couple bucks for each SES jumper and high cluster wiring.

This time my work might be worthy of posting pictures!

[SSharo]

What are the SES jumpers you're talking about? I wish I'd have come across this thread when I was researching before my swap. I'd wanted to create the harness myself rather than re-pinning just in case something went wrong and I had to swap back. I did the swap a few months ago by re-pinning and it went well. I used a cluster from an M5 and updated my ZCS and did all the coding. Soldered in a blank EEPROM from Paul to correct the mileage on the used cluster to my car. The gauges and CC messages all seem to be working fine (except the oil temp gauge which I think should because it's a 2001 M54 that should likely report oil temp over CAN BUS) but my SES light, Battery light, Oil light, and DSC light won't light up. When I start the car I don't see the lights come on and go off during the self test and the DSC light won't come on when I press the button (it was working perfectly prior to the swap). I've been scouring the internet looking for others who have had the problem and nothing I'm come across seems to resolve my issue. I've checked the TRC files in the IKE and the LCM and don't see anything that would lead me to the problem. Do any of you guys have any insight into this or experience with it?