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Installing LED Side Light Bulbs

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AndyG
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Installing LED Side Light Bulbs

Post by AndyG » Sun Apr 03, 2011 12:15 pm

I had an idle moment at work the other day and when an idle bloke is equipped with an Iphone and the Ebay app all sorts of things can happen. I found myself browsing through the thousands of LED bulb replacement options when I thought, "damn the consequences, I'm having a set of those".
Here is a link to the bulbs that caught my eye,
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWNX:IT
Copy the above line and paste it into a new tab. Other bulbs are available!!!
Anyway, they came 24 hours after clicking "Buy it now" and I fitted them. I am so pleased with the result that I thought I would contribute my £9.99 upgrade to this forum along with some pictures to help anyone who, like me, ain't changed a car bulb from under the wheel arch before!

Right then, the picture below is of a typical 501 W5W sidelight bulb. What a waste of time! Put one of these next to the beauty of HID and the picture is ruined! Anyway, the picture shows my Vivaro van but the 1 candle power is the same as our Z4's.
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So, you've got your new LED bulbs with the CANBUS ERROR resistor built in. This is important as the £1.99 version of these 501 W5W LED replacement bulbs will leave your Z4 thinking a light has gone out and mithering you with the dash warning light. The problem is that a conventional 1 candle power resistive filament bulb will draw much more power than a state-of-the-art LED replacement so those clever chinese people build in a resistor with mimics the current draw of the victorian bulb. Still with it? I hope so. Right then, first thing is point the wheels in the direction of the bulb change, off side, as my pic illustrates, right hand full lock.
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Inside the wheel arch you will find a large panel with 2 fasteners positioned adjacent to the outside of the car.
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Turn these fasteners CLOCKWISE to undo them using a coin of the realm like my 2p.
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That done you can now open the flap to reveal the back cover of the headlight unit usually found under the bonnet of conventional, but lesser cars.
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Stick your finger around the headlight unit back cover retaining clip and pull it downwards to unlatch it from to 2 catch points. The pictures are a bit vauge but you'll get the jist when you see it.
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Remove the cover by pulling it towards you. It may seem a bit fiddly but I have no patience and I managed to remove and replace it without ruining anything!
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With the cover off its time for some excitement. You can see nothing that will enable you to locate the sidelight bulb holder so this part of the operation is done with closed eyes and a sensitive touch. If you stick your hand in the vicinity of where you think the back of the bulb should be, then you will find what feels like a 1mm thick piece of plastic about 10mm wide. BMW have designed this in to aid the removal of this bulb. Study the picture below.
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When you have found it, give it a gentle pull and if you are tall enough, you can peep around and watch the bulb disappear as you look through the headlight perspex. What you should now be holding is as the pic below.
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Remove the bulb as normal by simply pulling it out of the holder and put it safe as it can be used for many other places within the car. Right, get your new led bulb and after gazing at it with childlike wonder prepare yourself to insert it into the holder.
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Onwards and upwards, the original bulb will work which ever way its inserted but this ain't the case with the LED jobs. What i did was turned on the sidelights to enable me to correctly insert the new bulb. DON'T PUT THE HEADLIGHTS ON AS THE VOLTAGES WITHIN THE HID SYSTEM WILL HURT YOU. Only the sidelights folks. When you have correctly aligned the bulb, what you should see is what the pic below shows.
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The same thing applies when re inserting the sidelight bulb into the headlight unit. You can't see nothing, but, I developed the following technique. wave the bulb around within the headlight unit whilst looking in the front of the headlight. Use the light to guide the bulb holder home. See my contortions in the pic below.
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OK, Are you ready? this is what you will see and remember, the white light is lovely and visible on a bright spring morning so I guarantee the effect at night is stunning.
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I took the precaution of cleaning the headlight back cover and smearing the seal with some silicon based grease to help it remain waterproof. It had showed signs of leaking slightly at the top edge.
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And finally, refit the back cover and slide the retaining clip back up. Now start the other side. It took me longer to write this guide than to do the job and I think its a really worthwhile mod. Hope this helped. Andy G
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Last edited by Wondermike on Sun Apr 03, 2011 9:28 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Reason: IMG tags added to pics
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Re: Installing LED Side Light Bulbs

Post by a11y » Sun Apr 03, 2011 12:23 pm

Good write up, you've got a way with words :thumbsup:
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Re: Installing LED Side Light Bulbs

Post by Redzedfour » Sun Apr 03, 2011 7:12 pm

i did buy a similar set of led's off ebay intending to fit them into the zed but i tried them in my works van,as it was easier to fit to see if they worked. They worked ok but they do have a blue tinge to the light which put me off fitting them in the zed.The link below is the bulbs i bought.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0665507415

They give a nice white light in the pic but in the flesh there is a blue tinge. :|
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So undesided what to do with them i may just leave them in the van.
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Re: Installing LED Side Light Bulbs

Post by AndyG » Sun Apr 03, 2011 7:35 pm

Mine seem to have a nice white light. It apparently depends on the K rating which means the colour output. IMHO even with a blue tinge they would still look better than the dull yellow OEM bulbs but, as you rightly suggest, it's all subjective and in the eyes of the beholder! I may get some for my van too! :D
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Re: Installing LED Side Light Bulbs

Post by maxman » Sun Apr 03, 2011 8:24 pm

a11y wrote:Good write up, you've got a way with words :thumbsup:
x1

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Re: Installing LED Side Light Bulbs

Post by pvr » Sun Apr 03, 2011 9:08 pm

Could you put the image tags around the pics so they show up? Easier to look at the pics then ...

[ img ] http etc [ / img ]

Without the spaces ....
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Re: Installing LED Side Light Bulbs

Post by PawnSacrifice » Sun Apr 03, 2011 10:29 pm

Nice work an write up, thanks, may try and sort mine at some point :thumbsup:
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Re: Installing LED Side Light Bulbs

Post by AndyG » Mon Apr 04, 2011 6:00 am

Dear PVR and Wondermike. If you could supply some instructions about image tags then that would be a great help as I don't know what they are! I thought the pics were vague but if there is a way to clarify the images I'm bang up for it.
Andy G
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Re: Installing LED Side Light Bulbs

Post by AndyG » Mon Apr 04, 2011 6:02 am

Now I understand! It seems that it has automatically been done as the images now display within the thread. Cheers anyway. Andy G
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Re: Installing LED Side Light Bulbs

Post by dazarooney » Mon Apr 04, 2011 2:28 pm

Great guide! I'm considering doing this to my Z4 so will use this as reference.

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Re: Installing LED Side Light Bulbs

Post by Wondermike » Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:15 pm

AndyG wrote:Now I understand! It seems that it has automatically been done as the images now display within the thread. Cheers anyway. Andy G
I did it for you :thumbsup:

At the start and end of the image URL, put the tags.

http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/dd4 ... 1301829908 becomes

Code: Select all

[img]http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/dd400/a0689/Bulb%20change/DSCN1010.jpg?t=1301829908[/img]

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Re: Installing LED Side Light Bulbs

Post by AndyG » Tue Apr 05, 2011 12:07 pm

Thank you Wondermike! :)
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Re: Installing LED Side Light Bulbs

Post by pvr » Tue Apr 05, 2011 12:15 pm

He has his uses :poke: :D
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Re: Installing LED Side Light Bulbs

Post by ZED_NOT_ZEE » Tue Jun 14, 2011 5:10 pm

I'm a little confused. What is this side-light bulb used for? it's not the turn signal or the day-time driving light, right?

Did it throw a 'bulb out' warning indicator on your dashboard? Have you fitted any other bulbs with LED's (like the turn signals in the headlamps)?

Thanks for the write-up! My first time changing the highbeam/daytime bulb in the rain + in the dark had me cursing at that silly plastic panel in the wheel well.
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