BMW Luxury Touring Community banner

All mixed up. Need Help!

2K views 7 replies 2 participants last post by  BecketMa 
#1 ·
Okay,
need some help. trying to install one of these HID headlamp bulb upgrades.
got all the stuff mixed up.
I have two bulbs, one's longer than the other. I am assuming the short one is low beam while the other is high beam. Is this correct?
Also, one ballast is 35 W and the other 55 W. I am guessing the low beam is the 35W. I was reading through John Spencer's "how to", and then I got confused because he mentioned the original high beam bulb as an H3 while the low beam was referred to as H7
Last, I got this doo-hickey w/ the kit, which I've already burgered up. Hope it's not too bad. Need to know what it's for (cheap kit came w/ no instructions).
I'm wondering if it's for correctly positioning one of the bulbs that I've read in the past in other related threads.
 

Attachments

See less See more
2
#2 ·
Okay, did some more research. the low beam is the 35W. I'm still guessing on the shorter bulb being the low beam.
 
#3 ·
It really won't matter if u use the 35 watt ballast for high beam; but might as well use it for low.

H7 is the low beam which goes right into the socket. The high beam is installed in an adapter with a plastic handle on one end, helps removing and installing it, of a plastic tube with ribs that side into slots in the socket. A metal crown or cap with flanges on it to hold the bulb in place slips onto the plastic piece.

The H4 bulb is just a bulb with a one wire tail, no flange. The crown makes contact with a skirt on the bulb making the second contact, and the plastic piece has a contact with the crown and flat stock to it's end where a spring tab contacts it and holds in the socket.

Nope, cannot solder a second wire onto the H4 bulb.

We need this adapter because of how BMW designed the high beam, inserted past the rear of the head light into the reflector.
 
#4 ·
The problem you will run into is that the HID bilbs do not make light in the same place that Hallogen bulbs do. Our head lights focuss the light into a beam. The result is that the HID beam is way out of focuss. I bought a spacer for the low beam bulb, which is too thick as it brought the beam into focuss, but only out as far as a stock hallogen bulb.Next time the nose cone is off, I'll play around making the spacer, a washer with notches, thinner.

bob
 
#5 ·
You thing-a-ma-jig has no use in our headlights.

HID kits are typically made for autos. Our head light is atypical, very strange, but it works, well, except for the low beam.
 
#6 ·
Thanks Bob for the heads-up.
I pulled out the high beam bulb and saw a metal "collar" towards the front. I saw the tab that makes a ground w/ the spring metal lock tab. I had both sides of tupperware off and what I thought was all fasteners out of the nose cone, but there seemed to be something right in the top center keeping it from coming out. Wasn't for sure, and it looked too expensive to break, so I put her back together. Will try another day.

That was interesting about the HID bulbs being out of focused.
 
#7 ·
Yes. There is a single screw right in the center at the top of the nose cone. Shud be able to see it with the tupperware under the windshield off.

AND, you have to take the head light adjust apart so that it's cable can be pushed towards the front of the nose cone.

You have to remove the temp sensor from the head light area? Remove the dam parking light from the head light and finally pull the horshoe shaped clip up one click, not all the way off, and the plug with the electricity for the head light comes right off.

It seems as if at least one of those clips with the nut attached always falls of someplace on the tupperware,

Bob
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top