Tuesday, November 22, 2011

94. Installing angel eyes on BMW E36

Well, this weekend I installed angel eyes on my friends 323ti Compact. (Check out my last post)


I was skeptical about those add-on angel eyes rings, but, I must admit that I was wrong. Installation is extremely easy and quick, and the AE rings look completely stock. My main concern was fixing the rings on the head lamps. BMW angel eyes kits are often sold with a 'No need to drill/glue/hokus-pokus' lines... Well - it's true. No need to do anything horrible to your headlights. The installation is 100% reversible. And, best part is - they are really fixed in their places when you're done.

So, here's a quick step by step:

1. Disconnect and take off your headlamps.
2. Take them apart:


3. Take off the round inner lenses from the headlight cover (As pictured, I had to use a screwdriver to undo the screws - 3 per lens. Some headlights have the lenses glued with silicone, so you must use a thin knife to take them off)
4. Insert Angel eyes rings into the headlight cover. Try to be gentle as possible.
5. Put the inner lenses back on. It'll probably go harder back in...

6. Put the headlight back together (route the wires to the rear of the light - to the bulb socket cover)
7. Connect the rings to the supplied inverters (one inverter per headlight)
8. Connect the two wires from the inverter to your parking light bulb.
9. Glue the inverter with a two-side adhesive tape inside your headlight. (There's a lot of space, don't worry)
10. Put the lights back on your car, connect them, and adjust the height.

That's it. Took me 30 minutes for both headlights.

Here's a few photos of the car with angel eyes:
(The rest are in the post before this one.)





Where can you buy BMW E36 Angel Eyes ???
Try Amazon! :)

4 comments:

  1. hiya mate loving the website, just a quick question what do you think would happen if i put angel eyes when i already have HID dipped beams, any chance of anything melting?

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Wahidul: I don't think anything would melt. We slammed some HIDs onto this compact, after installing angel eyes, and everything is working just fine.

    Oh, if I recall correctly, HID lamps work at far lower temperatures than standard bulbs. (You might want to check this someplace else, it's just something that's stuck in the back of my head.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. nice one. going to do this soon.

    is it just me or are all compacts are DISGUSTING? i dont know why bmw would make such cars and why people would buy such cars.

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Wahidul: I actually love the compacts. Bought one for my girl a couple of months ago. Love the way those little cars feel on the road. A lot like go-karts. Far better than any other E36 body type. And the fuel economy is a bit better. And, the interior, even it was meant to be lower class than the rest of the E36 range, feels far better built. Oh, one last thing - compacts tend to achieve higher prices than coupes or limos. :)

    ReplyDelete