This DIY (Do It Yourself) is a contribution by spoonerDee from Bimmerforums. In this DIY, you can convert your sunroof to become a one-touch open/close sunroof. Isn’t that awesome? Take a look ,the procedure is very very simple.

Disclaimer: Use this info at your own risk!! The author is not responsible if this didn’t work for you :-).

To start this is a very easy mod, will cost about $25 plus shipping from this link.

Here are the basic tools you will need: your hands, a wire cutter/stripper/crimper and one butt connector. I thought I might need a screw driver but I did not.

First either close the door as you work, or turn off your interior lights as you work. Now pull the panel off where the switch is, its barely held in so you can do this by hand with little to no force.

Next, you need to locate the harness from which you will tap your power from. You will see a bunch of small wires wrapped in a red sleeve that goes towards the left, to remove it you will have to push it to the left to get it off of its holder then maneuver it around the motor and the roof liner out so you can work with it.

Here is the harness pulled out.

Disconnect the harness and locate the power wire, it is the Red wire with the White stripe.

Next, take your crimper/cutter/striper and cut the wire, be sure to leave enough room on both sides to work with. Once cut, strip both ends of the wire.

Next take the part you ordered and cut the worthless tip off the power wire (the red wire) then strip the end of it. Next connect one end of the harness to the power wire of the module by twisting them together as shown

Then take your butt connector and crimp them into one end, then take the other end of the power wire and crimp it in the other side like so

Now the module has power, next you need to disconnect the wires going into the switch in your panel, take that wire and plug it into the module. you will notice there is a yellow sleeve on the plug, that insures that it will only plug in, in one direction. PAY ATTENTION YOU WHICH WAY YOUR PLUG IS PUT ON IN THE BUTTON IN THE PANEL, look at the plug in the switch, from the side, you will notice that underneath that sleeve the plug indents on one side. make a note of that.

Now that you have plugged the wire from the switch into the module, plug the matching wire from the module into the switch being sure to face it the right way

Now with everything together turn the car on all the way so to get full power and not put any strain on the battery or the sunroof motor.

Once on push and hold the switch until the sunroof opens all the way, once it is open, push and hold the switch until the sunroof closes all the way. This will set the memory in the module which times how long you hold it in each direction. from then on when you push the button either way it will always open for that amount of time, so be sure you hold it the whole time so it opens and closes completely.

Once you have done this, do your first test run, push and release to open, then push and release to close, sit back and enjoy your one touch roof.

Once you are set, tuck all the wires back into the roof, and replace the panel and your done, CONGRATULATIONS!

Here is a video link to the mod in action. Hard to see the tilt in action but you get the idea.

If you are nervous about working with wires, don’t be, this is simple, easy and a great way to learn how to do minor electrical work on a car.

Note: If you have a pre 97 model, you need to get a 97 plus model plus this part to do the same.

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Are you looking for more do it yourself procedures (DIY) ? I recommend the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual for you. I got it and I think it’s a gold mine for us -BMW E36 Owners-. If you didn’t grab your copy yet, get it right now! I’m sure you’ll find this book worth every penny you’ve paid for. Get the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual

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I’ve been looking for a way to fix my windows switches. The switches work just fine, but the problem is that they don’t light up at night. So, I thought they would look great if I could fix them. I did a lot of search for information about how to do that, but all I could find is one solution that is to replace my switches. Of course that was an option, but I wanted to fix the problem myself because I thought it would be very easy and I would have a chance to spend more time with my beautiful babe (I hope my wife doesn’t hear this ). Anyway, This DIY (Do It Yourself) will definitely help you fix the window switch light problem. I hope you’ll find it useful.

Disclaimer: Use this info at your own risk!! The author is not responsible if this didn’t work for you :-).

First, you’ll need to pull the switch out of the center console. You can do that by simply removing the gear boot and pushing the switch from below. After that, unplug the light wires attached to the switch. Then, use a flat screwdriver to remove the button cover. It’s very easy, but you should be gentle with it in order not to break it. After that, you’ll be looking at the switch which should look similar to this:

This orange or amber light bulb is what needs to be replaced and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. To get access to that bulb, we need to remove the green plastic that is attached to the switch bottom. Using a flat screw driver, push these carefully to remove that piece.

And on the other side as well

Now that the green plastic piece is out of your way, you’ll be able to see the electronic board that is holding the switch buttons and the light bulb.

Push the board to remove the black plastic case as well. Be careful not to break anything.

Now, we have access to the board itself. This is the light bulb that needs to be replaced.

There’s a plastic piece that is used to hold the light bulb. You should remove that carefully while trying to get the bulb out. Remember to be gentle with it.

This is the light bulb that I’m going to use as a replacement for the original one. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the part number for it. Anyway, the light bulb should be:

1. As small as possible in order to fit inside the white plastic base that we removed previously.

2. It should not have a strong illumination, otherwise, your switches will look very odd and they’ll start to heat.

3. These bulbs give a yellowish color. You may want to use your wife’s or girlfriend nail paint (red preferably) to change its color to amber (orange).

Using a soldering iron, you can put the new bulb instead of the old one. Don’t forget to put the plastic white base again before soldering the new bulb.

Put the board back inside the black plastic case.

Reattach the green plastic base to the switch.

Put everything back as it was when you disassembled the switch.

Now, connect the switch to your car and test it. Make sure everything is working fine. I know I didn’t paint the bulb using the red nail paint because it was my first attempt. After I saw the result which is shown in the last picture below, I decided to repeat the whole process again and paint it with red.

This is the result I got after using the yellow bulb without painting it. I’m sure you’ll like the switches more if you paint them.

 

Are you looking for more do it yourself procedures (DIY) ? I recommend the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual for you. I got it and I think it’s a gold mine for us -BMW E36 Owners-. If you didn’t grab your copy yet, get it right now! I’m sure you’ll find this book worth every penny you’ve paid for. Get the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual

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If your car is like mine and has spent quite a long time without having the cabin air filter (please don’t even ask why), then I’m sure that your center airvent will be very dirty. Mine has tons of dirt and needs a very good cleaning as soon as possible. So, I decided to give it a clean up. The problem is that I don’t want to use air or water to clean the dirt from outside (front) because this will simply push the dirt inside the airvent deeper and it will come back again very soon after I turn on my air-conditioning. So, I thought the only possible way to give it a good cleanup is to remove the center airvent. It turned out that removing the center airvent is not as hard as I thought it would be. Basically, you will have to remove your radio and remove two screws that are holding the center airvent from below, then you’ll need to release a cable from under your knee panel. Don’t worry this is not hard either. After you do both steps, you will be able to get that airvent out then you can give it a very good cleanup.

I know that you’re waiting for a detiled writeup about this process, and I found a very good one for you, check here. It provides a detailed DIY (Do It Yourself) on how to accomplish this task easily.

Are you looking for more do it yourself procedures (DIY) ? I recommend the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual for you. I got it and I think it’s a gold mine for us -BMW E36 Owners-. If you didn’t grab your copy yet, get it right now! I’m sure you’ll find this book worth every penny you’ve paid for. Get the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual

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I wrote before about Fixing BMW E36 Headliner and provided a link to where you can buy a kit to fix your car’s headliner. Today, I’ve found this video which shows how you’re supposed to fix your headliner. I couldn’t find a specific procedure to fix the headliner for the BMW E36, but this will give you an idea about how you’re supposed to do when you get the headliner fixing kit.

Take a look, I hope you like it.

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This DIY (Do It Yourself) is a contribution from David Mc. I’ve found it on the Bimmerfest forum and I asked David for permission to publish the DIY on the BMW E36 Blog. He was so kind to allow me to republish it here. The procedure shows how the odometer LCD can be fixed. I’ve written previously about how to fix the BMW E36 odometer backlight, but this is how to fix the LCD, not the light, so pay attention to the difference.

Disclaimer: Use this info at your own risk!! I’m not responsible if this didn’t work for you :-).

This is the problem – only the top half of the odometer and trip meter is displayed. It is a backlit LCD device but the two blubs illuminate the odometer and service indicator respectively.

Since only the top half of the odometer is displayed the problem is obviously with the LCD and not the bulbs. Commonly this is an intermittent but annoying problem.

Begin by removing the cluster – the first step is to disconnect the battery, then undo the two torx screws on top of the housing and use a credit card to loosen and wiggle the cluster out of the dash. As soon as it is clear, reach behind the cluster and undo the three electrical connectors by first depressing the tabs then sliding the retainer up until the connector is released.

Make sure that you face your work surface with a towel to avoid scratching the cluster, then after removing the five torx screws from the back of the rear housing, carefully separate the gauges from the SI board.

Mark out the area of interest – I used white tape and then cut carefully with a piece of hacksaw blade. You could use a Dremel or even a hobby knife heated with a torch for this job.

There is a fair bit of clearance between the cover and the board but I would suggest extreme caution as you cut down the side of the housing toward the board as there are a couple of tracks that run across the board at this point and a slip here could cause big problems.

I worked carefully and completed the cut within about half an hour using a hacksaw blade – my modelling saw would have made life much easier if only I could remember what I did with it.

After removing the cut section carefully dress the edges of the cut area with a small file to remove burrs, then use a small paint brush and low pressure compressed air to clean the debris from the board.

Notice that there are also couple of little gold colored torx screws which secure the SI LCD to the board. Check that they are snug but do not over-tighten them. The idea is to make sure that all the electrical connections are firm, not to cause fractures in the board by over-tightening the components.

I used a hot pencil tipped soldering iron to reflow all of the SI board pins, then carefully replaced the cut cover section using 5 minute epoxy. Apply the epoxy carefully to the cut edges of the housing. Then once its back in place use a rag soaked with turpentine to remove the excess.

All that was left was to install the cluster back into the car, reconnect the connectors, battery and re-enter the radio code and it was up and running!

A heck of a lot cheaper than a new or even a used cluster and I didn’t have to worry about recoding or it displaying incorrect mileage.

Are you looking for more do it yourself procedures (DIY) ? I recommend the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual for you. I got it and I think it’s a gold mine for us -BMW E36 Owners-. If you didn’t grab your copy yet, get it right now! I’m sure you’ll find this book worth every penny you’ve paid for. Get the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 information source.