BMW E36 Blog

Well, I didn’t really expect you guys to fall for this joke and to fall that easy! 😈 Actually yesterday was the April’s 1st and I thought I would try to do a silly joke and see if you guys will fall for it or not. To be honest, I was expecting one of you to say "Hey Tony! This is not your car, are you kidding me?" (take a look at the rims and the side skirts). But what can I say! you all just fall for it. I hope you all have a laugh at this and find it funny. And I want to thank you all from my heart for sending me your messages and comments which were filled of compassion. My car is safe and sound and you can see it here! it’s unharmed. 😀

BMW E36 Blog: The Ultimate E36 Information Source.

Hi folks, yesterday I decided to go an enjoy my car a little bit because it has been a bit too long since the last time I went out. I’ve been very busy with work and I felt that I wanted to feel some speed and doing some crazy things, so I went to a place that I know which isn’t normally crowded and started enjoying my car. The area is great and it’s usually quite so you can try to drive as fast as you can without anyone disturbing you or stop you (police!). After a while I was driving in a very narrow street and there was this tuck which was trying to make a turn and I was doing like 110km/h or something like this when I saw him. I knew right away I won’t be able to stop the car before I hit him, so I started using the horn hoping this stupid A$$ will stop, but he didn’t and I hit him really hard. Luckily I didn’t suffer any injuries and the accident didn’t reach to me (at least one good thing in this bad day), but my car is really really destroyed. Take a look at these photos. I think I will need a fortune to get my car back the way it used to be. Damn it!

BMW E36 Blog: The Ultimate E36 Information Source.

I have mentioned in my previous post Turning Your BMW Lights On Automatically At Night . . . System Testing that while I was trying to get the auto light inside my E36 to work, I’ve burned something. Actually, what I have burned was the Trip Odometer LCD light. At first, I thought this is something really serious and that I have to pay some serious bucks to solve the problem, but after some research, it turned out that it’s actually a bulb in the cluster that needs to be replaced. Piece of cake, right? So, I followed the steps in Installing Silver Gauge Cluster Rings for your BMW . . . DIY! post to remove the gauge cluster. It’s a really good DIY (Do It Yourself). Anyway, please follow these steps for a quick guide on how to do this nice fix.

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

Take a look at my Trip Odometer LCD light. It’s not working and my cluster looks really bad and ugly. Isn’t it?

To start the fix, you will need to remove the gauge cluster. You can start by removing the screws that hold the gauge cluster. There are two of them at 11 & 1 clock. Take a look at these:

When you remove the screws, simply push the bottom of the cluster to the back a little bit and it will move. After that you will need to pull it slowly and carefully. The ultimate target is to slide the gauge cluster from behind the steering wheel like this:

You will notice that there are some wires that are connected to the cluster and they will prevent you from sliding the cluster out. There are three of them, one on the right and two on the left. Take a look at the following (it’s the one on the right)

Before removing it, please disconnect your battery. I didn’t disconnect it and a warning sound started out. I don’t know what this sound was, but it was really annoying. So, I say unplug your battery to make sure the process goes as smooth as possible.

IMPORTANT: If you have the OEM radio from BMW, do NOT disconnect your battery unless you’re 100% sure that you have the PIN code that can unlock your radio.

Removing the three wires is a real pain and they need a lot of attention, but eventually you can do it. When you unplug these wires, you will be able to slide the gauge cluster out. Now turn it and look at the back, here’s the light that needs to be replaced.

Using a flat screwdriver, you can remove that light. Now, here’s a thing that really shocked me. I had the light that I’m going to use as a replacement right here and these lights are usually just pull-out and put the new one instead PERIOD. Surprisingly, this was not the case here. The light was stuck and not going to be pulled out easily as I previously thought, so I had to remove it from it’s plastic cavity to find out that the light bulb is connected to the light connectors. Take a look:-

God damn it! So, I thought, ok lets cut the old bulb wires and solder the new wires instead, but to my surprise AGAIN 🙁 , it didn’t hold. So I finally was able to squeeze the new bulb inside the plastic cavity in a way its wires will be connected to the steel connectors. After that, I tested the bulb and it worked.

Alright, now the nightmare has ended! So, I put everything back in the reverse order and here’s the result. A clear trip odometer LCD . Awesome!

So, what do you think? Isn’t that a cool fix or what?

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.

Hello all, I’ve received this nice tip from David (I’m not going to mention his full name or location, you will know why later) with a nice way to hide your garage door opener behind the light switch cavity. I think this is a nice and smart trick that will make your life easier besides it’s very easy and doesn’t cost much. Here’s the tip in David’s words.

Just wanted to let you know that an easy mod to get rid of that ugly garage door opener is to put it behind the headlight switch cavity. I looked around your website and did not find this, so I hope I’m not repeating something you may have already posted. I took my opener apart (there’s not much to it on the inside), soldered a couple of wires to the switch, and put a momentary contact switch that I got at Radio Shack in the blank spot on the foglight bazel. I used Velcro to mount the thing inside the cavity, plus one on a new 9v. battery. It looks really cool, plus no one will know I have it, so there are no worries about someone breaking into my car to steal the opener and get into my garage. Hope you find this useful.

So, what do you think of this trick? Thank you David for sharing it.

If you guys have any similar tips or tricks that you think may be useful to other BMW E36 owners, please feel free to let me know. I will post them just like this one.

BMW E36 Blog: The Ultimate E36 Information Source.

I absolutely love BMW E36 burnouts, but this one has went too far. Don’t you think? I mean even if I had this car for fun, I won’t treat her like this? What about you guys? Do you treat your babe like this?

Take a look :-

BMW E36 Blog: The Ultimate E36 Information Source.