Hot Glue on my AirCon Controls - E36 AirCon Seperation

  The face of my air conditioning controls has been separating itself from the rest of the unit. I hear it's pretty common. I did not want to spend another $100 so I hot glued in the spots where the face was separating. There are four small screws that appear to hold the face in place. They of course were all broken.

Hot glue the four corners.

Hot glue the bottom.

The face is not lifting anymore, for now. We will see how this does long term.

7/18/15 - Still no lifting. Feels just as solid as new.
8/10/15 - Still no lifting. Good and solid still.
9/29/15 - Still no issues.
2/04/16 - Update - All good.

Distracted by the aftermarket - E36 Factory Lowe Amp Open Case

Thanks to Brad at Parts European for donating two amps for tear down.

  *My Original intent with this post was to dissect the inner workings of the stock amp and, gain better sound quality from it. Read below for more details. After some work, reading, thought, and ultimately time needed in other areas, this post stands as a what if. Nothing more.

  I've been distracted by the after market. Given the low cost of small amps pulled me over to their side. I'll have more up and coming on that in future posts. I'm still prototyping mounting locations. This is my rough draft if you will so far:

  Original Post:

  I'd like to discover whats inside these guys and how/if I can get the rear channels before they are crossed over. In our quest for stereo goodness I need a full range signal to the rear coaxial pioneers in our setup. I'm jumping head long in to territory I know nothing about at all. I'm not an Electrical Engineer by any means. Given enough time and reading material one can be good at just about anything.

  My thought is this: We only need about 25watts RMS to the speakers to get reasonable sound levels. If I can somehow get this from the stock amp or, stock amp parts, I don't have to fool around with mounting an aftermarket amp. Clipping harnesses, is really not an issue as you can get the pins from your current amp and make a harness for your after market amp fairly easily.

  I've browsed many a forum, never posted. I've read a lot about how amps work. I've so far been able to identify what amplifies the sound however, I've got no idea where it goes from there.

We are peering into a Loewe, Low amp. 

Those little flat raised silver pieces are what do the amplifying. They are called transistors. Cool stuff.

  I know from many a wire diagram and, tracing out the wires, where the four channels come into the amp, from the radio. From there the signal goes through a series of resistors and capacitors. There appear to be several similarity configured items on this board. More noticeable from the bottom.

  To get to the signals internally I need to understand which paths come into the transistors from the head unit and which leads they are output through. I reached out to Loewe to inquire about a wiring diagram for these circuits. Of course they were not able to furnish such because of private/proprietary knowledge or copyrights. I assumed that this would be the case. I mean why wouldn't it be. When a company puts time into making and designing something you can't just give out such knowledge to some random e-mailer. 

  This case will be up to me to crack. I've begun doing some more research into how transistors work in general. If I can find another similarly designed transistor perhaps I will have success in finding the output signals I need. This might just be a pipe dream, given my limited time, however, it is certainly an interesting prospect.

Finally finishing ASC delete with 10ohm resistor

  

  I finally got around to putting my resistor across the ASC to remove the lights on the dash.

  I twisted the ends of the resistor wire and gently pushed them into either end of the 2 wire ASC plug. The stock connector was so brittle it broke instantly. I was trying to properly de-pin it. I was going to use heat shrink properly however, I decided to "test" it with e-tape first. I'd hate to get everything shrunk down just to see there was some issue.

  With everything taped up, viola', no dash lights. Works like a dream. Easy to do, and cheap too.

  So the question is why didn't you get a silicone elbow. I'll answer that with a question: why do I need it? I mean for the $25 it costs to get a new BMW non-ASC boot and hose, I delete the ASC with stock pieces. Or for $80 you can get a silicone one that lasts forever, resists heat, and is supposedly better. Anyone see any measurable gains with the silicone one on a stock M52 intake manifold? Doubtful. I don't have that kind of cash flow to drop on something that "might" improve my airflow slightly anyway.

E36 Door Card Speaker Replacement - Part 2 - Wiring it up!

97 E36 4 door w/o door airbags

  In continuation of the speaker replacement install on Jeremy's 97 328i, we are now to the point where we can wire up everything and put the door card back on.

  I looked through several forum posts about water coming into the door if you do not use proper sealer on the moisture barrier behind the door card. 3M window weld seemed to be the go to of choice. 

Also the newer style push clips for the door cards kept the rattles to a minimum. Check and check.

Materials: 

- 3M window weld. We went with 3/8" thick stuff. I think you could use 1/4 no problem.

-20 new style clips, 10 on each door card.

Door card with new style push clips ready to go.

  We had to snip each one to make it easier to get them in. The newer style clips has a solid head instead of a slotted one.

  Getting the old sealant off the door frame was the hardest part for me. I was trying to use a plastic scraper. The stuff BMW put on here was like tar. We used the heat gun but them it was just became soft tar. 

  Jeremy found that using a bit of the old stuff to dab at the rest was the best technique. When he was done he had a large tar ball. Which I should have got a picture of but, I didn't. 

  I went back over a few sections with alcohol then, we were ready for the new stuff.

  Laying down the 3M sealant. The old stuff was 3/8 wide when it was smooshed. I think we would have been fine with 1/4" stuff. The 5 series seem to have bigger issues with door leaks.

  Installation is a breeze. Just push on and smooth it out.

  Now on the speaker wiring side of things I wanted to make sure I was getting my polarity correct. I saved all the door card speakers and short pigtails from each so I could verify this as I went. This method helped me stay on track since, I'm easily distracted.

  As you can see the stock speakers are clearly labeled. Just make sure the solder points on those contacts are going where you think is positive.

  For reference:
The tweeter seen here did not have its ohm rating listed on it. The stock mid-range speakers were 8 ohms. The stock kicker panel (bass) speaker was 4 ohms.

  There we go. Terminals properly crimps and labeled. Door card can be removed again if need be. All the pigtails remain about stock length as well. 

  And that's that. So in terms of sound, how does it do? Well the front speakers are much more clear but, they still sound muddy. The mids are very low in terms of volume in comparison to the tweeters. This is because the Viva's we choose have a lower sensitivity per watt than the pioneers. I'm hoping to be able to tune some of that out once I figure out the settings on the aftermarket Alpine head unit. The bass speakers seem to be robbing power from these when the bass is down low, which is where everyone likes it. 

  Again, getting the stock amp out of there and putting in the proper three way crossovers out back, I believe, will make a world of difference. That is our next step: 3-way crossover installation, stock amp bypass, and aftermarket amp installation.

E36 Rear 6x9 Install - using plastic aftermarket adapters

  The 96+ E36s, without the Harmon Kardon premium sound package, came with 4 inch rear speakers and separated tiny tweeters. Its a two way component system in its own strange way. For sake of cost we opted to go with the traditional coaxial speaker setup. BMW put a two way system in back here so we replicated that same thought while looking for replacements.

  You can't just mount 6x9s in the 4 inch plastic baskets that come stock. You need some soft of adapter. You also cannot fit these pioneers in the stock HK 6x9 assembly due to the size of the magnets. You could modify them to work but, I wasn't happy destroying a perfectly fine working set of HK 6x9s. We thought about making one ourselves however, given the limited time frame I have, it was an easier option to find inexpensive plastic holders already made.

  We went with a two way coaxial speaker from Pioneer (TS-D6902R). From the same model as the front components. I like matching speakers given my limited knowledge of all things stereo. The pros can mix and match stuff and make them sound awesome. We needed a cost effective solution that doesn't sound like dookie. We listened to several different speaker variations from other manufactures before pulling the trigger on these. They are a good sounding entry level speaker for a good price.

  Install is also simple. The adapters accept screws that are about an inch deep/long. Jeremy brought the hardware over. We also used bolts with self locking washers to secure the adapters, using the stock holes.

  Wiring is fairly straight forward depending on how you would like to have these installed. If you want to bypass the stock amp all together you will need to clip and cut wires from the 26 pin connector going to the amp which, is located behind the carpeting, on the driver's side, in the trunk. Since these 6x9s want a full range signal you can get more highs/mids from them in this fashion. More to come on this. Replacing the speakers was the first step for this project.

We were curious how these would sound if that were hooked up to the stock amp on the sub outs. They are the larger wires in the 4 pin connector. Instead of cutting the stock 4 pin clip we opted to unclip the harness from the stock 4 inch boxes. Jeremy made quick work of busting them out.

  I then soldered and heat shrunk the leads that came with the 6x9s to them. So we still have the stock connectors and they are running from the bass speaker outputs on the stock amp. This runs, from what I've read, at about 22 watts RMS. The aftermarket Alpine that Jeremy has runs at 14 watts RMS by itself. So to really get the beats pumping we will probably need to add an aftermarket amp back here as well but, in the mean time, 22 is a bit more than 14. 

  To our surprise the sound coming from them was decent. Obviously comparing a new 6x9 to a blown 14 year old speaker is unfair. Since we only connected the bass outputs I figured we would only get low end. The factory amp does crossover/mix in some mid-range. Which makes sense. With the adjustment on the head unit for the treble we were able to reproduce decent sound. The treble is of course muffled still. The only way around that at this point, is to get the stock amp out of the picture, and get the full range signal to the speaker. Pushing the signal further through an aftermarket amp would  increase their effectiveness as well.

  I wired my 6x9s to bypass the stock amp. They do have more clarity in the high and mids however, they have barely enough bass to enjoy them. I would recommend either run off the stock bass leads or run and aftermarket amp. That's the fun part about testing things. Hearing the difference in real life vs just guessing.

  In current form, these are a large improvement for bass over the stock 4 inch Nokia's (duh), and the highs are more pronounced when increased from the after market head units' built in EQ. In comparison to the HK 6x9s (in my car) they are also more clear and have more bass. The magnets are bigger, and the tweeter is much larger. The tweeter on these is the same as the ones in the corresponding component set. 

We are going to leave these as is for now and refocus on taking care of the rest of front speaker stuff.

E36 Door Card Speaker Replacement - Part 1 - Getting stuff out, speaker mounting

97 E36 4-Door w/o Door Card Airbags

Before reading please note:

• If you don't want to grind/cut the stock tweeter and mid-range speaker holders don't read further.
• The tweeter supplied in this kit(TS-D1320C) is much larger than the stock unit. It will have to be ground down to accommodate the stock tweeter holder.

Stock Speaker OHM ratings:
tweeters: 4 ohm
mid-ranges: 8 ohm
kick panel "bass" speakers: 4 ohm

On our quest for a better sounding E36 stereo system, Jeremy and I finally made a decision on some speakers. Given my past experience with Pioneer we choose this component set:

   TS-D1320C

  We went with mid-ranges from a thread post.

Vifa Mid ranges.

E36 Door Card Removal

  Removal requires a little bit of patience and care but, nothing too extensive. We have a set of plastic panel "pullers" between us. There is a small crow bar in the set which made getting the panels off simple. Note: This pertains to a four door without door panel airbags.

First up are the two screws behind the door handle.

 There are plastic clips glued/clipped in.

 I used a very small flat head screw driver to pry them out.

   The two screws are torx. Sizing.

The one towards the latch side of the door is the shorter one.

The door handle surround also has to be removed. It slides towards the hinge side of the door for removal. Notice the "teeth" on the surround. 

 There are 10 clips on each front door card. There is no airbag on the door for this year. I'm not sure if there is an extra screw behind the airbag symbol on the 98/99s that have the door airbags.

The tweeter and mid-range are secured to the door with screw on sandwich style plates. Its a really cool way of doing it in my opinion. Here is a shot of all the stock speakers removed. 

E36 Kick panel mid/bass speaker replacement. - Easy Street

Removing the lower kick panels consists of a plastic twist lock on the front side. On the driver side the twist lock is behind the hood latch. Don't miss that and break it off like we did. Once they come off you will see the 5.25in stock bass speaker. It is surrounded by what I call rat carpeting. This serves as sound deadening.

Notice that spade terminals on these pioneers are designed just like the stock connectors. No wire splicing required here.

Four screws hold them in. Easy stuff.

Please note that these sound no different than the stock speakers when driven by the stock amplifier. You may notice a slight improvement if your speakers are blown.




E36 Midrange speaker replacement - Stock holder modification.

The vifas fit almost perfectly in the stock mid-range holder. There was a raised plastic guide on the inside of the holder. I needed to shave that down.

I also removed the stock bottom plastic. I don't need that impeding our mid-range sounds. These are a slightly larger diameter than the stock units. A "perfect" fit. Just a little hot glue to keep them tight and cozy.

E36 Tweeter install - Not exactly an easy job with these pioneer tweeters

The tweets that come with the Pioneer components are large. Much larger than the stock units. They are a soft dome design which is what I was looking for. BMW originally out soft dome tweets in the car for a reason. Having a larger tweeter makes for a broader range of capability as well. 

In terms of install I struggled because the tweeter will fit the stock door card opening just fine. It can be secured with the clamps that come with it. HOWEVER, the pioneer is not the same size as the stock tweeter housing. Leaving an ugly indentation from where the old one was originally. Not cool. 

 I also thought about hot gluing the face of the Pioneer tweeter to the back of the stock housing. There is room for this but, i was nervous about them falling off eventually. The only other option was to make these fit in the stock housing. This was an intense moment for me. Grinding/cutting in to a brand new tweeter meant i might ruin it. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS METHOD for the faint of heart.

  Ground out the stock inserts. After shaving the stock tweeter housing they fit "perfectly." 

Much larger than the stock tweeter. You can just see the outline behind the grill. That was that. Next up was to mount the speakers in the door card and wire up everything.

  

E36 OEM Head/Tail Light Assembly Install

  After much anticipation I've finally got my new/used headlights installed. I made a plan for Friday night for the install time. I picked up some wings for the "event" which I entitled "wings and workings". The headlights were the primary agenda, followed by OEM taillights, and possibly Harmon Kardon 6x9s for the rear. These were in original OEM boxes and were on good shape. The speaker installation is super straight forward but, I'll save that for later.

  My good friends Eric and Jeremy came over to hang and help with the installations. We all got off to a slow start. Eric decided that my weird indie dance music Pandora station was not up to par. He created some 80s montage station which was actually pretty good. So with some food in our bellies and some decent tunes we got to it.

  Headlights 

  Jeremy started by helping remove the eBay headlights. There were four 8mm bolts holding the lights in. One left and right, and two on top. 

The passenger side light cover was separating from the housing. Jeremy discovered it was a broken clip on the underside. He was able to pull them apart very easily.

Thankfully these eBay lights also came with harnesses so, not hacked wiring. Nice!

  The halos that were wired into the corner light housing were soldered in place. This was nice because I could wire my city lights using the same cables. Since there were two sets of halos on the one headlight I had four total wires. I only needed two. I clipped the two extras off and wrapped the wires in electrical tape.

The other two were used for the city light. Black to black, brown to white. Some solder and some heat shrink later and I have working city lights and a clean install.

  The hardest part for me was getting the 5 adjusters to set properly. I ran the two lower ones on the left and right all the way down. The lights seem to sit very well with them that way. I'll definitely have to do some alignment as well for them. They have two separate adjustment for pivoting left to right and up and down.

Rear tail lights

  So I'm told that rear tail lights on these are a hard thing to remove. Eric and Jeremy had to beat out the old lights with a hammer. No seriously, they had to beat them out. The seals seem to adhere themselves quite substantially. We thought they were glued in place.

  There are four 8mm bolts holding the tails in place. Or at least there should be. I was missing two from the passenger side for some reason. Even with the two missing bolts we had to hammer the studs to get the lights off the car. 

  Then, some simple clean up of the area under the lights. Eric made quick work of this. Take the bulbs out of the old tail light, put them in the new/used tail light. Then slide it into place. Bolts back in. Done.

  There appeared to be some rusted loose metal in the driver side tail light. It looks like perhaps the remnants of the a reflector perhaps? That was right where the crack in the housing was. You can also see where the rust had started eating through the metal on the backside of the light. This is where the bulbs make contact to get their power. My On Board Computer (OBC) would always tell me I had a tail light out. Not anymore! Except sometimes if it's cold and raining. Anyways, I'm happy to have a set of stock, not broken tails out back.