Had a go at fitting the Bi Xenon projectors I bought off Ali-express the other week.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/For...For-BMW-E46-E39-E60-X3-Audi/32670291575.html?
For AL Headlight Replace Bi-xenon Projector Lens D2S For BMW E46
These are made by Sinolyn and I have used there stuff before, It seems good quality.
They were £46.50 delivered, you get £3 off if you register a new account.
Came quite quickly just over a week to deliver not bad for Aliexpress stuff.
Started off by parking the car in front of the garage door and marking the beam pattern with some masking tape. This way I can reset the headlights correctly to get the beam height correct and the left right position correct.
Whipped the bumper off and removed the off side headlight first. There are several places where you can find out how to remove the bumper and headlights, It's not that tricky especially if you have a 10mm nut driver to undo the 10mm nuts that secure the bumper.
looking in the back of the headlight I could see that the existing projector could be removed by undoing the 3 screws which are 6 point security Torx.
Putting the new and old one together to see how much of a challenge this will be
Well the new one is bigger in a few dimensions, the lens is 75mm across compared to 65mm on the original. They are much the same length and some of the screw fitting centres look not too far apart in dimension so looks promising.
Tried to fit the new projector in the light in the vain hope it might actually fit and I wouldn't have to split the headlight. Well it didn't so I put the oven on it's lowest setting about 120 degrees , removed the HID electronics which is held on by three phillips screws and put the headlight in to bake for 10 minutes. Put the Kettle on and made a cup of tea.
I have some plastic trim removal tools that I used to split the headlight, and use a pair of gloves as well as makes holding the light easier.
The headlight came apart reasonably easy, don't forget to remove the 4 clips before putting it in the oven.
I had bought some new butyl tape to reseal the headlight. It's good to use this as if you stick it together with something like silicon you won't get it apart again. The butyl goes quite soft in the oven . Some people just stick the unit back together using the original butyl but it's more likely to leak I would of thought.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BUTYL-SN...CREEN-METAL-PANELS-BODY-SUNROOF/282706251076?
I removed a lot of the original butyl sealer whilst it was still warm.
You need to remove the indicator reflector at the bottom of the headlight, there are 2 small Torx screws securing it at either end.
You then need to remove the main beam headlight and plastic surround that the projector screws too. This is a bit fiddly but by using the two white hex adjusters on the top of the headlight you wind the adjusters to move the main beam reflector out of the headlight casing. Don't forget to unclip the height adjustor from the bottom of the assembly.
You end up with this.
After making some measurements and looking at the location of the mountings on the new light I determined that I could use 1 of the original mounting points . I had to use a dremel and junior hacksaw to trim the plastic mounting plate as the 4 arms that support the lens have a larger diameter so fouled the mounting. Also the flap that opens for the Bi Xenon effect was catching on the sides.
Points 1 and 4 need trimming to stop the Bi xenon flap from catching. Points 2 and 3 are trimmed to allow the bottom arms that mount the lens to fit.
And after
Time to mount the new projector, The screw in the top left of the projector goes into the original mounting hole.
The bottom two holes need drilling. If you use a 4mm drill you can re use the original mounting screws as they self tap into the plastic. If you look closely at the picture you can see a nut as well as the original red rubber mounting. This nut is needed as the one original mounting sits on a raised pad about 4mm deep. So to keep the projector square you need something 4mm thick . i used some thin nuts.
Should Look something like this
Before you put the headlight back together you need to trim a piece of plastic from just above the ballast for the bulb.
The wires from the bulb are held on a brass clip secured to a piece of plastic. This clip needs removing and the plastic tab cutting back. Otherwise this fouls with the solenoid on the new projector. be careful cutting the plastic tab as the black box under the tab is the ballast for the bulb. Marked "Here" in the following photo.
Next you need to connect the wires from the solenoid black and white to the main beam connections brown and red/white.
This will activate the solenoid and lower the shutter on the projector giving you main beam.
I connected black to brown and white to red/white. Don't think it makes any difference which way you do it as I don't think there is a diode snubber on the solenoid.
Just need to put the front back on now. So check there is no dust , or bits of plastic around. Clean you finger prints off the projector lens (I didn't) and get the oven back on. I let it pre heat for 10 minutes or so. If you are just reusing the original butyl then mount the front part on the headlight and put it in the oven for 10 minutes to soften the butyl.
I removed most of the original and applied some new butyl. It's like a 7mm string thats soft and sticky. You can stretch it to make it a little thinner if you want, but starting in the middle on the bottom of the headlight put a continuous run all around the headlight back to the bottom.
When the headlight comes out the oven it's just a matter of reseating the front of the headlight and fitting the 4 clips.
Refit the ignitor unit with the three screws and put the bulbs back in and rear cover back on.
Now time to refit and admire your handywork.
You will notice that it's a tad darker than when I started and I have just done the one side. I recon it will take me an hour or so to do the other side now I don't have to take piccies and I know what to do.
The right side is the new lens the left the old one just in case you can't work it out.
On dipped. The cutoff is sharper than it looks on the photo as the camera has exposed for the dimmer parts of the picture. You can see there is a lot more light on the RHS.
Main beam is where you can really see the difference, a serious amount of light being thrown out. Not sure why they didn't fit these in the first place.
And a small video,