Rear light issues

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anonymous
  • Start date Start date
A

Anonymous

Guest
Ok firstly I have to say thank you to flybobbie for his video on removing the rear lights that can be found on YouTube if you search .

I know this has been cover before but here is my take on things. The following may be of help to someone with what I have discovered when looking at my own car .

If you think you lights may be suffering from water ingress, you need to look at the bottom white/silver indicator section of the lamp to see if you have this sort of thing




Next also look at the edge of the light lens here and see if it looks like this




If it does, then it's a good bet that the seal between the lens and the housing has been compromised too, a frosty look here is a bad sign .

With the lamp removed from the car , clean off the debris that will be around the rubber seals that seal the lamp into the back panel . Then carefully remove the seal panel by prising it off like this




This will then reveal the seal that will also cause issues if not attended to , as its porous and soaks up water eventually , also one of mine was fitted poorly which doesn't help .



You will note that the the bulbs ( apart from the indicator led's which are not replaceable ) can still be removed with the seal panel in place , so don't worry about the next bit, which is basically sealing the panel onto the grey housing to prevent water ingress.......



Clean the lamp lens and housing joint , where the lens meets the grey housing , where is may be compromised. Clean the seal and seal panel, dry them throughly , dry the lamps out thoroughly in a airing cupboard or on a radiator etc until the lamps and seals etc are completely dry.

Now refit the seal into the plastic holder( the googles plastic trim with rubber seals ) then run a bead of silicone sealer around the refitted seal and replace it on to the rear lamp housing and push it firmly into place on all its clips whilst the silicone is still wet .

Now run a bead of silicone sealer right around the lamp edge between the lens and grey housing , smooth the joint off with a wet finger making sure the gap is full of sealer , do not worry at this point about excess, this can easily be trimmed off with a sharp knife when the silicone has dried , but try and fill the gap fully with silicone sealer .



Refit the lamps and hopefully the water ingress issue will be sorted. It appears the bottom edge of these lamps crack away from the inner housing whilst flexing when the roof is operated . And the seal inside the plastic holder is made of open cell foam which allows water to soak up and then bleed into the housing eventually . Crappy design .

Hope this helps someone
 
Good post & reminded me that the rear bulbs on 89s are silly money ( £20 ??? ish rings a bell ) to replace & generally a dealer only item :cry:
 
mr wilks said:
Good post & reminded me that the rear bulbs on 89s are silly money ( £20 ??? ish rings a bell ) to replace & generally a dealer only item :cry:
Click to expand...

Really ? Aren't they just capless 12v 16w and 12v 10w bulbs ? Seems steep if your correct Andy , why do they need to be from a dealer. ? Am I missing something ?
 
Dietcokeman said:
mr wilks said:
Good post & reminded me that the rear bulbs on 89s are silly money ( £20 ??? ish rings a bell ) to replace & generally a dealer only item :cry:
Click to expand...

Really ? Aren't they just capless 12v 16w and 12v 10w bulbs ? Seems steep if your correct Andy , why do they need to be from a dealer. ? Am I missing something ?
Click to expand...

Dunno for sure :? just remember picking my 23i up from my indy after he replaced air con condenser who mentioned that he had replaced a fog lamp bulb but luckily from a scrap E89 he had in as otherwise it was a silly price from dealer ?
Could be wrong but it just clicked in my mind when i saw your rear lamp unit
He didn't charge me for it so can't say he fleeced me :P
 
Z4M-2006 said:
382/582 or double element 580....

£1 each..
Click to expand...

Must have got it wrong , with 6 Zs this years + family motors i seem to be forever there :oops:
i'l be over there again next week for my van MOT so will ask him
 
Z4M-2006 said:
382/582 or double element 580....

£1 each..
Click to expand...
I could be wrong but I believe they are capless and 955 or 921 bulbs ? 382 is capped for certain .
 
Yea the 582 is the capless of the 382...Thats what i meant..

Maybe different numbe/ref per manufacturer.....we use Wurth bulbs..

Or maybe i shouldnt have had a couple of pints on the way home.. :rofl:
 
Z4M-2006 said:
Yea the 582 is the capless of the 382...Thats what i meant..

Maybe different numbe/ref per manufacturer.....we use Wurth bulbs..

Or maybe i shouldnt have had a couple of pints on the way home.. :rofl:
Click to expand...

Yes maybe ! Again I could be wrong. But I thought that the 582 was 21w, the bulbs in mine are 16w and 10w , not 21w
 
My first and second attempt to seal to the lamp housing I used silicon sealant without success.
Finally after stripping off the sealant I used a liberal amount of Evo Stick glue and that finally sealed the units.
The cracking at the bottom is the within the Acrylic. Have seen this before on traffic light lenses and I have a Samsung tv with what they call the wine acrylic frame and that has developed the same stress cracking.
 
flybobbie said:
My first and second attempt to seal to the lamp housing I used silicon sealant without success.
Finally after stripping off the sealant I used a liberal amount of Evo Stick glue and that finally sealed the units.
The cracking at the bottom is the within the Acrylic. Have seen this before on traffic light lenses and I have a Samsung tv with what they call the wine acrylic frame and that has developed the same stress cracking.
Click to expand...

I'm not a expert on this , but I managed a large commercial body shop for years , so I have some idea , but flexible silicone sealer should do the job if applied correctly , it needs to be a nice thick bead, about 4/5 mm , not a thin smear, and both surfaces need to be clean and dry for good adhesion , for a good seal .

The lights cracking at the bottom edge could be caused by flexing as they do move ( BMW tech mentioned this to me ) as the roof operates , but it could also be that if water gets into the light through the seals it sits in the bottom of the light, and in cold weather it then freezes and cracks the bottom of the light . I've seen at least one this week that was completely detached from the grey section of the housing .
 
Problem I found with silicon it doesn't seem to stick to the plastic BMW supplier (Magnetti) have used.
Cracking cause just a BMW excuse for cheap Acrylic.
I see they removed one bolt attachment.
Can't see how it flexes.
What we see could be craze cracking. I see it on aircraft canopies especially if an aircraft has been paint stripped with nitromors paint stripper. Which you should never do.
It attacks the plastic and cracks internally. The cracking is a reaction to the glue that has been used to bind the clear and red parts to the housing.
I think that they didn't really want to call back over 100k cars.

Acrylic is hard to mould, we had a Chinese supplier that didn't want to know, would only supply our product (Traffic light lense) in polycarbonate.
 
I ordered a new lamp from ECP that arrived today , and the rear seal is slightly modified in that it now has screw down tabs on the goggle seal plate and as others have mentioned one less mounting fixing. I sealed the plate down again like others I have done and ran a bead of sealer around the external lens to housing joint before installation tomorrow .



 
I had a new pair from ECP with the modified backgasket but i've just noticed today there is condensation on the inside of the nearside lamp, so that will have to be redone.

Mike
 
Looks like the missing bolt has been removed for the extra screw to hold down the 'goggles' in the middle.
Probably not changed the foam seal material.
Anyone retro fitting these don't forget to blank off the hole in the body otherwise you will get a boot full of water.
Bulbs can be had from Halfords around the £3-4 mark for two.
I know because the first time I disturbed the housing, the bulbs blew on refitting.
 
Have just finished drying out and reasealing my nearside lamp as above, will refit when it stops hissing it down
As to the bulbs blowing , i have 2 spare sets from the old light units. :P
Mike
 
Another point worth mentioning here is the rear lamp rubber seals. You must make sure they are fitted correctly into the rear panel of the car. When you offer the lamp back into its hole, the rubber boots need to be fitted correctly . They need to be pulled through the back panel hole and seated correctly onto the panel. The boots have little tabs on them and you need to pull these to tease the sealing lip of the boot onto the rear panel. It forms a seal between the back of the lamp, where the water runs down and the boot of the car. I have seen at least one car recently where the owner had investigated the lights and then refitted them but not fitted these seals correctly and water was getting into the boot. Please make sure the sealing lip is in place correctly . If you check the rubber boots when the lights are out the sealing lip can easily be seen .
 
I had quite a bit of water in the rear lights, just pulled the bulbs out and borrowed the wife's hair dryer and gave each housing a blast for about 10 mins. Dried out all the condensation in the top of the lenses.
:rofl:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom