i just bought e36 bmw headlight for my 1992 maxima SE and i have no idea where to start....can anyone guide me thro this i will appreciate that....thanksss

 

search the .org tons of people have done this swap. There was once a person on here that was selling a custom bracket to fit the mw's E36 lights into the stock maxima's metals brackets but don't no if that's still around.

 

so it has been awhile since i've done progress on my headlights and today i have done that. i went ahead and separated the E36 lens from its housing and also separated the euro maxima lens from its housing. i then grabbed the E36 housing and just trimmed down the inner lip down so that the euro maxima glass lens fit over the E36 housing. there is still a gap between the glass lens and the E36 housing but nothing that some good glue can't cover. and the glue that i will be using will be the one that is used for the windshield on all cars and trucks. that stuff is really strong so i will get a tube of that from my job and will post pics of this once more and see if i can finally finish these lights. so for those that wanted to know if its possible; well, it is so i will continue this for the other side tomorrow morning until i can finish the lens swap and then figure out how to seal up the backside of the housing for the projectors but before i do that i will mount them on the car and snap pics of it so that you guys can see how they look.

 

NO THX!

naw j/k do it like u said!

 

yay

 

in it for pics

 

i'll try and post them this weekend. today i just did the same to passenger side housing so im gonna have to sand it down and paint the inside.

 

looks good

 

sorry it took long for me to post them but i had a hectic weekend. here are the pics of it so far. i wasn't able to install it on the car cuz it got dark out.






i have to install my CCFL angel eye rings but apparently one of them got damaged during the process so now i have to order a new one so that i can seal up the front it and then worry about the back of the housing.

 

Looks really good slick Rick. Like looking at my own pics! I have the halo projectors fitted to the euro glass as well, but I'm not ready to commit to glue yet. Still making some adjustments.

 

thanks buddy, more like dejavu for you. im not gluing everything together as well since i need to make final adjustments but won't be able to do so once i get the other set of angel eyes for my lights.

 

good stuff rick! they're kinda like mine except yours are hid-spec and mine are halogen-spec.... that and goon made mine for me so i don't have quite the satisfaction you do...... are you gonna shroud that little gap on the rear of the housing where the dish fits up to it?

and hadley you have projectors? is this recent? in your MOTM thread i thought i just saw chrome euros..

 

No it's not recent. I've had the halos for about two years. I had them on my other VE before I made my clear corners, or the VE/VG engine swap. I tell ya, it was fun having two 3rd gens to choose from back in the day. But one had to be sacrificed for "the dream" lol.
MOTM is further up the driveway sleeping next to the van.

 

i see... how come you didn't transfer them onto the MOTM?

 

Well they were in the MOTM for a little while when I first got them, then I took them out to work on the clear corner project. Just as I started to get to work on fitting the halos to the clear euro glass I got sick... for the entire summer! I somehow managed to get mononucleosis.
So I didn't do a single mod all summer, which is especially frustrating when you live in a climate where you only have a precious few months before you're buried in snow again.
I should have been finished this months ago, but I was in bed most of the summer. Mono is a nasty virus.
Anyway, sorry for jacking your thread Rick. I'll add pics to your thread when I get mine done... some day.

 

so uh, what we see on the other car is stock plastic E36 covers then?

that sucks you got sick for so long! tho it kindof explains how come we didn't hear from you much.. are yours HID-spec too? or halogen-only?

 

im still working on sealing the backside of it. right now im concentrating too much on the front right now and then test fit them on the car and make adjustments to the projector and then i have to make a custom harness for the HID's, bi-xenon feature, and driving lights in place of the high beams. i can say im nearly half way done with this project after more than a year and a half after i started it.

 

its cool Hadley just as long as you start yours as well and post pics of it on here.

 

Yep they are plastic covers - and they're halogens. But like Rick, I got the euro headlights well over a year ago in order to replace the plastic on the e36's with the glass.

Will post pics indeed Rick. Will probably be a while before I can spend any quality time on the project though. Too much 'ish' going on in my world right now.

 

Oh boy. Priorities swapped; I pray u could go thru the project... I dont know much about any thing, but I can also boast on being not able. Not all is bad t here: being in bed lets some of the oddest hobbies to thrive - like repairing maximas across the globe

 

would you like a set of projectors to retro with over the winter? i might be able to help... just not E36 housings

 

The drivability might suffer: wont like a ticket caused by missin E-stamp on the lamp front glass. The only way could be via using hella E36 lamps with the Euro -stamp; see www.hella.com. But that money is nowhere to bee seen, my Californian aunt has not sent checks since 30's...

 

Still working on these, sheesh mang... lol

 

yeah, i know but work and school has been keeping me really busy. so i had to leave the project rest for a bit but didn't think it would take more than a year but i have made progress as you can see. plus i don't like to rush it since this would be my first projector retrofit with maxima euro glass lens on E36 housings.

 

i might need to do something like this for my E36's..... i was playing with them and noticed that compared to the J30 projectors i was also playing with, that, well, they are pretty dim. so i peeked inside and saw that all the chrome has bubbled and peeled on the dish!

dunno preciesly what type they are (got them from Goon) but is there any way you can kindof see how much new dishes would cost? they look like this:



otherwise... i might need to look into this E60 thing. Lemme know what you can find out.

edit: i think these are DEPO E36 housings?

 

i really wouldn't know what kind they are and about the dishes, you got me there too. have you asked goon about it?

 

no, i just noticed it last night. here's a CRAP load of pics i took of the beam patterns out of the J30 and E36 projectors..

http://s164.photobucket.com/albums/u...E36/?start=all

this is the lowbeam of my E36, as is, (55W H7 bulb... powered by computer power supply haha)



and uh, this is what my dishes look like



so.. for them being THAT messed up, the pattern is good, just weak. perhaps sand, reprime, and spray on some chrome paint from idiotzone?

i really like the highbeam on mine tho.... it lit up my ENTIRE room.. you have to watch the video at the bottom to understand just how expansive the light from the E36 highbeam is... the pic was too close to show the full beam pattern.

 

if you can open them up then you can re-do the whole prime and paint thing for the dishes but i don't know if "chrome" paint will even work since i don't have luck with "chrome" paint. the times i've used chrome paint it never turns out into a shiny chrome its always dull maybe i don't know how to spray paint or maybe the brand is not the right brand that im supposed to be using.

 

here's what I got so far. I hope i'm not jacking your thread too bad since I don't have E60s.....

 

thats fine buddy as long as we keep it about the headlights here.
the dish looks very similar to that of the E46 projectors. are those the ones from the headlights you got from goon? get to working on fixing those.

 

yea, those are the ones I got from Goon. i'm sanding the bowls right now, then i'll see what i can get for paint. they seem to be aluminum

ps: sanding these things is a pita

 

Wow were you running hids or stock halogen bulbs in there that looks kinda bad bro. Since youre going to sand them why not chrome them or polish them if they are steel.

 

halogen bulb H7 55w but being that i was running it off a computer power supply... i'm not sure if it was at more, less, or normal output. anyhow, yea, the lack of reflectivity is really hurting the brightnesss. I might actually get them chromed professionally. I'm not sure if chrome paint can hold up to the heat. the bowls are metal tho. so polishing is potentially an option too.

I'm working on the J30s in the meantime. I have a crapload of pics of that... started cutting up a spare stock headlight last night. i'm not using that actual housing.... this is just a test. i'll get some black Euros, and put them in there. But i'd rather screw up some nasty old stock housings and learn, rather than screwing up a brand new housing and being out the cash.

 

yea i know when i did mine it looked way worse. I havn't finished them like i planned or wanted instead i became a first time dad. But since my wife isnt working i going to finished them. Since you are using the j30 dual projectors like i did unscrew the bowls for the low beams and cut the flap on the top it will free up alot of light hidden in there. Overall i am pleased with them.

 

ok so.. i got the J30s to line up properly... i marked off some things with a sharpie as reference, so i don't have to cut as much material next time, and so i know exactly where to line it up. i drew a line on the lowbeam housing that continues the seam between the highbeam dish and the highbeam housing.... and also a line across the whole housing where the main part of the rad core support is. i set the highbeam dish/housing seam in-line with the front of the core support. also that ring at the top of the housing where that swivel ball pops in (the one you had to pry to get the assembly out of the J30 housing).. well i'm gonna make a small metal bracket, and attach it to the top of the maxima headlights... then i'll figure out some other mounting points.


one more pic... only 5 pics per post :grumble:

but uh yea i know what flaps you are talking about. i wonder why they even put those there... kinda lame if you ask me.



i was also thinking of cutting a very slight angle on the short side of the cutoff, to let the flare come up another degree or two on the right side of the pattern like the e36 lights do.


SPEAKING of the E36 lights... i have been chewing up sanding disc after sanding disc on my dremel as well... trying to clean up the bowl on the E36. So far i have killed like... probably the majority of my sanding discs since they nare just paperbacks.. but eh, here's what i have so far:





a few questions about your j30s tho..... what shroud did you use (the one in the j30 housing, trimmed to fit and painted? or something else?), and uh, how much material did you have to cut away from the radiator support, and do you have pics of them w/o the glass on? i think i've got the backsides pretty much covered at this point...

 

caped, those flaps on the j30s are the foreground limiters. they're supposed to give your eyes a rest from the brightness of the HIDs, or something. most people negate that effect by running fogs to fill in the missing light.

i'll give you some advice that you probably won't like. ditch the e36 bowls and find some OEM HID projectors. you won't be able to get the bowls perfectly smooth by sanding them. any imperfection WILL decrease output. getting them re-plated will most likely cost more than a set of good OEM projectors that were meant for HID.

it seems like you're set on running halogen. i just think it's a lot of work. it'll obviously be an improvement, but you'd be replacing old technology with old technology.

 

The J30s are the temporary solution due to the fact that i have the lovely one-piece headlight assemblies Goon made, and ultimately want to use them (E36). But since they will take alot more work/money to get ready, as noted above, I'm going to use the J30s in the meantime, probably early next year. I'm not sure what bulb type will be in them. I could get HIDs, and then transfer the bulbs into the E36s when they are ready. I have seen people that ran HIDs in the J30s, retrofitted into a WRX and the pattern wasn't all that bad. So I may do HID on those. Here is a pic of the IHD output from the J30s on the subaru... not sure why the cutoff looks like that, other than that maybe they are rotated clockwise a little bit.

But ultimately, I do plan to use the E36 housings.. but probably not the E36 projector. I might be able to get my hands on some X5 BiXenon projectors for pretty cheap, or there's a chance rick might be able to find something hid-spec that he can sell me. But that's not something i'm worrying about NOW.. more like something i'll be worrying about when i can afford to mess with it. I plan to wire it up in such a way that if the headlights are off, the halogen highbeam will flash (instead of flashing the HID.. i heard that's not good for the ballast), but if the HID bulbs are on, to use the bixenon shield solenoid for highbeams (flash or steady-on).