Materials to Maintain Your ZHP IIIII Hand Protection IIIII Tools to Maintain Your ZHP
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  1. #51
    Has someone figured out how to decipher the maximum towing capacity from Westfalia's formulas?





    I'm stuck on the "Vehicle total weight", which I assume is just the vehicle, and not the vehicle + the trailer.

    Putting 3300lbs ~= 1500kg

    I get a trailer load of around 3080kg which is 6,790 lbs! Which doesn't seem right.

    Here's my math, pls check:

    Everybody loves Fried Chicken

  2. #52
    Ok, there is a very important piece in the westfalia manual that I might have overlooked: The vehicle manufacturers specification for loading are decisive for loading.

    This suggests the hitch itself can handle ~6800lbs, but BMW will likely have their own specifications which will fall underneath the Hitch's specifications, and are therefore decisive. Unfortunatley this number won't exist for the ZHP, since it's an NA model. I believe those ratings are often determined by a number of factors, including the brakes/suspension.

    Where would I begin to find this information?

    I did some research and this website (German) lists an "Anhängelast (ungebremst)" or a trailer without brakes as 670kg or about 1500lbs. This contradicts other numbers I've seen.

    This guy (again German) claims his 330xi is rated for 1800kg according to the German government (fed by data from the manufacturer). That's about 4000lbs.

    Scrolling down, a user named "Tombo" breaks it down:
    316/318/318d 1600kg , 320/325 1700kg , 330/320d/330d 1800kg bei gebrestem Anhänger,max 8% Steigung.

    The caveat "gebremstem Anhäner" means a trailer with its own brakes. 8% Steigung means an 8% gradient/hill.
    Everybody loves Fried Chicken

  3. #53
    Wiring update:

    I don't know why, but I finally had a mind to go in and actually hook my multimeter to the car. Somehow I didn't believe it would feed anything other than 12v to the turn signals. I was wrong. I measured some very weird 5vac, and wasn't able to find a reliable connection for the turn signal light.

    I have a different wiring harness going to my taillight assembly than what t.er posted.

    I have my Hopkins 46255 wiring harness, and now I suspect it won't work. I don't want to tear everything apart and do this job over again, as I have reason to believe it will NOT work with the Hopkins wiring harness. I guess this means I have to go for one of the more expensive options from etrailer. I wish there were more information available online about this.

    I've gone in with the multimeter, here's what I'm measuring:
    Passenger Side
    Pin 5: tail running light 1 (gray dominant/yellow)
    Pin 6: tail running light 2 (gray dominant/blue)
    Pin 7: turn signal (blue dominant/brown)
    Pin 8: brake light (black dominant/blue)
    pin 2: trunk cabin light (12vdc)

    Driver Side:
    Pin 6: turn (blue dominant/green)

    I didn't measure the brake light, but on the tail running lights and turn signal I measured ~5VAC, weirdly.



    As an aside, I'm dropping this archive link of someone who installed the hitch on their e46 M3 which has very nice pictures:
    https://web.archive.org/web/20160331...d.php?t=349258
    Thread is 9 pages, but not all of them load form the archive.

    I came across that thread from this post at e46fanatics describing how to add chain hooks. I'm a little bit hesitant to drill into the hitch because his appears to be stell, but I think mine is aluminum? Also I would lack the spacers, but the chains would only be used in an emergency and probably would cause more damage if they're ever used anyway.

    [edit2]

    I've updated the wiring harness information to be more specific.
    Last edited by Fried_Chicken; 08-23-2022 at 07:27 AM.
    Everybody loves Fried Chicken

  4. #54
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Location
    SF Bay, CA
    Posts
    1,266
    Quote Originally Posted by Fried_Chicken View Post
    Congrats! It seems weird to me that they just clamp onto the ball, but that's what I've seen in the past.
    Yeah, seems a bit suspect, but if those giant roll-on trays with e-bikes hold, then my carbon road bike on such a light hanging rack should be no problem.

    About the trailer weight, I think you'd struggle to keep the tongue weight down with that heavy of a load. Maybe I'm a noob since it was my first time but I had to repack the trailer 3 times for what I'd guess was ~2000 lbs. I used a bathroom scale to measure the tongue weight.

    This was what I did for the chains. It essentially makes it useless, but I guess no one in Europe uses them, and the U-Haul rep didn't care:

    2004 BMW 330CI ZHP (well, technically ZAM)


  5. #55
    Finished. Got everything put together again, the bumper re-installed.

    I somehow missed what tnhl said about needing to cut into the bumper, and when I went to install the bumper I saw it didn't fit. Then it occurred to me, and I went in with my angle grinder and cut the pieces out.

    You have to cut a ~3" x 1" section from the bumper support. No problem with the angle grinder, but I didn't need to remove as much as he did. Unfortunately I don't have pictures.

    Couple things worth noting:
    1. you're going to need a pick. Like one of those harbor freight pick sets. I used it to fish the wires I need out of the wiring harness and when feeding the left turn signal wire underneath the body so it wouldn't be all messy and nasty.
    2. Electrical tools/connectors aren't strictly required but I needed them to do the job to my standards. I highly recommend not cheaping out, and can recommend this place. When I ran the harness outside the car, I cut the rubber seal just enough to fit the 4-flat cable and only that through. I cut the cables and used solder seal connectors to put them back together. Hopefully this provides some protection against water ingress.
    3. A headlamp is required!
    4. A multimeter to test your connection.

    I haven't hooked this up to a trailer, so I don't know if the lights actually work as intended, and my multimeter measurements were weird, but the signal from the car is weird. I'm confident about wire colors I posted here. There seem to be two different types of connectors on these.

    Anyway, here are pictures I have:

    Here's the Hopkins 46255 I got on amazon (used very good) for like $40:


    Here are the taps I did from the car's wiring harness (behind the right-side trunk panel):


    Here's the connector that's different from other E46's I saw posted:






    Here's the left turn signal, you can see how I routed it inside the body so it's clean and inconspicuous:


    and here's where I re-connected the 4-trailer wire with solder joint thingies so I could feed it through the small cut in the bumper plug thing on the right side (I ended up putting a big heat shrink over all of those so it'd be clean):




    Here you can see the wiring harness after I cleaned it all up a bit. Where the glue (E6000) is is where I ended up sticking the taillight converter module:


    And here's how I did the outside wiring. I put some of those same heatshrink pieces on there to protect the wiring, and then used two zip ties to stick it onto the little threaded things coming out of the body:


    And here's where the bumper needs to be cut. The top of the picture corresponds to the front of the car, the bottom to the rear. I marked two pieces with a sharpy, but I ended up having to remove a little bit more because my bumper wasn't totally aligned right. Quick work with the angle grinder.



    I don't have any pictures of it all done, but I'll be sure to get on that! I hope this helps. I could have probably done this in a day, but I went anal retentive on it, and got stuck with stupid stuff (wrong bumper bolt, needed more clips, couldn't figure out what wiring harness works). Hopefully the Hopkins one I got actually works on a trailer lol, I'll be sure to post updates!
    Everybody loves Fried Chicken

  6. #56
    Join Date
    May 2020
    Location
    SF Bay, CA
    Posts
    1,266
    Glad you got it done!


    I test fitted the hitch rack today - doesn't touch my paint at all, which is how it should be.

    Honestly it's not that much quicker than stuffing the bike in the trunk, but I no longer have to keep the seats permanently folded and dirty up the trunk (had a giant comforter laid down, but still). And not currently needed, but I can bring 2 bikes now.





    Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk
    2004 BMW 330CI ZHP (well, technically ZAM)


  7. #57
    That's slick.

    The name brand stuff really is high quality.
    Everybody loves Fried Chicken

  8. #58
    Update:
    I'm getting a rear right taillight out dashboard warning message after having driven in the rain a little bit. Not sure the rain is related.
    I don't have any shorts on the connector that I'm aware.
    Everybody loves Fried Chicken

  9. #59
    Update: taillight out warning light went away. Unsure.
    Everybody loves Fried Chicken

  10. #60

    IT WORKS!

    I should have done this a DECADE ago. This is one of the most fantastic amazing useful awesome upgrades ever done to any car ever.

    Just tested it out with a U-Haul trailer, $20 gets you a 5' x 9' to pick up some lumber at home depot and get some firewood from some guy who wanted it off his property.

    The trailer lights worked flawlessly, as did the hitch despite being slightly smaller than the American style. The U-Haul people were like "I've seen a lot but never seen this", but made no issue when I told them to just throw the chains over the hitch hook thing.












    The trailer lights e-box worked flawlessly after initially giving me a temporary bulb out warning. No warnings since then.
    I'm still a little anxious about absolutely sending it not caring about bumps and whatnot. I was definitely cognizant of the fact
    that I had no desire to bend the frame of the car, but I don't think it was an issue - the westfalia hitch is rated for like 6k lbs or something, the car for 1/4 that (without trailer brakes, maybe I'm over thinking this).

    Manual transmissions are simply superior too. There was no arguing with the transmission on what gear to be in, I ran it a gear lower than I otherwise wood (hey 5th gear, you have a use!).

    Feel free to post here with any questions.
    Everybody loves Fried Chicken

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