DIY E46 City lights OE style wiring
Disclaimer: This is my experience with installing city lights into E46 AL xenon housings. This would be easier in the ZKW because the city light housing is already pre-drilled. I am not responsible for any damages to your vehicle following my experience. Be warn, it can happen! Proceed at your own risk!
I wanted to have euro coding on my car which meant I needed city lights because the turn signals would be off with parking lights. Since US headlights didn't have city lights, I figure what the heck, lets add them the OE. The city lights will operate like how the new BMW's angel eyes minus the welcome lights when unlocking the car. It's the pre-angel eyes :)
A large base of my installation was based on the instructions from one of the most detailed DIY I've seen on the web: http://bimmerbrothers.com/e46-m3-city-light-retrofit/ Huge thanks to them!
Parts required:
- 63128380205 City Light Housing Quantity: 2
- 61138373332 City Light Housing connector Quantity: 2
- 61130007256 Red wire + crimped pin for City Light connector Quantity: 2
- 61130006624 White wire + crimped pin for City Light connector Quantity: 2
- 61130008998 LCM Wire + crimped pin for LCM harness Quantity: 2
- 14ft Blue/Black stripe 20 ga Wire
- 14ft Green/Black stripe 20ga Wire
- 10ft Brown 20ga wire
- 2 o-ring 20ga terminals for ground
- 4 112 o-ring connectors
- 2 W5W bulbs (194/T10 5W bulbs)
- Heatshrink tubing
- (optional) Electrical tape (non-adhesive)
http://i.imgur.com/3V2VhAyh.jpg
I ordered a little more wiring than needed (20ft) so the total cost ended up around $84 for all the parts. Bimmer brothers suggested EFIconnection for getting the wiring and I believe it was around $0.68 per foot. Shipping was a little expensive so that added a bit to the price. YMMV for pricing!
Tools required:
- Torx T20
- 10mm
- 8mm
- Philips Screwdriver
- Heatgun/Blowdryer
- Drill with at least a 1/2inch drill bit
- Filer
- Computer w/ NCSexpert working and OBDII cable.
#Headlight preparation
##Remove headlights.
1st step was to remove the headlights. Remove the corners with philips screwdriver and unbolt the headlights with the 8mm socket. Remove the headlight trim panel and remove the headlight from the car. Simple :)
http://i.imgur.com/U3kGplCl.jpg
##Drill holes for city lights
I started with a small hole to be a pilot hole. I matched a bit to the city light housing diameter started to drill. I don't remember the drill bit size but it was around 1/2 inch. A small file was used to notch out the two different tab sizes. As noted by the bimmerbrothers, I used 2 112 O-rings and the OEM O-ring as the one sealing against the headlight.
http://i.imgur.com/HvBsvfwl.jpg
#Wiring
Large bulk of the installation is routing wires. I aimed to be as close to the OE wiring routes as possible. Tip: Ziptie + gaft tape to the wire help move the wire through grommets.
##Route Driver side wiring
Open up the DME black cover with the torx bit and unplug the DME and detach the white harness to access the firewall hole to the cabin. The DME box has a little nub below the opening for headlight harness. I pierced the nub with a screwdriver and routed my green wiring through here towards the DME box. Once through, I routed the wire through a half-moon shape vent on the back of the firewall. On the engine bay side, the wire was lined up with the headlight harness route to the headlight.
http://i.imgur.com/gYDXAQtl.jpg
##Inside Cabin
I removed the LCM and undid the bottom panel below the driver side. I could see the DME half-moon vent hole where I routed my green wire. I traced the wire and routed towards the LCM X12 Harness. I also ran the blue wire (passenger side) from below to meet the green wire at the end of the X12 Harness. I used the LCM pins I bought (albeit they were brown wires) and lineman spliced the wires w/ heatshrink to cover it. I opened up the harness and slipped the pins into to the LCM: Pin 45 = Green, Pin 44 = Blue.
http://i.imgur.com/qH87ogil.jpg
##Route Passenger side wiring
From the LCM, I routed the blue wire to follow the factory harness going over the steering column and through the loom to the passenger side. I dropped the glovebox and pieced one of the two nubs below the exit to the drug bin hole. Once out there, there is another grommet to route though and follow the passenger side harness to the headlight. Pic below if you need it.
## Grounds
Each side has a ground block where I could tap for the grounds for the city lights. I added an O-ring and followed the factory grounds back to the headlight harness. I didn't take a pic of this cause its straight forward.
##Citylight Connector
Tip: I used the red citylight pin connector for power and the white for ground. I soldered these together and heatshrinked the connection and plugged the pins into the citylight connector. Basically ready for a citylight!
#Cleanup: Wrap up the wires
I used some non-adhesive electric tape and regular e-tape at the ends for easier removal in the future. I wrapped the wire over the existing harness instead of pulling all the existing e-tape to redo the wires. Once completed with wiring wraps, reinstall headlights.
http://i.imgur.com/2OI0yBKl.jpg
## Passenger Side
http://i.imgur.com/XIaDsQIl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/5DdvgSLl.jpg
## Driver Side
http://i.imgur.com/EVKDgzvl.jpg
#Final connector is part of the driver harness and wrapped.
http://i.imgur.com/hB3xC6Tl.jpg
#Coding
The last portion of this DIY is to code in the pin 44/45 to work as parking lights. Originally, I set my vehicle order to EV51 (euro) and wrote the FA to the LCM. Unfortunately I ran into a snag here and the city lights would not light up. I blanked my MAN file to reset the LCM to default values on the EV51. Low and Behold! The city lights work now! Rather than be satisfied with this, I went ahead and copied the default EV51 parameters and compared it to the factory US EV53. I copied below what the actual parameters I changed to get this to work. Now I don't know if they were all necessary but I will try to figure out which one is necessary in the future when I have more time with my computer and the car.
##Differences between EV51 (Euro/Left) and EV53 (USDM/Right) LCM parameters:
https://www.diffchecker.com/0AVLNhxs
##NCSExpert parameters changed:
http://i.imgur.com/bgJstfCl.png
My E46 NCSExpert changes are listed here and show a little more detail on these parameters
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
# Final Pictures
http://i.imgur.com/ErjfSIfl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Czc5WCNl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rQxaezsl.jpg
#TL;DR
Citylights installed OE Euro way and functionally the same as European models. :D Hurray!
