Out with the old

You´ve probably already read the un-boxing and know what i am up to (if you haven´t, you can read it here )

My E34 is already 19 years young and i love the car, but i´m a tinkerer and I can´t leave things alone.
It´s a car that looks good from almost any angle, but i needed to make it mine.  It needed to say "hey man look at me, i´m not just another E34"   What better way to do that, than with a small update.

I decided that the best update both esthetically and from a functional point of view would be new headlamps. The old ones were very pitted and cracked and the quality of the lighting had diminished as a result.

Frosted 19 year old headlights

Now i could have simply bought stock replacements and called it a day, but that just wouldn´t do.  I  wanted anyone who looked in their rear view mirror to see something more menacing coming up from behind.  While i really wanted to airbrush Satan´s face on the hood i thought it might attract too much attention. So i went with Hella´s Smoked Headlamps instead.

I´d like to say that the install was easy, pain free and a joyous event...it wasn´t.  Also, i didn´t take any pictures of the procedure as i was so pissed off, but you can see how it´s done here http://home.comcast.net/~winstonfong/repairpagessite2/frontgrillremoval.htm

Step 1. First you need to get the metal grill surround off. This is probably one of the more painful steps.
You´ll need a very long screw driver with which pop the grill tabs free.  This requires you to spend 20 minutes cursing while probing for the tabs in a small dark hole (endoscopy anyone?)  Once you think you have found them, press downward (some force is required) and the bottom of the grill surround should pop forward. You need to do this on each side.
There are also some tabs directly under the kidneys which need to be pried upwards with a shorter screw driver (much easier) So you can pull the surround forward.
The last part is the easiest. Open the hood and prise up the small tabs on top of the kidneys and push forward. You might also need to remove a screw as well but mine wasn´t there.  You can then close the hood, and pull gently on the metal grill and it should come free.

This took me 20 minutes and i was bruised, bloodied and really pissed off. It´s funny though, it´s not the first time i´ve taken off the grill but i don´t ever remember it being that hard to do.

Step 2. Remove the plastic grills. Easy peasy, use screw driver to remove 5 screws per side and enjoy the fruits of your labors.


 Step 3. Headlamp removal. This was a pain in the ass as well and took me the better part of the afternoon cursing in a dark underground garage.

Remove 3 visible screws located in the front. There are a few more located in the engine bay behind the headlamps. If you want to remove the headlamps with the turn signals attached then you only need to remove the 1 screw that attaches the turn signal to the side fender. You´ll need to feel about to find it.
This is where things got complicated. Every online tutorial i´ve read says that you only need to remove these 4 screws to get the headlamp/turn signal unit out, not so in my case. 
After cursing some more and trying to figure out why the headlamps would not come free i discovered a 5th screw.  This little bugger needs to be accessed from inside the engine bay as well and attaches the headlamp from behind to a small metal bracket.  It is located near the turn signal screws. 
The passenger side is easier to remove, but on the drivers side you´ll need to remove the air box cover to be able to get at the bracket.

Here you can see where the 4 screws for the headlamp unit go.

Step 4. Take a break.  After all of this i looked like Doc Brown from Back to the Future, only in black-face, not a pretty sight. I decided to take a break and continue the next day.

Stay tuned for a much shorter blog entry in which i still don´t document anything but curse a lot.