87is with smileys

[jllphan]

Just completed a major service and cleaned up the engine bay while at it. My car didn't have the "rear headlight covers" (plastic panels that sit behind the headlights in the engine bay) when i got it and wanna add those back in. Thing is, smiley's are way deeper than the sealed beams, so I'm wondering if I need a specific set? Looking on realoem, they list the same part number for an 87is as they do a '91 w/ ellipsoids, but I've found discrepancies on that site in the past.

And really looking to confirm two things:
-Are all the covers universal in regards to headlights (work on sealed beams and ellipsoids/smileys)?
-Are all the covers universal in regards to year e30 (do the same covers work on early e30's vs late model)?

[Albie325]

Ran into the same problem, you need to pick up the later model, deeper covers:




My car is an early model ('86), but I don't think it matters early/late. Here's a side-by-side of the two different covers, you can see the new ones have a bit more of an indent to them (new is on the left). I had to trim the passenger side to fit over the receiver/dryer:






Old cover installed with Smileys, no bueno:



And new ones installed:







Hope that helps!

[jllphan]

FANTASTIC info, thanks SO much for the quick and detailed response!!

[Albie325]

No prob, sometimes the little details are hard to find. Glad to help

[Staszek]

No prob, sometimes the little details are hard to find. Glad to help

Question for you did al the later models come with the deeper covers? I didnt have Smileys originally in my 1990 but put them in, the original covers I have work but seem tight.

[hubcapboy]

This is pretty interesting... my '87 must have come with the late plastics despite having sealed beams, because when I installed projector beams I didn't run into this problem.

[Albie325]

Question for you did al the later models come with the deeper covers? I didnt have Smileys originally in my 1990 but put them in, the original covers I have work but seem tight.

I'm definitely no expert on the later model cars so I'm not totally sure if all of them came with the deeper covers. I know that for (I believe) model year '88 and up, you had the option of either sealed beams or US spec ellipsoid headlights here in the states, which are the non-smiley "bullseye" style ellipsoids that some cars have. These are deeper than the sealed beams as well but from pictures I've seen, don't seem to be as deep as the euro-spec ellipsoids. I've never seen them side-by-side however.

Not sure if BMW decided to just make all of the covers deep starting in '88 rather than have to manufacture 2 separate versions of the same part. I didn't even realize there were 2 versions until I tried putting my old covers on once the smiley's were installed, they didn't come close to fitting. I did some searching on realoem and found a page with ellipsoid headlights on them and the different part numbers for the covers than what were listed for my car. Even after installing the deeper covers they are still a tight fit with the Euro smiley's, the drivers side just barely squeezes in between the ABS pump and the back of the light.