Euro smileys not working - Help needed

[Eddie Lives On]

Hello guys,

I'm having some issues with my euro smileys. It's been a while (years) since I worked on the car, it's been in storage since then, so I don't remember every last detail.

I had acquired some 9005/9006 adapter from an HID kit. The plan was to have some sort of adapter to plug into the OEM plug/harness of the US headlights and into the smileys, so that I wouldn't have to butcher the original wires.
Cut the female ends on the adaptors, connect the male end with the euro wiring sourced from BMW directly.
Soldered the OEM wires for the smileys with the 9005/9006 male pigtail from the HID kit and I'm left with what you see in the picture.

Also, two new fuses, two new H1 bulbs. Still nothing. Using a multi-meter, there is connectivity but I get 8.5 volts directly at the car's harness, but only 2.2 at the end of my home-made adapter. Seems like the adapter, or my soldering, is crap.
The result from all this is that the smileys don't work and I don't know how I could sort this out without hacking the original wires on the car.


Hopefully, I can get this sorted quickly once I get access to my car, because once I have the car, I have about 3 hours to sort a few things then drive it 3 hours to my new home.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[bmwman91]

So did you have HIDs in there, or did you just salvage connectors from the HID harness? I am assuming that you salvaged connectors and are running halogens.

With only 8.5V at the end of the OEM harness, and assuming that you have >12V on the battery, something upstream is obviously busted. Maybe the headlight relays took a dump, or the PCB in the fuse box has corroded. Keep probing back up the chain until you find where the voltage drop is occurring. Wiring diagrams are here, section 6312:

http://www.armchair.mb.ca/~dave/BMW/e30/

It seems that the headlight circuit diagrams do not always match the vehicle model/year, with the main difference being whether or not you have the full check panel with headlight monitoring. I think that 87 and earlier are without and 88+ include it based on looking through the PDFs. Time to get your extraterrestrial on and start probing.

[Eddie Lives On]

So did you have HIDs in there, or did you just salvage connectors from the HID harness? I am assuming that you salvaged connectors and are running halogens.

just got the connectors, running H1's.

With only 8.5V at the end of the OEM harness, and assuming that you have >12V on the battery, something upstream is obviously busted.

Battery was old, I was mostly providing this info to show the delta before and after the adapter.

Maybe the headlight relays took a dump,@ or the PCB in the fuse box has corroded. Keep probing back up the chain until you find where the voltage drop is occurring. Wiring diagrams are here, section 6312:

http://www.armchair.mb.ca/~dave/BMW/e30/

It seems that the headlight circuit diagrams do not always match the vehicle model/year, with the main difference being whether or not you have the full check panel with headlight monitoring. I think that 87 and earlier are without and 88+ include it based on looking through the PDFs. Time to get your extraterrestrial on and start probing.

Relay was good back then, thanks for the diagram, I'll look into this. FWIW, car is an 88 325is.
If the adapter is crap (any ideas on how to determine that, other than method attempted above?), any suggestions other than the adapter that wouldn't permanently affect the original wires?

Thanks

[bmwman91]

You could use the multimeter to check the resistance from each end of the adapter to see if one of the legs is dropping a lot of voltage. I have a hard time believing that soldered joints would be that bad. Maybe a wire fatigued in the sacrificial connector and is frayed where it is crimped into the terminal?

Also, when you say you saw this big voltage drop, where were you probing between exactly? If the voltage between a ground point and any joint in the headlight wiring circuit is even 1V less than full battery voltage there is something messed up.

[Eddie Lives On]

This was years ago, and I certainly don't have the right terms for this, but if memory serves me right, basically I just put one of each lead in both holes on the plug with the key on the "on" position on the factory plug, then connected the homemade adapter and did the same thing. Like I said, this was years ago and the car has been in storage since, but I'll try again next week, with a brand new battery.

[bmwman91]

Assuming that you also had the headlight switch turned on as well, that should be fine for checking the voltage.

[spyder918]

Hm...your adapter looks good to me. I did exactly the same thing but instead of soldering I just used marine grade butt connectors and works fine.

[Eddie Lives On]

Assuming that you also had the headlight switch turned on as well, that should be fine for checking the voltage.

Maybe it's the battery that was too far gone? It was already close to then end of its life when I started this, and kept it around to operate the windows basically... Maybe it'll be alright with the new one? Not sure that explains such a big difference in voltage though.

Hm...your adapter looks good to me. I did exactly the same thing but instead of soldering I just used marine grade butt connectors and works fine.

Good to know. My guess at this point, once I the old battery is replaced, is maybe it's the wiring on the plug from the HID kit that is crap, or the plug itself?

[bmwman91]

If the battery is totally assed out then all sorts of weird stuff can happen, like the headlight relays not fully contacting since the pull-in solenoid isn't getting sufficient current, among other things. Try out a properly working battery and this may all clear up.

[Eddie Lives On]

If the battery is totally assed out then all sorts of weird stuff can happen, like the headlight relays not fully contacting since the pull-in solenoid isn't getting sufficient current, among other things. Try out a properly working battery and this may all clear up.

Will do. Brand new battery is ready to go in. I just figured I would be getting 0v both before and after the adapter, rather than 8.5 and 2.2.
Will update come Sunday.

[Eddie Lives On]

Plans failed, wasn't able to troubleshoot anything due to the painter screwing me over... I'll be able to work on the car in a few weeks at best... thanks both for your help