Halp! foglight woes.

[RacingTowardsRed]

I put a new bulb into my burnt out foglight and it worked for about a week and then went out again. I dont want to replace the foglight because that would be 'spensive. It seems like a short somewhere, but I dont know electrical at all. Thanks for any help!

P.S. - help again? My foglight glass is pretty faded, any advice on getting it all shiney n' new again? Thanks!

[1990_325i]

Dont touch the bulb with ur fingers the oil from ur fingers cause the light bulb to burn out

[gearheadE30]

Are you sure it is burned out? When you pull the cover off of the bottom of the light, there is a metal plate. If you look towards the back of the light, you can see where it plugs into the lead to the connector on the back of the foglight. I have seen a great deal of fogs where this connection has gone bad. I used a wire wheel to get all of the crap off of the metal surface and then soldered the plate to the lead. Works great now.

The fast burnout may also be because of a crappy bulb. The fog bulbs get pretty hot, and lower-end bulbs are known to not last very long.

For the lense, you will either need to buy a new foglight or pick up a set of plastic lenses off of BMWlight.com. I have yet to find another site that offers lenses for the late e30 foglights, and the quality (at least of my set) is very good. I reccommend also getting some lamin-X to protect the lense, because the acrylic is softer than glass.

[RacingTowardsRed]

thanks! some great info there. :up:

[Sam Cogley]

Are you sure it is burned out? When you pull the cover off of the bottom of the light, there is a metal plate. If you look towards the back of the light, you can see where it plugs into the lead to the connector on the back of the foglight. I have seen a great deal of fogs where this connection has gone bad. I used a wire wheel to get all of the crap off of the metal surface and then soldered the plate to the lead. Works great now.

The fast burnout may also be because of a crappy bulb. The fog bulbs get pretty hot, and lower-end bulbs are known to not last very long.

For the lense, you will either need to buy a new foglight or pick up a set of plastic lenses off of BMWlight.com. I have yet to find another site that offers lenses for the late e30 foglights, and the quality (at least of my set) is very good. I reccommend also getting some lamin-X to protect the lense, because the acrylic is softer than glass.

I couldn't get my contacts to solder together, even after much wire-wheeling. What I ended up doing was making a tang out of some brass shim stock that slid between the terminal and the bulb frame, down the frame tab and under the edge of the bulb. I used some needle-nose pliers to crimp the contact down a bit onto the brass. Everything works fine now.