First, let me say, im no professional by any means, and figured I would try my hand at creating a solution for a problem that isn't really addressed.
In the fall had hit a hard enough pothole without paying attention, and although the 1er was alright, the inner grey ring for the adaptive headlight (driver side) was flopping around. My passenger headlight xenon was not working, when I had the car inspected at BMW they stated that water got into the light and I need a new headlight (not really up for dumping $1400 on one headlight). Since the car was going to be apart over the winter, and figured that I needed to open up the working light anyway to figure out why the grey ring was loose, and since I was not up to paying for a new light, I figured I would open up both lights, understand how they work, see what parts I needed, and order a used working headlight but broken tabs off Ebay, and swap parts around (DIY video of tear down of head light using the heat gun method will be uploaded soon as you cant simply bake these headlights). I also figured that since they are open, lets upgrade the rings!
I loved the idea of going 3/4 rings however with the E8x the headlights are wider than the E9x, so the 3/4 looks great however I feel like they are "empty" when looking head on during the day, at night the would look sweet, however since I plan on having this in multiple car shows, I didn't want to have it look like "its trying to hard". I decided to go with the Full DTM rings instead, they fit the E8x lights better. So I order them in.
Now for the eyebrow. My 1er is Non-LCI, it does not have the Led eyebrow. All I could find was either LED eyebrow upgrades, but since my car would not be able to use them the next option was cheap looking exterior eyebrows such as cf eyebrows that you would stick to the outside lens on the top, or even, a frosted decal. While some people don't mind these, I would rather have the rings alone and no eyebrow than either of these options. There is one fella on the 135i Fb page selling Cf eyebrows, however, they are part of the housing.. and wants £500+shipping... That is a lot of money... Like alot and being in Canada our peso of a dollar will bring me close to a grand for that... Im good.
So what if I could make a CF eyebrow, that i could retrofit to the housing? I will attempt it. My cousin Eric is nice enough to help print out some plastic molds which I will make a CF eyebrow out of. Now I may make a CF eyebrow and it may look great, or I may do it and it will be horrible, so im all ears to anyone with any suggestions or tips.
I will post up the DIY video on how to tear apart the head lights, then when the rings come in ill have a video on installing them then resealing the headlight. To top it off ill write about my experience building a CF eyebrow!
Here is the current headlight apart, and the first mock up of a printed eyebrow,
In the fall had hit a hard enough pothole without paying attention, and although the 1er was alright, the inner grey ring for the adaptive headlight (driver side) was flopping around. My passenger headlight xenon was not working, when I had the car inspected at BMW they stated that water got into the light and I need a new headlight (not really up for dumping $1400 on one headlight). Since the car was going to be apart over the winter, and figured that I needed to open up the working light anyway to figure out why the grey ring was loose, and since I was not up to paying for a new light, I figured I would open up both lights, understand how they work, see what parts I needed, and order a used working headlight but broken tabs off Ebay, and swap parts around (DIY video of tear down of head light using the heat gun method will be uploaded soon as you cant simply bake these headlights). I also figured that since they are open, lets upgrade the rings!
I loved the idea of going 3/4 rings however with the E8x the headlights are wider than the E9x, so the 3/4 looks great however I feel like they are "empty" when looking head on during the day, at night the would look sweet, however since I plan on having this in multiple car shows, I didn't want to have it look like "its trying to hard". I decided to go with the Full DTM rings instead, they fit the E8x lights better. So I order them in.
Now for the eyebrow. My 1er is Non-LCI, it does not have the Led eyebrow. All I could find was either LED eyebrow upgrades, but since my car would not be able to use them the next option was cheap looking exterior eyebrows such as cf eyebrows that you would stick to the outside lens on the top, or even, a frosted decal. While some people don't mind these, I would rather have the rings alone and no eyebrow than either of these options. There is one fella on the 135i Fb page selling Cf eyebrows, however, they are part of the housing.. and wants £500+shipping... That is a lot of money... Like alot and being in Canada our peso of a dollar will bring me close to a grand for that... Im good.
So what if I could make a CF eyebrow, that i could retrofit to the housing? I will attempt it. My cousin Eric is nice enough to help print out some plastic molds which I will make a CF eyebrow out of. Now I may make a CF eyebrow and it may look great, or I may do it and it will be horrible, so im all ears to anyone with any suggestions or tips.
I will post up the DIY video on how to tear apart the head lights, then when the rings come in ill have a video on installing them then resealing the headlight. To top it off ill write about my experience building a CF eyebrow!
Here is the current headlight apart, and the first mock up of a printed eyebrow,
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