Spec X5 Overland Build

[Henn28]

I think they will look pretty good too. I made a cardboard template for the brackets and took them down to a welding shop to cut and weld on next week when the guy gets back from vacation. I need to sort out the new wiring with the relays today and tomorrow too.

Since I don’t have a garage of my own, I belong to a club that has a large garage for car storage here in town. The owner built out several work bays inside the garage, one of which has a lift. He’s got around 40 cars stored for guys on double lifts….track cars, exotics, etc. I don’t store anything there but do all my non-driveway lift work there.

The Lancia is a kit actually and being built by the garage owner. Some British company bought all the tooling and rights to build those cars and ships them out partially built, to get around import laws maybe? Pretty cool looking car and should be a ton of fun when he’s done. It will have a Toyota motor.

[g300d]

I see. Interesting place to be doing work!

[Henn28]

Note that postimage is glitching this afternoon so I’ll add pics as soon as it’s back up and running for me.

Sometimes a pig just needs a little lipstick!



The new headlights went in today. All in all an easy job…much easier for me at least, than cleaning my old ones and trying to reseal them. That type of work is really not my strong suit.

As I mentioned in another post, the new halogen OE headlights came from BMW with the top rubber seal, all three bulbs, and the mounting tray, all pre-installed. I either misinterpreted RealOEM or it was incorrect because in addition to the lights I ordered a seal and tray for the right side.



I had previously replaced the tray and seal on the left side about a year ago because they were both cracked and failing. Which is to say, now I’ve got two extra trays, a right rubber seal (all new) and two gently used headlights if anyone wants them. Free to a good home:


First the lower painted trim piece needs to come off, gently. It’s plastic and cracks very easily, especially where it feeds into a tab on the outboard side. Then the two screws on the top of the lights and the two screws in the back holding the light to the tray can come out. At that point the light slides right out and you can unplug the harnesses from the bulbs on the way out.

This is a good time to note any leaks on the vanos, etc., clean years worth of leaves from the various nooks, and note that it’s a clear shot to the AC compressor thru the right headlight hole (I deleted my SAP system).


After this the tray is only held in by two screws on the front. The new tray pops right in, but be careful tightening the screws as the tray under the screw head will almost certainly crack under too much torque. As it turned out the right side tray was in good shape, unlike the left side that had multiple cracks. Regardless, I put a new tray in the right side to match the new one I put in the left side last year.


The view from the left side, showing the gulf oil filter housing tstat and plumbing:



The only trick to the headlight unit is getting the bottom tabs to properly engage the underside of the tabs on the tray. You’ll know it isn’t correct because the light will be loose if the lower headlight tabs are resting on top of the tray tabs. It isn’t an exact science and a little massaging is needed to get all the holes to line up and the light to sit properly inside the fender cutout by the turn signal. Once secure and with the bulbs plugged in I tested everything and finally reinstalled the lower painted trim piece, gently.

The only thing left to do is to set their aim once the sun starts to go down. To facilitate this I noted where my wife’s x5 50e low beam and high beam pattern fell on our fence, about 25’ down range from the driveway. I’ll try to set the new e53 lights similarly this evening.

Pics to follow.

[g300d]

Good call on the lights, I paid to get my lenses done and I think it was well worth it.

Plus no headlight wiring problems, any lights this old will have peeling insultion for sure.

[Henn28]

Same post as on the wiring question thread I started, but wanted to update the overland thread with it.

Been a slow spring for the X5 projects. It’s also splitting daily duties with the new G80, which is to say neither are getting a lot of miles. It’s a well deserved rest for the X5 after several years of being my only car.

I was never very happy with the incandescent KC driving lights I added to the front bar - not very bright, not sized correctly for the X5 and the clamps I used looked wonky and cheap to me. I did like the old school KC round light look however so I went with EODGuy’s recommendation for LEDs and picked up a 3 light set of 6” diameter LED KC Gravity Titan HiLites and a set of bolt on brackets they make for the front bumper of a Ford Raptor (maybe?). They offer tons of premade mounting brackets for their various light systems, but obviously nothing for the mighty E53 X5. I made a template out of cardboard that had the right fwd tilt for clearance and took the car to a local welding shop to chop the brackets down down to size and have them welded to the front ECS light bar that I’m using as an oil cooler mount.

The Gravity HiLites seem to be very well made, with aluminum powder coated housings and super weather proof wiring and connectors. They also have different lenses available (spread, spot, etc.) and can be adjusted across their span to add a slight radius which will spread the beams a bit. I took advantage of this which is easily done by backing off some set screws between the lights and adjusting them to a preset detent. All very beefy and durable hardware. Unfortunately I had to strip out the old harness and install the new one that came with the new lights, as they require a relay set-up, and the plugs at the lights are different.


In the E53 there is a cigarette lighter style socket in the passenger footwell, for accessories presumably. When I was in the dash some time ago I had previously run a power wire for this possible upgrade, but I couldn’t get it to poop 12v DC power, and one of the guys on X outpost also reminded me that the cig lighters likely pull too many amps for the switch side of a relay set-up. Therefore, I decided to first try to move it to the flashlight charger power, behind the glove box. The kick panel(s) came out quickly and from there it’s easy to reach behind and unplug the charger socket. A quick check for power (it’s powered at ignition position 1) and then the splice. I fumbled for a bit trying to plug it back in, but eventually got it. One more voltage check at where the wire comes out at the ash tray and I verified 11.8 V (engine off, key position 1).
Splice circled:



Next up was to route the load end of the provided harness to the KC lights and then pull the other end of the harness through the firewall. The plug end went under the oil filter bracket and behind the left front light, secured with a couple of zip ties to convenient wire bundles. The plug on the lights is just long enough to extend into the bumper a bit via the cooling slot, where it plugged into the harness.


Initially I wanted to keep the relay and load power fuse/wiring on the cabin side of the cowl, with the brake booster, etc., because it is a bit messy and I thought it would look cleaner. However, I eventually decided putting it all under the hood on the engine side would be less moisture prone. The relay mounted with a self tapping screw and the fuse assembly mounted to a convenient threaded stud on the strut tower. Not sure what it is for, but it has a plastic nut on it.



I pulled the switch wires through the firewall by taping it to the old light wiring and gently pulling it all the way through and out of the cigarette lighter hole, to meet the relay power wire I had run initially. The harness from KC already had spade connectors for the switch on it, and I put one on the relay hot wire I ran.



Way too much wire included on this side of the relay for the switch wiring:



I chopped it down to an approximate length, and spliced it back together with some crimped in-line wire splice pieces.

After that I cleaned up under the hood and drivers side footwell with cloth electrical tape and a few zips, tested it successfully, and buttoned the beast up.









I’m excited to see how bright these things are, and get them aimed properly. They are very focused it seems. If I lowered my head a few more inches in the below pic, they become blindingly bright.