The mysterious bulb carrier
 

My 2002 E53 has some tail light issues. I just found out the joys of identifying bulb carriers. Nightmare at minimum. Only buy one at a time, at most a pair. But buy them cause you probably need them !
I really don’t think the lights on my tailgate have ever worked. Local parts establishments don’t even have a listing for the parts. (Bulbs and carriers) I’m way too excited about this

Anyway thanks for any advice, guidance, or commiseratance would be appreciated.
Mike

A direct replacement will have the same design defect. I rebuilt mine with steel screws and shims to eliminate the self destruct nature of steel contact held by plastic which melts.

I lube mine up heavily with dielectric grease so no corrosion causes the contacts to get bits of resistance and start melting...

Hey Andrew, how ya doin ? Thanks, liketo see your upgrade details.
Thanks rocket, that’s a really good idea, probably lubricates to help assembly and prevent those cursed terminal s from breaking.

https://xoutpost.com/1047563-post65.html

Just a couple pics I have about six pics but would take a while to find

That's a good fix idea! So Andrew, from your reference post, I'm guessing you sorta pre-drilled the plastic that stuck a short sheet metal screw in there to fasten it?

Can you recall what drill bit size you used and exact screw size as to not crack the housing and such?

I added a little bit of solder at each contact point location. That creates tension against the metal part on the bulb carrier so you don't get any shorting. A very poor design on BMW's part.

Idrilled out all the plastic rivets I used about ¹/₈" bit which is a moot point. I used self tapping screws probably size #8 to fasten after that drilled into the plastic with a big enough hole to not split.

I used a heat proof shim under to hold the spacing correct so even if it gets hot it won't melt the plastic holding things.


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Using steel as a contact was a terrible idea as always. Putting a little silver solder where the contact goes is a good idea. Silver "rust" is conductive why copper contacts often are silver plated.

Lead/zinc solder prob not the best contact but beats steel

Awesome! The exact information I needed to know. Hopefully this will help out the OP if he choses to go that rout in terms of the repair.