Hi everyone,
I've got led bulbs in my sidelights, but after a couple of months of use the bulb came off the holder. I tried to fish the bulb out of the sidelight housing, using various methods (even tried using blu-tac on a screwdriver ploy) but without any luck.

Is removing the whole sidelight/foglight housing very difficult? (ive heard that the bumper might have to be removed). And if I remove it would I be able to seperate the lens from the rest of the assembly? Also has anyone replaced the sidelight assembly with something else? Ive been looking on fleabay and stumbled across this-
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1509316941...84.m1423.l2649

compared to the original housing which is
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3308792357...84.m1423.l2649

I think the original housing is 4" so it might be possible to change them around. Anyone tried anything like this?

Thanks a lot!

 

By sidelight I assume you mean the fog light/parking light combo in the front bumper. The right side is pretty easy to remove by removing the headlight first and working from above to remove the mounting screws and then removing the light thru the access hole in the fender liner. The left side is harder and more complicated because the washer bottle is in the way. If all you want to do is shake out a runaway bulb, you should be able to remove the mounting screws and invert the light assy while keeping it in the cavity below the headlight. This thread may be helpful: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...55-or-r56.html

 

I've just bought my first Mini and one of the first thing I did was to replace the front sidelights/parking,Cit light bulbs with (W5W T10 501) 3W CREE bulbs. I did notice that the bulb was a loose fit in th e2 holders. yesterday I noticed that one ligh was not working so today I investigated it with the front wheels off. While I was doing th ejob the other light failed. What I found was that the bolb holders are such a sloppy and loose fit is that the bulbs just slide out. I was lucky enough to be able to extract the bulbs but it was tough and go.

To remove the bulb I would try a pair of long slim tweezers and set aside a few hours of frigging aroud trying to winkle them out.

Failing that, then you could try to cruch the bulb to pieces and then blow out with an airline.

Otherwise it will be lamp fitting off time. From what I saw today from memory, the lamp comes off from behind the bumper and may come through the hole.

I have solved my problem by super gluing in the bulbs to the holders. I will need a new pair of bulb holder for when the bulbs fail.

 

No need to resort to glue. The bulb holders for the small wedge bulbs are sometimes loose. You can tweak the contacts down inside the bulb socket with a small screwdriver and bend the little brass contacts to make them tighter.

 

Using Super Glue was not a clever thing to do. Both bulbs (3W CREE super super bright) failed very soon. I pulled the bulb holders out and found that both bulbs had sort of perished in the presence of the glue. I ordered a pair of new bulb holders from BMW and fitted one. Unfortunately some idiot had dripped too much Super Glue into one of them and it became stuck to the bulb holder plug. I mashed it, cut it, hack-sawed it and finally got it off. Lets just say I need a new plug repair kit which BMW supply.

The new bulb holders don't have too much holding power and my plan to fit some 5W CREE side light bulbs have been scuttled. I will need to find another way to firmly locate the bulbs into the holders. The bulbs are 12mm diameter and they just about fit into the back of the light housing. They are rated at 120 lumens which is bright enough to see in daylight yet not blind in total darkness.

These are what I had and have ordered again:

 

I'm made a small modification to these CREE bulbs to make them a better fit. Standard incandescent 5W bulbs have a larger diameter base that helps them to fit the bulb holder better.

All of the LED bulbs I have tried have a small diameter and this means that the bulbs have less support withing the bulb holder and are therefore free to work their way loose.

I bougt some 13mm heat shring tubing from Maplin (UK's version of Radio Shack). I then cut off a small length of about 4mm for each bulb and then shrunk it onto the bulb base using a lighter (carefully) to apply the heat to shrink the tubing. It needs to fit under the wideset part of the bulb abd not interfere with the contacts. This bit of tubing forms a perfect sized padding which then makes the bulb a snug fit.

I will report back if there is an issue.