THIS IS HOW THE FINISHED PRODUCT LOOKS. I WAS VERY MUCH SATISFIED WITH IT! :)
Friday, December 31, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
How I installed the Orion V2 on my BMW 5 series!!!!
Specialists, Masters, and Experts - I have recently installed the Orion V2 on my 2006 - 530i. I would love to share my experience with you. Any questions and comments are more than welcome!
To start with, I was a little half-hearted about the mod considering the cold weather and heavy snow that we were looking at here in VA. In spite of this, I pushed myself to start the mod (probably, I was so enthusiastic about the idea that I couldn't wait to put it into action). But before I started the mod, I wanted to get a lots of advise and comments from as many people as I could so that the finish product would turn out to be "JUST PERFECT". So I started a live blog about whatever I was doing and I requested all the people who had done this mod in the past to comment on my posts so that I could be sure I was on the right path. Another reason for this was very obvious; I wanted to be aware of all the potential problems and challenges I'd have to foresee and plan ahead to avoid/overcome them. I was happy to see a lot of bloggers posting on my blog. While I was getting my basics right, I bought the glue which I thought was right for gluing the Angel-eyes and the headlights.
DAY 1: I dismantled one of the headlights which took me almost 1.5 hours. It was a business day and I did this immediately after I got back home from work. I was already very tired and couldn't think any further. So, I decided to call it a day.
DAY 2: Now, the challenging part was to remove the circular metal part in the headlight without damaging. I took a while to think how I'd do it instead of doing anything silly in a haste to jump to the next step in the project. I got a lot of comments on the blog about how I could do it, which quite made sense to me but they were a little too complicated I thought. In the end, I tried knocking the circular metal disc off with a drill which turned out to be as easy as easy as 1-2-3. (Laughs!)
Looking at this, I was even more confident about the project now.
DAY 3: It might seem to you so far, that everything's nice and smooth, but the here comes the first hurdle which kinda frustrated me a little bit. The E60 Orions which I bought looked a little wierd to me. The smaller ring was smaller than the stock OEM and the bigger ring had hooks with which it would cling on to something. First impression to me was, "Shit! I have to go and get these replaced with the right ones before I could do anything else as far as my project is concerned".
I somehow had the gut feeling that these were the right Orions. I decided to refer to my blog. So, I uploaded the pics and asked my fellow bloggers if these were the right Orion V2 for E60. The comments were comforting; I had the right Orions. :). But there was another problem I was facing; my garage heater died on me and it was so cold, I couldn't manage without it. It was already getting late, but I was too determined to put my project off for the next day (laughs!). I just wanted to fix those Orions to the headlights before I stopped that night. The comments on my blog guided me a long way through the process, but I had few issues with the outcome my fellow BMW mod experts got from the procedure they followed to fix these Orions. The Orions were bought from Umnitza (a distributor) and these Orions had the Umnitza logo on them which I wanted to conceal. Moreover, there were wires on the Orions which I wanted to conceal too.
I considered everybody's comments, but modified stuff here and there so that the Umnitza logo and the wires would not be visible in the finished product.Now this is what I did. I removed the the silver inner ring and 2 of its supports to the right. I carved the silver shed to accomodate the Umnitza angel eye.
My idea was that the E46 clamps along with the 3 supports from the removed silver ring along with the Silver light itself will support the Umnitza Angel eye.
DAY 4: AN EVIL IDEA
I wanted the original OEM to be red which would give it an evil border. But I never expected the red lights to be as bright as the Umnitza lights. The Umnitza lights, I must admit are way too bright for any comparison with the red lights I was planning to install in the OEMs.
This idea again received a lot of condemnations and criticism, but there was one expert who confirmed that it was a good idea because he had tried something similar in the past and the product looked amazing!
I was done blogging and it was time for me to get to work now. I resumed working on the project as usual. I cut into the the led and the eyebrow section by a little bit with the DREMEL in an attempt to cut open the headlight. After I cut open the headlight I find all these silly bits of plastic in the eyebrow section.
I rinsed most of it out but stuff was still in there. The best way to get it out was to hack into the eyebrow but I didn't want to do it till it was really required.
I somehow got rid of 70% of the deposits. I decided to continue to rise since I knew that the water wouldn't bother the LEDs much. After I was done rinsing, I knew, I couldn't light the stuff up till I was sure every droplet of water was out of the angel-eyes. I was just wishing, I didn't have to cut through the eyebrow to fix this! I went back to my blog and requested my fellow experts to comment on it.
FINALLY! THE FINISHED PRODUCT!
To start with, I was a little half-hearted about the mod considering the cold weather and heavy snow that we were looking at here in VA. In spite of this, I pushed myself to start the mod (probably, I was so enthusiastic about the idea that I couldn't wait to put it into action). But before I started the mod, I wanted to get a lots of advise and comments from as many people as I could so that the finish product would turn out to be "JUST PERFECT". So I started a live blog about whatever I was doing and I requested all the people who had done this mod in the past to comment on my posts so that I could be sure I was on the right path. Another reason for this was very obvious; I wanted to be aware of all the potential problems and challenges I'd have to foresee and plan ahead to avoid/overcome them. I was happy to see a lot of bloggers posting on my blog. While I was getting my basics right, I bought the glue which I thought was right for gluing the Angel-eyes and the headlights.
 |
| NOTE: I USED THE SMALL ONE TO GLUE THE ANGEL-EYES AND THE LARGE ONE TO GLUE THE HEADLIGHTS. |
DAY 1: I dismantled one of the headlights which took me almost 1.5 hours. It was a business day and I did this immediately after I got back home from work. I was already very tired and couldn't think any further. So, I decided to call it a day.
DAY 2: Now, the challenging part was to remove the circular metal part in the headlight without damaging. I took a while to think how I'd do it instead of doing anything silly in a haste to jump to the next step in the project. I got a lot of comments on the blog about how I could do it, which quite made sense to me but they were a little too complicated I thought. In the end, I tried knocking the circular metal disc off with a drill which turned out to be as easy as easy as 1-2-3. (Laughs!)
Looking at this, I was even more confident about the project now.
DAY 3: It might seem to you so far, that everything's nice and smooth, but the here comes the first hurdle which kinda frustrated me a little bit. The E60 Orions which I bought looked a little wierd to me. The smaller ring was smaller than the stock OEM and the bigger ring had hooks with which it would cling on to something. First impression to me was, "Shit! I have to go and get these replaced with the right ones before I could do anything else as far as my project is concerned".
I somehow had the gut feeling that these were the right Orions. I decided to refer to my blog. So, I uploaded the pics and asked my fellow bloggers if these were the right Orion V2 for E60. The comments were comforting; I had the right Orions. :). But there was another problem I was facing; my garage heater died on me and it was so cold, I couldn't manage without it. It was already getting late, but I was too determined to put my project off for the next day (laughs!). I just wanted to fix those Orions to the headlights before I stopped that night. The comments on my blog guided me a long way through the process, but I had few issues with the outcome my fellow BMW mod experts got from the procedure they followed to fix these Orions. The Orions were bought from Umnitza (a distributor) and these Orions had the Umnitza logo on them which I wanted to conceal. Moreover, there were wires on the Orions which I wanted to conceal too.
 |
| THIS IS HOW THE LIGHTS APPEARED AFTER I INSTALLED THE ORIONS (THIS IS NOT THE FINISHED LOOK THOUGH) |
I considered everybody's comments, but modified stuff here and there so that the Umnitza logo and the wires would not be visible in the finished product.Now this is what I did. I removed the the silver inner ring and 2 of its supports to the right. I carved the silver shed to accomodate the Umnitza angel eye.
My idea was that the E46 clamps along with the 3 supports from the removed silver ring along with the Silver light itself will support the Umnitza Angel eye.
When I uploaded the pics on the blog, I got a lot of positive feedback along with a little criticism. But what mattered in the end was I was satisfied with the outcome.
I wanted the original OEM to be red which would give it an evil border. But I never expected the red lights to be as bright as the Umnitza lights. The Umnitza lights, I must admit are way too bright for any comparison with the red lights I was planning to install in the OEMs.
This idea again received a lot of condemnations and criticism, but there was one expert who confirmed that it was a good idea because he had tried something similar in the past and the product looked amazing!
I was done blogging and it was time for me to get to work now. I resumed working on the project as usual. I cut into the the led and the eyebrow section by a little bit with the DREMEL in an attempt to cut open the headlight. After I cut open the headlight I find all these silly bits of plastic in the eyebrow section.
I rinsed most of it out but stuff was still in there. The best way to get it out was to hack into the eyebrow but I didn't want to do it till it was really required.
I somehow got rid of 70% of the deposits. I decided to continue to rise since I knew that the water wouldn't bother the LEDs much. After I was done rinsing, I knew, I couldn't light the stuff up till I was sure every droplet of water was out of the angel-eyes. I was just wishing, I didn't have to cut through the eyebrow to fix this! I went back to my blog and requested my fellow experts to comment on it.
Meanwhile, I was ready to seal one of the headlights. Though it was 1:30 AM already, I still drove in my Honda to a Walmart (which I knew was 24/7) to get the sand-paper, which I'd use to smoothen the plastic before I installed the headlights back into the assembly.
DAY 5: THE "ANGEL-EYEBROWS" ;)
While I cut open the angeleyes to make sure everything is dry in there (remember I had to rinse the thing with water to remove those weird particles which were stuck in there?), I was tempted to do an eyebrow mod as well. I was first thinking of having red eyebrows, but my wife insisted on having white eyebrows. I considered her suggestion and thought it was a good idea. I went around almost 7 radioshack outlets and could only manage to get 3 white LEDs for the eyebrows (sucks!). I didn't give up and finally managed to get all the LEDs for one of the eyebrows.
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I WAS TRYING TO BLOW DRY THE ASSEMBLY AFTER I CUT IT OUT TO MAKE SURE IT WAS DRY!
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THE THREE LEDs I MANAGED TO GET FROM THE 7 RADIOSHACK OUTLETS I VISITED THAT DAY. MAN! WAS I JUST DESPERATE TO FINISH THIS PROJECT OFF!!!! lol |
 |
| FINALLY GOT 'EM! |
FINALLY! THE FINISHED PRODUCT!
 |
| WICKED!!! :) |
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