E30 Instrument Lighting

[gib1son]

How can I remove the glass lamp from the black holder
that goes into the cluster? My local supplier says they
always break so he only sells the assembly, but I see
the lamps alone for sale, so there must a way to get them
out. Thanks

 

[E30m42cab]

I just pry them out carefully all the time to reuse them for other lights. Once you pry them out, there are little metal tabs that you'd have to solder onto the two wires, in order to put them back into the socket properly. Probably much less of a PITA to just buy them alreadyu in the socket, unless you're using them for the back lighting for the blower panel.

 

[echothreezero]

????? Mine just turn a quarter turn and pop out. You then just pull the lamp out and push a new one in. Have changed dozens over the years and never broken one.

 

[E30m42cab]

Well, yeah, mine do a quarter turn as well, and just fall out... but the bulbs don't just pull out (granted, they pull out of the heater control panel, as well as the back of the rear defrost button, hazzard button, etc...) But for instument cluster bulbs you have to pry the little tabs out of the little black holders in order to remove the bulb. The little tabs that hold the black socket to the back of the cluster are attached to the little bulbs... so unless the bulb that you're buying have the little tabs, you'd have to solder them on to the two wires on the bulb. I've never bought new bulbs, one way or the other... I have a couple old clusters that I pull them from, so I don't know what they look like new, without the black socket part.

 

[Doughnut]

In the old 1982 5 series I had in the backyard for a while (which is now long gone) behined the gauge cluster it had twist in globes, but the globe wasn't removable from the plastic housing. Same goes in my 1984 e30, lucky I have many spares!