When I spent the morning at Jack's Auto and Aero, we identified the list of things that would flunk my Z3 for state inspection. The first thing surprised me - both my fog lights failed, for different reasons. I assumed that since fog lights are optional, they would not be a failure, but if they are there, they have to work and meet the specifications. My passenger light failed due to a broken lens, and the driver's side flunked because some prior owner had glued on a yellow lens - in PA, it must be clear.
Jack said that if I just removed them and left them off, then it would pass. However, I found that inelegant. I didn't want to drive around with unfinished holes in my bumper!
So, I removed the driver's side, and went to work removing that yellow cover. Man, was it glued on! Goof-off turned out to be the solvent of choice, but that only made it possible, not likely. But finally, I pried the thing off, cleaned up the residue, and had a pretty good looking light:
Then I went to the eBay General Store and looked for a replacement for the passenger side light. I searched on something like "Z3 passenger fog light" and found a bunch of Chinese copies, for around $50 including shipping. Seemed OK, since a real BMW light is over $100. But when I returned to eBay to buy the light, I forgot to specify "passenger," and now I was seeing pairs of lights for around 35 bucks, including shipping! I ordered this nice looking set for $33:
They arrived today, and I set out to swap both lights. I was more than a little steamed when the electrical connection didn't fit! I dashed off an eBay message to the vendor saying he should take them back, refund my money and pay the return shipping.
Later, I got to thinking. Even though eBay has a bad reputation sometimes, the big vendors didn't get there by selling parts that didn't fit. I did some more research, and found there was a running change in the the fog lights, and worse yet, the seller's auction actually stated that my model would not fit! Feeling pretty dumb....
To his credit, the vendor had by this time offered me a return shipping label, but I declined since it was my fault. Paying the shipping myself, plus a restock fee, would leave me with not much, so I decided to make it work. I used the BMW light on the driver's side. Since I had a broken passenger light to play with, I took it to the band saw and cut away the connector, leaving the wires attached. I then found a Molex connector in my stash that matched the pin size of the new lights, and made a little harness to match it to the BMW. No photo of that harness - I was too embarrassed...
But - two fog lights burning!
One more thing - I had an interesting mathematical realization pondering the hardware that held the two lights in. Since Someone Has Been Here Before, it was a mismatched set of self-tapping screws, in some cases rusty. According to the manual, it should indeed be self-tapping (into a "body nut" - those flat sheet metal Tinnerman nuts), in the size 4.2mm X 16mm.
Usually, metric fasteners are either like 4.0 or 4.5, not something odd like 4.2. It occured to me that maybe this was just the way BMW would call out something ubiquitous. Let's see... there are 25.4 mm in an inch. 4.2 / 25.4 = 0.1653 inch. Googling standard thread pitches, I found that #10 screws are 0.1629. Close enuf!
Similarly, 16 mm is 0.6299 inch. 5/8 inch is 0.6250, so that weird 4.2 X 16 is actually just a #10 X 5/8 sheet metal screw! I bought stainless steel in #12 - the tinnerman nut will easily allow that, and it guarantees a tight fit.
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