Auto opening boot hooked up for £0.66p, Also went a head and painted my wheels

[dpbayly]

After seeing this done I thought I could do that at little to no expense and I was right with it only costing me 0.66p for a pair of springs.

If anyone else was thinking of doing the same thing they might need a pair of new boot gas struts as well, I had replaced mine a few weeks ago as the old ones were toast.

Here's the finish article.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/sH3YlnmtuHs[/youtube]


[youtube]http://youtu.be/rTrb6PC1iR4[/youtube]

And now for the controversial modification of my recently painted style 87 4.6IS wheels, I originally wanted to do this at the same time as painting them gloss black but I was limited by booth time at work.

So earlier this week I was itching to still try out and add the final bit to my wheel refurb and decided to knock up a template and paint it to get an idea of how it might look and I liked it and after asking peoples opinions it seemed I was the only one but that didn't put me off and last night I went ahead and painted them, I figured it's so easy to change them back if I didn't like them it was worth the work to find out.

And now there done I still love the way they look, there not going to be to everyone's taste but ha ho it would be a boring world if we were all the same.

So here's a few pictures of my style 87 4.6IS wheels sprayed high gloss black and then the recessed face of the wheels picked out in my body colour which is Steel Grey:

[X5Sport]

Colour looks pretty good. 

Not sure about the wheels.  They look wrong (to me) on that car - almost spindly - which may be an effect of the colour patterns.  Probably needs lowering to lose the apparent acres of space around them.

[lezmtaylor]

Am I missing something, but where is the 'how to' to do the boot mod?

Lez

[dpbayly]

[quote="lezmtaylor"]
Am I missing something, but where is the 'how to' to do the boot mod?

Lez
[/quote]

Seems to be something done more in the states, I haven't seen it done on this forum and in the UK much.

Basically you fit a pair of springs on your gas struts but you need after market struts as the BMW one haven't got removable ends which you need to unscrew to fit the springs, I picked my springs up from a Harley parts dealer out the back of my workshop out of his parts store at 33p each then tag welded a wash on each end to keep it centralized but I'm sure you could get them from any hardware store or buy a set designed for the E53 sold on eBay:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/311446135750? ... EBIDX%3AIT

Here's mine fitted its a 5 min job :



It's as simple as that, all I need is some heat shrink tube from maplins to shrink over the spring and I'm then done.

[X5Sport]

Still have to close it manually though......

[dpbayly]

[quote="X5Sport"]
Still have to close it manually though......
[/quote]

Yes but your hands are free to close it once you've put in the boot what you were holding, it's opening it when your hands are full with stuff to go in the boot which is the whole point in doing it

[Insight G40]

From the pic, I think the wheels look ok, good effort. 

[X5-D-Sport]

Fab idea with the tail gate auto lift up....
I've just ordered the springs & a pair of new gas rams from FLea-Bay....

sick to death of the tailgate latch embedding into my skull when I least expect lol.

[dpbayly]

[quote="X5-D-Sport Salisbury"]

sick to death of the tailgate latch embedding into my skull when I least expect lol.
[/quote]

Exactly why I swapped mine out....Bloody hurts especially when your not expecting it.

[max]

Excellent work, love seeing your modification work

[kjb1]

dont look as bad as I thought they were going to look atall.


Sent from my iPhone

[dpbayly]

Thanks guys

[Reusch]

Yep wheels look good really didn't think would.

[themoog]

What size are the springs? I dont fancy paying £16 for a pair...

[dpbayly]

[quote="themoog"]
What size are the springs? I dont fancy paying £16 for a pair...
[/quote]

My second set I've fitted are about 120mm long and about 20mm wide, tension wise you can just about compress them by hand.

The springs I've just fitted are actually springs from a Honda/Rover exhaust system that are about 60mm long so I've joined a pair together so I used 4 altogether a pair each side, there just what I had lying around the workshop at work and they work perfect.

I only swapped my springs out for the ones I described above as the first set were not quite as strong, now it pops a little quicker:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/4hKk0OVU4_Y[/youtube]