XSeries-forum

Well I'm back always knew I would be as my last X5 was the longest I ever owned a car (10 months) I normally average a car change every 3 months.

Since owning my last X5 which I sold February last year I've owned:
CL55 AMG
L322 Range Rover (really nice blue similar to Estrol blue)
300C
350Z GT4 (limited edition pearl yellow)
E46 330 convertible
RX8 231
E39 540i
Another RX8 231
ML55 AMG

Anyway here's my last X5 as I bought it :





And when I parted with it 10 months later:





And now for my new one it's another 4.4 but without the LPG in Steel grey sat on a set of genuine 20" IS wheels which set it off a treat.

I stumbled across it by accident at a price I just couldn't turn it down at and I picked it up last Sunday, how it looked like when I got it home:







As soon as I got it home on the drive I didn't even go in the house before I started working on it as I had some lacquer peel on the front edge of the drivers door from a repair it has had at some point in it's life:



So wet flat it back with 2000 grit paper and the machine polished it back up:



Next job the following morning when I got into work (I'm a mechanic) was to get the rear tyres changed as they were way past there best and even though it was not long serviced I always when I pick up a new motor change the oil and filter so I know it's got some good quality oil in it.

Next after that was to tint out my rear lights like on my last X5 but not quite as dark, done the same way in our spray shop at work spraying them with standard car lacquer with a small amount of black added then just apply coats till the desired effect is reached:

Masked up:



Painted:



Back on the car:



While the lights were out I carried out my cheap orange bulb mod to rid the horrible orange tinge to the the clear lens by applying a dusting of silver paint over the orange bulb this gives the light a cleaner look and they still function perfectly:



Before:



After:



Next came the headlight lens refurb as they were in a bad shape:



as I always do them I start with 600 grit and work my way up to 2000 grit before machine polishing them back to brand new:





The next day my SMD LED rings arrived along with my uprated 8000K Xenon bulbs so whipped the headlights out again and split them using a heat gun as the units are pre Sept 2002, while they were apart like last time or got rid of that dated orange reflector:



Installed back on the car:



Comparison against the stock side lights:





Also painted the grills satin black but I ran out so only ended up painting the surrounds and left the fins satin silver and when I put them back together on the car I was happy with the look so will probably leave them like this:



Here's the difference in Xenon bulbs.

Stock 4300K:



New 8000K:



Final modification this week was to wire the new rings which are now my side lights to come on as DRL's so are on when the ignition is on (just the front rings) and also to come on when I unlock the car same mod as I performed to my last X5 all done with 1 X 5 pin relay 2 10A fuses and 2 X diodes and all fitted in the passenger footwell where the LCM is located:

Video showing them working with the central locking, they don't actually flicked that's simply the frame rate of my camera picking up the LED's they actually fade on and off to your eye:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/i0bnZg-FcBI[/youtube]

So that's the work I've carried out in the last week since picking it up and here's a few pictures I took after cleaning it:















well that's it,

so far.....

Got to hand it to you, you certainly don't mess around when it comes to sorting out the decent mods. Definitely worth buying your old cars when you get fed up with them

nice work! particularly love your repair on the lacquer peel!! I always thought whwn a car had that, that was it, repaint time!! clearly not! very impressive.  You say you started with 600 and worked your way up to 2000 then machine polished yes?


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Nice work! 
I've got a bit of lacquer peel I need to get sorted aswell & my headlights are also in a mess! Is it all doable even if you don't have a polish machine?  :-[

It was the headlight where I started with 600 and worked my way to 2000 and yes it can be done without a machine polisher just requires a bit of elbow grease.

As for the lacquer peel I was only able to fix it because it was a previous repair where they had sprayed lacquer over the original lacquer so the peeling lacquer revealed the original lacquer so I simply had to wet flat the edge out then polish, but if you have lacquer peel where it reveals the flat looking base colour then I'm afraid this trick won't work and it will need painting.

cool trick! no I'm good myself regarding my cars, no issues, just seen it on other cars and always wondered!! nice one!!

regarding 600 to 2000 etc, which is more coarse? is it the higher you go the finer it is???

i thought it was the opposite?? lol


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600 is more coarse than 2000.

I have in the past with really bad headlights started with 400.

thanks for the info!!! out of interest what is the finest grade you can get? is it 2000? reason i ask is ive just curbed an alloy wheel and using sand paper ive made it 99% invisible!! I'm amazed!! just want to know what finest paper is to finish the job 200%


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I have some 2500 in the shed and I'm sure I've seen 3000 but that's almost to fine to have any real effect

many thanks for the info


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Nice work on the headlights, I really need to sort mine out!

ps think the grills need to go all black [emoji106]

[quote="kjb1"]
ps think the grills need to go all black [emoji106]
[/quote]

Already one step a head of you there:

Welcome from another pre-facelift 4.4i owner.

Some good work done. The casing and pànel renovation fantastic. The amber removal is a top mod on correctly dated headlamp clusters especially when thr clear waffle remains.

Not entirely sure re rear clusters......I can see it looks more modern than factory but personally  I prefer a standard look.  I can see they are lighter than on your earlier car........I reckon lighter still might look better albeit I suspect too lighter shade might ause red/amber to be too prominent again.

L

looks better!!


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