Hi all - following a lot of reading on this forum (too many excellent posts to name check all but thanks to everyone)about the many problems people have had with the E61 wiring I feel reasonably confident about attempting a repair but I have one question (which is probably a bit of a stupid one) - what sort of cable would I replace with, what amp etc? I'm pretty good with household wiring and have access to tools etc but this will be my first attempt at auto repairs.

To summarise the problems:

My AM radio stopped working about a year ago - some reception but too poor to listen to, I assumed it was an antenna problem but it didn't bother me to much.
I then had the glass hatch popping up with warning problem for a few weeks and the excess battery discharge warning but it only happened twice and then seemed to be OK.
Then the remote locking would fail intermittently but come back. At this point I suspected the diversity antenna and the microswitch on the hatch as separate issues.
The glass hatch microswitch has now stopped working altogether as has the remote locking.

I now beleive that the cabling in the right hand side boot hinge is the culprit.

Any help at all with this would be really appreciated!

 

Welcome to the forum!

Have a look in this thread:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/5topxx7

 

After being quoted £1400 by BMW to replace the loom I decided to get stuck in and do it myself. The repair is pretty straight forward, as covered by excellent posts and .pdf's here. Just take your time to strip everything down and have everything on hand to repair what you find. As for the repair wires I bought some scrap BMW harness bits on ebay because they were cheap, the wiring had the various gauges I needed and the correct striped/colours. Make sure you have some heat shrink tubing and harness fabic tape (again got some great stuff on ebay) to cover up what you repair whether you use a slim connector (I used these from BMWs repair kit, part no. 61138353746, 55p each) or solder.

I suffered most of the problems you had with my car and it was all down the cut wires in the hinges. Once these were repaired everything went back to normal.

As for the tailgate hatch popping open randomly, this was down to the switch and moisture ingress. As soon as I changed the switch, it was back to normal. I popped the lid off the old switch and it had water in it. Part No. is 61319218995 for ref.

Of course if your hatch is now stuck closed you will have to manually release it from the inside or short the switch wires, both options covered elsewhere on this forum.

If you destroy the plastic pin-rivot when removing the hinges, new ones are part no. 61116945528, 55p each.

I bought the BMW bits online from BMW Cooper Reading as they have an online parts shopping counter and I am not near a physical BMW Parts counter during my working week. http://www.cooper-bmw-parts.co.uk/home/

 

Thanks fletchedpair - that's really helpful. I'll get the switch on order, in case the dealer has a lead time, is there a proprietary connector (butt connector?) that I could use or does it need to be the slim connector due to the space limitations?

 

The connector I used to repair the cables is listed in BMW's electrical repair items, part no. 61138353746, they are very, very slim and you crimp them to grip the cable too. A very neat and slim solution and no need to start soldering stuff in your boot space. You have to put a heat shrink tube over it once your done. Be very careful using a heat gun/lighter in confined spaces to heat the heat shrink!

When I was about to order the boot lid switch from BMW Reading I spoke to them first over the phone. In the discussion with the Parts Counter Person, he knew exactly what I was talking about and they carry a stock of these switches as they are a common replacement due to moisture problems!. So the item was delivered next day.

 

Cheers! I've ordered some connectors and the pin-rivots as well. Apparently, the switch is hold to order as no more are expected in Germany until 22nd July 2011! I've tried a few dealers with no joy. Hopefully, if can get the glass hatch open by shorting the switch or accessing the wires in the main part of the boot I can fix everything else and just leave the switch to later - does anyone know if this will be possible - will the glass hatch still lock?

 

Just to close this one off. I followed Kwempe's very helpful guide from this forum and got the glass hatch open by cutting the wires. One thing I found when following Kwempe's instruction was that I didn't need to heat the plastic to get it off. Once that was done it was fairly easy to take the rest of the components apart and access the broken wires. I used the connectors suggested by fletchedpair which were great and very easy to use. I also bought a new pin rivot which was lucky as I found it much easier to break the old one to get it out. Putting it all back together was easy enough as well, the only difficulty was getting the pin rivot back in but with a little perserverance it went in OK.

All told, it took 4 hours to do with a mate helping although both us had never done anything like this before.

 

VERY cheeky of them to quote for replacing the whole loom when if you take it to them for the same fault under a BMW warranty, they splice in a repair section to fix it.

Glad you got it sorted

 

Hi ALL,

Not sure if anyone is watching this thread anymore...
I am in the rear door broken wires repair mode.
My 2010 535xi E61 has been repaired a few times already, it's now a botch cobble mess.
Was wondering about the replacement harness part #s etc.?
I am looking at the right side hinge that attaches to the diversity antenna, I have numerous breaks and repairs and the tape is applied over glue (?)
really hard to get apart and the health of any conductors is questionable at this point.
If I can buy the hinge wiring it would be a better job than another patch up.

Looking on realoem.com I can see the wires that live past the hinge inside the hatch door, but the hinge harness (s?) are not so clear?

Anybody know about this stuff?

Thanks in advance

K-Clive in Toronto

 

Clive - I also responded in the new thread you started. Sencom in Germany makes a repair harness with silicone jacketed wires that are much more flexible in cold weather and not subject to the insulation cracking. I did this repair on mine a few years ago - here's a link to a writeup I did on it: https://www.fightchaos.com/2016/01/b...te-wiring.html It takes some time, but from what I've seen and read, this is the best way to deal with the problem permanently. Do both sides, all wires while you're at it - it's only a matter of time before you lose wires on both sides.