[SAMIAM]

To recap the project background, I had a 9500ci installed by my BMW dealer. The wiring was first-class, and I was glad to get that much done. However the forward equipment, admittedly a challenging install, wasn't done very well. So I bought new trim which I prepped myself (see Part 4), and then removed the front bumper cover to reconfigure the equipment and install the new grid trim.

A quick note on how to remove the front bumper cover. This is the M-Sport cover. Put a blanket on the floor to catch it when you get it loose.

1. If you have the Cold Weather Package, gently pry up the washer nozzle covers, and unhook them from the washers below. There's some resistance, but it's basically a vacuum in the system and you won't break it. Note the orientation that the covers go on. There's a small lip that helps to guide them in place when they snap back.

2. Inside each wheel well, there are three screws, but you must first rotate the two rubber locks that hold the forward access panel in place. Then you need to peel back the rubber liner to access the screws.

3. There are 4 screws at the top of the kidnay grill.

4. There are 9 screws around the lower perimeter under the car.

5. Pulling gently it should come right off. You'll need to unlock and remove the fog light bulbs from the housings. Don't touch the bulbs with your fingers, as the oils may cause the bulbs to fail later.

This is the "before" picture of one of the laser receiver/shifters.



Here's the main receiver. Note the distortion of the grid from being forced into the space which was too small.



Here's a photo of the inside of the bumper cover.



A wide shot of the front. The passenger-side shifter in it's old configuration is in the top of the air channel below the bumper. The main receiver is to the right of the Active Cruise radar dome.



A closer shot.



A closeup of the main receiver. It is held up by two long screws that are bolted through the plastic above. Several nuts act as spacers.



The passenger side shifter.




The driver side shifter. You can see here just how far it is pointed to the side when it follows the curv of the trim.



In this shot you can see that it was actually aimed down toward the road.



Here we leap to the re-engineered configuration. Note that I acquired a new set of 9500 mounting hardware for this re-do. If you have a new unit, it should be straightfoward how the brackets are applied here. The rubber duct is pretty robust, and you really need to puncture it with an awl to get a screw started. You'll see in these that I used little steel spacers to lower the unit down. I went through a lot of trial and error here (and a lot of holes in the duct unfortunately!). A major tip for this: If you remove the grid trim from the bumper cover, it actually fits right over the duct in its proper position. So you don't need to keep hefting the whole cover up and down to check if it is aligned.

If you start by assembling the mounting hardware like this, then you can make a guess and drive in the first screw (with spacer) closest to the license plate, leaving it a little loose. Put the grid over it and see where you are. If that's good, then pivot the unit around and estimate the placement of the second mounting screw. Note that this unit sits pretty tightly to one side of the duct, and so you need to get the other adjustments pretty close, so you can tighten down those hard-to-reach screws, before you rotate it around and lock in the second mounting screw above. A lot of variables to get this right, and some patience required. Remember that it has to face forward, be level left-right, and also level front-to-back.







For the main receiver, I only needed to make a minor adjustment to raise it up, by removing two of the spacer nuts. Ideally I would have liked to have reworked this to make it more solid, but it's not bad. I'd put something solid in the gap above the unit, and flip the bracket so it properly cradles the unit and the ears are bolted solidly to the surface above. But it was solid and I needed to wrap it up, so I let it be.



Here you can see how the driver side unit appears to stick out in its proper orientation.



Now, the finished product. I'm not 100% satisfied that they are perfectly dead-on, but they are much much better than they were. I need to revisit the trim as it appears to not be snapped-in correctly.

If you read Part 4, you'll notice that the vertical framing for the shifters is not there. Because the duct shape tends to force the units toward the outside, they put pressure on the trim I had there. But I think it looks fine the way it turned out.

[bsamoul]

Great shots man!