B10 V8s illuminated door sills

[BarryM]

I got replacements from a guy on facebook came from belgium
They cost about £300. if I could figure out how to post a photo I would put them up

I think for anyone wanting ready made replacements your chap in Belgium might be the smartest answer Brett assuming he's still offering them and they look OEM, as I'm doing this as an experiment I'll persevere....

[BarryM]

I made a bit more progress today....

Separated what I think is the light tape with the aid of feeler gauges of all things

IMG_7028.jpg (124.55 KiB) Viewed 1997 times

I then held the sill up to the light and you can now see the Alpina lettering and stripes highlighted so thought I'd test it against different colour backgrounds:

IMG_7031.jpg (32.15 KiB) Viewed 1997 times

IMG_7032.jpg (36.25 KiB) Viewed 1997 times

Quite a crude test against the computer screen but demonstrates that a coloured light does shine through! The smudges at the end of the stripes is the bluetac I used to attach to the screen so nothing to worry about!

I think I mentioned previously that the people at Light Tape UK don't have a big range of colours but light blue and orange are 2 colours they do have available.

[Charles]

This really is a labour of love

[JASV8S]

May well be a labour of love but I think this has given us some hope that we can restore this nice feature with no other alternative being available at the moment. I still can't find anything on the Belgian supplier that I was in discussion with a year or so ago.

This is great work Barry as it would give me confidence to strip mines down now, whereas before I would have thought I would just make matters worse by stripping them down. Had a look at the Light Tape UK site and their stuff looks promising.

[PhillV8S]

I have just had this guy pop up on a FB page saying he can refurb the sills to any colour. Not sure how you are getting on Barry but he might be a good backup plan. He is UK based too.
Maybe worth a PM.

49EE3C02-7E67-44EF-8C66-16AB2D07CCFC.png (1.36 MiB) Viewed 1950 times

[BarryM]

That’s very interesting Phill, I guess if he can repair like OEM the V8s guys will be heading his way. I think I’ll try and find out his costs but not on FB so I’ll see if I can find his email. I’m leaning towards buying the tape and trying one sill as an example but lots of more important things keep getting in the way but with the weather turning I might have more time inside to concentrate on this. Can you recall if the illuminated sills show up during the day or is the illumination only really visible at night?

[PhillV8S]

I’m pretty sure you can see they are illuminated in the day as-well as in the night.

[JASV8S]

I am also fairly sure they show up all the time.

[brett]

Hi John

Its jon bimmer on Facebook tell him I recommended you

[JASV8S]

Hi Brett,

I'll go and check him out and definitely mention you.

Cheers,
John

[Derek_M]

Hi Barry,

Only just spotted this thread, and I don't know if you managed to sort this, but I managed to get all 4 sill strips back to full working order on my V8S (Number 55 on the register) using electroluminescent strip that I found on eBay back in 2015. The colour is spot on, and nearly 6 years later they are still working perfectly, whereas the originals already had problems when I bought the car in 2006, when it was just over 3 years old. Pulled them apart and cleaned them up in the same way as you, and then used double sided tape to fix the strips to the sill trim and again to fix the rubbery Alpina trim on top. I think I had to make a small cut in the sill trim to get the wires for the new part out. The car is already supplying AC to the old strips, via 1 or more inverters buried elsewhere in the car, and it is worth checking if this supply is still good with a multimeter. Assuming it is, you can do away with inverters supplied by the eBay seller, and to be honest, I'm not sure I'd have been happy installing the supplied inverters in my car. The seller I used is long gone, but the size was 36" x 1", and look identical to this current item:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/263120517738 ... Swx6pYorFE

The double sided tape I used is called Stix 2 Ultra Clear Double Sided Very High Tack Tape, and I also purchased this from eBay:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/303576186072 ... Swh9deyOl9

Hope this helps

Derek

[BarryM]

Hi Derek, welcome to the forum - that's a very handy first post

I've struggled to get any great enthusiasm up to do much to the car over the last 6 months even though I've had lots of time on my hands so didn't get any further with the sills but given your info and links I think it might have galvanised me into action!

You mention using a 36" strip so presumably you needed 4 of them and cut each one down to fit as each one will need it's own dedicated connector? I don't have the genuine Alpina inverters so will need to use what's supplied or find an alternative. I'll order a couple and see how it goes and report back but thanks for posting your experience and I'm sure we'd all like to see some photos of your car.

[Derek_M]

Hi Barry,

Thanks for the welcome. I did indeed use 4 x 36" strips to do the repairs. It isn't clear from the eBay pictures, but they are supplied prewired, so there's no other way. The strips can be cut to size, and the 36" option was the only one that was big enough to cover all of the transparency in the Alpina top trim. I didn't test the supplied inverters at all, but my concern would be around any heat that they may generate, especially as they'll need to be concealed in a confined space somewhere in the car. I guess this can be checked before installation though. I've attached a picture of my car that I took at the Alpina 50th anniversary celebration at Sytner Nottingham in 2015.

IMG_3978 (2).JPG (1.1 MiB) Viewed 1562 times

Cheers

[BarryM]

Thanks for clarifying exactly how the strips work, I’ll see how the inverters perform but I figure they should only be live when a door opens so shouldn’t get too hot but I’ll reserve judgment for now.

Nice looking car and probably one of very V8s with all 4 sills illuminated

[JASV8S]

Hi Derek,

Welcome from #54 and as Barry says a cracking first post. This subject, although not the most serious issue that comes up with these cars but probably one that bugs us all a fair bit and it has done for me as mine have gradually extinguished over the years. Solutions have been elusive but this one sounds very promising. There was a supplier of replacement units a couple of years ago, I think in Belgium and one of our members bought some but this supplier appears to have gone. I think I will give this solution a try as it does not seem expensive to give it a go. I suppose stripping the old ones is the really tricky bit.

Hope you don't mind providing further advice if needed.

Best regards,
John