BMW E30

Illuminating the stock gear shift knob 

By: Ramunas Kaminskas

The first thing I had to do was to remove the plastic cover (fig. 1) of the knob. I used a simple screw driver to remove it. 

Fig.1

On the back of that thing you will see engraved digits, R and the directions of the gears. They are covered by light paint like the rest of the back side of plastic cover. I took a needle (you can use any sharp thin thing) and eliminated the paint only from the digits and direction lines, so they became clear (Fig. 2).

Fig.2

Now the hardest part. You will need an electric drill, sharp knife. You will have to drill a hole in the knob (to make wiring of the bulbs possible) as shown in fig. 3 (red color shows how the drill must go). I used 4 mm drill.

As you could notice, there is no room for bulbs under the plastic cover. I used a sharp knife to make some room. I cut out the rubber-like material until I reached the plastic construction of the knob. You have to leave the edge so the plastic cover could rest on it. It looked like this:

Fig.4

You will have to use transparent plastic plate in order to make the light distribute evenly. I used a piece (it must cover all digits and lines) of transparent amber-colored plastic ruler (fig. 5)

Fig.5

Bulbs: I used two 12 V, about 4 mm long, about 1.5 mm in diameter bulbs (I bought ones at electronic components store - they were about 2 Litas (Lithuanian currency J), about half a dollar both) (Fig. 6). You can use two 6 V the same size bulbs, but in this case you will have to connect them consecutively. I soldered the bulbs to the wire (better use flexible one, because this wire is going to be under constant bending while changing the gears. In addition I wrapped it up with tape (to make it more damage-resistant).

Fig.6

The other end of the wire I connected to the wires of the ashtray illumination bulb (now illumination of the knob is ON only when the illumination of the rest of instrument panel is ON and it's possible to regulate the brightness of knob bulbs).

It's better to use a small plug and socket on the wire, so when replacing bad bulbs it would be simplier to remove the knob (Fig. 7)

Fig.7

That is all. Good luck. Check my lighted gear shift J

Fig.8

Fig.8

Ramunas Kaminskas