B10 V8s illuminated door sills

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BarryM
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B10 V8s illuminated door sills

Post by BarryM » Sun Aug 30, 2020 4:14 pm

I recently managed to acquire a set of V8s illuminated door sills from eBay which the seller claims were all working but he didn’t have the inverters or second half of the plugs so I’m debating what to do with them – ultimately I’d like to fit them in my B10 but one had damage to the plastic/rubber surround so on the basis that definitely needed to be replaced I thought I’d try Jim’s patented replacement process: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=21791 J

It also seemed like a good opportunity to see how the light tape is fitted so here are a couple of photos that might interest those of you with sills that no longer illuminate.

Original condition:
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Removed from plastic/rubber surround:
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Reverse showing the light tape:
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PhillV8S posted images of an illuminated door sill repair here: https://www.thealpinaregister.com/forum ... hp?t=22448 but I fear that is not quite how the V8s sills are done but I’m going to compare and see if the light tape can be replaced with this type: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lighttape ... 657872632/

I’ve not actually seen one of the original sills illuminated so if someone can post up a photo it might help to explain what part of the tape lights up and needs to be replaced and whether it needs to be cut to a specific shape of can just be inserted as a strip to shine through.

If anyone has already been through this and has any comments/thoughts I’d be interested to hear.
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Re: B10 V8s illuminated door sills

Post by JASV8S » Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:25 pm

Interested to see how this post develops as i have a couple of faulty ones and would like a solution.
John
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BarryM
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Re: B10 V8s illuminated door sills

Post by BarryM » Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:20 pm

Hi John, do you have a photo of one of the sills illuminated as I’m unsure quite how they look so that will help me to understand if new light tape needs to be cut to shape or if a strip will give the same effect
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Re: B10 V8s illuminated door sills

Post by JASV8S » Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:26 pm

Hi Barry, I would if I could but the car just went off last Friday to get a heap of work done so I won't see it for some days. I will once I get the car back but as far as I remember, as I did have all working, that the lettering and the white bars at each side of the lettering all lit up. I think that if you had light tape extended the full length and width of the white area it would work. Not sure why the original looks so complex unless it was to make sure there was no bleed through of light.

I also came across a company in Germany or Belgium that were making replacements for about 375 euros a set. I will look for their info and post up.
John
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Metrics
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Re: B10 V8s illuminated door sills

Post by Metrics » Thu Sep 03, 2020 5:01 pm

Following with interest Barry as mine are not working.
Surely an easier fit would be some modern light tape taking a feed from the puddle lights?
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Re: B10 V8s illuminated door sills

Post by greenelekta » Thu Sep 03, 2020 6:11 pm

Here you go Barry, the only one still working on my car. As you can see it should light up Blue all the way across although it is beginning to fail in some areas.
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alpina sill (2).jpg (2.09 MiB) Viewed 2284 times
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Re: B10 V8s illuminated door sills

Post by BarryM » Sat Sep 05, 2020 8:44 am

JASV8S wrote:
Wed Sep 02, 2020 4:26 pm
I will once I get the car back, I did have all working, the lettering and the white bars at each side of the lettering all lit up.I also came across a company in Germany or Belgium that were making replacements for about 375 euros a set. I will look for their info and post up.
Thanks John, be interesting to see the 375 euro replacement as that might be the best option for anyone who just needs a single sill

Metrics wrote:
Thu Sep 03, 2020 5:01 pm
Following with interest Barry as mine are not working. Surely an easier fit would be some modern light tape taking a feed from the puddle lights?
Agreed Asim but I don't think it's that straight forward :(

greenelekta wrote:
Thu Sep 03, 2020 6:11 pm
Here you go Barry, the only one still working on my car. As you can see it should light up Blue all the way across although it is beginning to fail in some areas.
Thanks Dave, strange how the Alpina tape fails like that!


A couple of things to mention at this time....

1) There is a perspex strip that I have started to remove on top of the Alpina light tape but then I have to see if the tape will peel away without damaging the sill but it appears to be bonded in flush and I won't know if it will come out until I'm past the point of no return
2) There only appears to be 2 sources for light tape: https://www.lighttape.co.uk/ or https://www.lighttape.com/ and ordering the tape is not straight forward as stock is not held and it is pretty much a case of made to order with a minimum length so choosing blue for instance might not be an option - the chap at the UK address has offered me white as the only option in a 6ft length which might be enough for all 4 sills
3) Although there is a blue tape option you'd probably need to do all 4 as a newly repaired sill is unlikely to match the originals even if you can order the blue tape

This might take me a little while to get back to as it's looking much trickier than I expected but will update once I have made more progress.
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Re: B10 V8s illuminated door sills

Post by E24man » Sat Sep 05, 2020 6:06 pm

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Last edited by E24man on Mon Dec 21, 2020 9:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: B10 V8s illuminated door sills

Post by PhillV8S » Sat Sep 05, 2020 7:53 pm

Keep up Kevin, that link was in the first post.😁
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Re: B10 V8s illuminated door sills

Post by E24man » Sat Sep 05, 2020 10:44 pm

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Last edited by E24man on Mon Dec 21, 2020 9:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

BarryM
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Re: B10 V8s illuminated door sills

Post by BarryM » Tue Sep 08, 2020 3:32 pm

Perspex strip removed and that leaves a really sticky mess, this came away in 2 ways: some could be rolled up and then I still needed heat and alcohol to remove the rest which was very laborious:
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IMG_6995.jpg
IMG_6995.jpg (354.3 KiB) Viewed 2143 times
I'm now thinking I need to try and remove what looks like another layer of thinner perspex to get to the light tape that can be seen underneath it here:
IMG_6997.jpg
IMG_6997.jpg (196.31 KiB) Viewed 2143 times
What's left is getting very thin and flexible so starting to think this isn't going to end well :(
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1982 Krauser MKM1000 #121 - sold

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Re: B10 V8s illuminated door sills

Post by JASV8S » Tue Sep 08, 2020 7:16 pm

Barry looks like a very complicated sandwich of parts, obviously never meant to be taken apart. But a great way of understanding how these things are made and how they work for possibly re-engineering replacements.

I have had a troll through my past communications on the units I came across in Europe. It was in my Facebook Messenger and when I found it the company name which I think was called Highland Illuminated has gone and there is no reference to them anymore. But I did also communicate with one of our members on Facebook Messenger named Brett Hubball who purchased some sills and he reported that they were good replacements. I got his name from the company as a reference. I wonder if he will pick up on this post.
John
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Re: B10 V8s illuminated door sills

Post by Bob » Tue Sep 08, 2020 11:35 pm

brett wrote:
Tue Sep 08, 2020 7:16 pm
043. stahl grau (steel grey) thats a V8’s by the way
192,000 miles

Alive and kicking about to aquire an upgrade
Brett is a regular on here and the FB groups. I'm sure he'll be along presently.
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Re: B10 V8s illuminated door sills

Post by brett » Wed Sep 09, 2020 7:27 pm

Thanks for the mention ceasarbob

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
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Re: B10 V8s illuminated door sills

Post by JASV8S » Wed Sep 09, 2020 8:36 pm

Hi Brett, I remember we talked on Messenger about these some time ago. I had other things needing done and was going to come back to to them later but find the company seems to have gone. i remember you saying they worked well.
John
Alpina Blue B10 V8S #54 Saloon
Montreal Red F20 M-Sport
Sparkling Bronze F30 Xdrive (sold)
Titan Silver E90 325iSE (sold)
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