Chime/bong gone wild??

[Craig Wright]

Last night as I started the car to return home, I turned on the headlights. A few seconds later they went off, and then came back on. I thought to myself, is this the beginning of some sort of electrical problem? I came home and put the car back in the garage.

This morning while driving, the chime started to ring, just a few dings at first, then random with no order, and no indication of what the problem might be. Shortly thereafter it became a steady continuous ring, with no indication of what the problem could be. I know that its not the clock. When I got back home I shut the car off, but still have the ringing. I disconnect the battery and it stops. When I reconnectet the battery (after 5 minutes and 30 minutes) the ringing is still continuous. This has me completely baffeled, as I don't have any clue as to how to attempt to solve this problem.

Any thoughts before I take it to the indy?

Craig Wright
89 535i 180k miles

[632 Regal]

Run away from the car!!!!

I would say to check the LKM first, it sounds like an intermittant bad connection.

[Craig Wright]

Is there anything special about removing it, and what do I look for once I have it removed. Electronics is not my best talent.

Thanks,
Craig

[zygoteer]

The attached pics show where it is.

The LKM will be very tightly plugged in (large 35 pin connector underneath) ... just pull hard upwards.

Open it up and re-melt all solder joints on the PCB you can find, but be sure to thoroughly clean any flux etc. from the PCB before re-fitting, and don't leave any solder bridges as a result of your work.

The dealer's best talent is not electronics either ... they will just repair by replacement all modules until the problem is fixed (sudden empty feeling in wallet).

So you don't have much to lose by trying this or getting a friend to do it.

[632 Regal]

Brunos site has a decent write up on it but I cant seem to get into the site...might be down temporarily?

[Craig Wright]

Thanks for the assistance. I also noticed that Bruno's site was down today.

Craig

[Craig Wright]

I have the LKM out and will remelt all the solder joints. Do you think this will solve the constant chiming, or just the headlight intermittent failure?

Thanks,
Craig Wright

[zygoteer]

It may well solve your problems, but at the very least it eliminates a known issue with the LKM related to vibration/age


and you won't have lost by doing it

[ukm5]

hang on a minute, hes not saying hes getting any lights on message with these gongs, so why are you telling him to resloder the LKM? i understand he had a lights issue the prev day but the subsequent bongs have nothing to do with lights on or off.

by all means remove the LKM, however the car will run fine without it, you just wont have any lights, so if its removed and the constant rininging stops then you have a basis for resoldering, but as its not your stong point, randomly soldering modules could result in more problems than you have now.

the gong relies on a ground signal to it from various sources, could you have had an after market addition fitted and the wiring got damaged?

[632 Regal]

we shall see...

[Craig Wright]

You are right! After removing the LKM and reconnecting the battery, I still have the constant "chime" ringing. I have not had any after market additions fitted. I am completely at a loss to determine the problem.

Thanks,
Craig

[ewidjaja]

You are right! After removing the LKM and reconnecting the battery, I still have the constant "chime" ringing. I have not had any after market additions fitted. I am completely at a loss to determine the problem.

Thanks,
Craig

UKM5 is right. Try looking at the ground connection for these LKM / CCM. My best knowledge, there are several ground connection bolts below the carpet behind the firewall where the LKM / CCM located. One of them might be loose / rusted due to age.

Eri.

[ukm5]

You are right! After removing the LKM and reconnecting the battery, I still have the constant "chime" ringing. I have not had any after market additions fitted. I am completely at a loss to determine the problem.

Thanks,
Craig

in that case, does anything else play up on the car or is it just this gong? and also when you say constant is it a case of gong, gong, gong, gong etc or is it goooooooooooooooooooooooonnnn etc u get the gist is it continuous tone or gonging?

if it is just the gong and no messages on the dash then i would guess there may be a faulty gong, its located above your pedals, if you pulldown the cover, which is screwed in place you will be able to disconnect it. This way you can test if there is a signal going to the signal wires or if there isnt and its still gonging its faulty. the item you want to disconnect is the one that looks like a grill from the bottom if you have 2 items on it

[Craig Wright]

ukm5, you were right on the money...again!
Problem solved.....temporaraly. It was a continuous gooooooooooooong. I disconnected the gong. It was suddenly quiet in the car. I spoke with the indy, he said it doesn't need to be replaced at this time. Thanks for eveyones assistance.

Craig

[ukm5]

well thats not quite my full advise!
disconnecting it will of course stop the noise! the next bit is deciding if some module is sending a signal to it incorrectly or if its faulty

[Kyytsis]

Sorry to bring up this old topic.

I've had my 525i -88/89 for a year now, and it has some times done this. I found out that starting the car with brakes applied led to gong being constantly on, or going on goooooooong everytime I touched the brakes. When the fault is on the Check Control screen stays blank and temperature and fuel gauges show empty/cold. Everythin else works normally.

2 days ago the gong went wild and has now been shouting all the time. I've now disconnected the wires leading to it to save my hearing. Still no clue what causes it - I've tried to disconnect wiring to rear lights with no success and also disconnect the CCM or LKM. No results from those either.

I dismantled the cockpit so that I got hold of the ignition keys bottom - it seems that in certain key positions the goong shouts and in some it doesnt (By positions I mean some fine-tune positions between power on and starting positions). I figured that next I'll change the instrument cluster capacitators and go through all the wirings below the dash. I hope I'll find a loose connector, but I fear it might be something else.

Has anyone solved the problem by fixing, not by just getting rid of CC or gong?

Thanks in advance,

Ville

[Kyytsis]

Case closed.

Replacing one blown capacitator fixed this one. I also checked all (all I could find) ground connections and they we ok.

Thanks,

Ville :)

[patznu]

89 525 recently purchased has no cluster appearance except when at 80,000 rpm and it thn goes back out after a moment. Gas and temp gauges went crazy one day and so now my gas gauge stuck in abnormal position. Temp gauge also still not working, But this annoying chimes comes and goes ... it does eventually go away on the highway. Until the brakes are touched then it goes until the car turned off. So please tell me of this blown capacitator and where is it located.

Thank You
Patznu !!

[Jehu]

Oh, sorry i thought this was about something else...

http://www.weed-pics.com/holy%20shit.jpg

[Kyytsis]

89 525 recently purchased has no cluster appearance except when at 80,000 rpm and it thn goes back out after a moment. Gas and temp gauges went crazy one day and so now my gas gauge stuck in abnormal position. Temp gauge also still not working, But this annoying chimes comes and goes ... it does eventually go away on the highway. Until the brakes are touched then it goes until the car turned off. So please tell me of this blown capacitator and where is it located.

Thank You
Patznu !!

Hi Patznu,

I just followed these instructions:
http://www.bmwe34.net/e34main/maintenance/electrical/capacitors.htm

It's easier that I originally thought, I hadn't soldered anything in few years and still didn't break anything. It's easy to see which of the capacitators is broken: it has probably leaked on the circuit board, is soft, loose, blown etc...

Here are the parts that I bought:

PP-220UF16V x3 @ 0,13€
PP-22UF50V-PANA x2 @ 0,35€

total: 1,11€ and took about 30minutes. Of course you can 1st check which capacitator you need to change and get just that one, but with those prices I couldn't be bothered.

Good luck!

Regards,

Ville;)