What is needed to upgrade from manual to power windows?
1. Torque wrench with size 8mm and 10mm heads.
2. (+) screwdriver
3. Black electrical tape
4. Hex nut`s sized 8mm (0.31inch) (6 pieces)
5. Heat shrink tubes (used inside doors and if you want to inside the car, helps to secure the connected wires)
6. 2x 25amp fuses (with nests) to put them inline with the power line.
7. Wires, preferably colored -
black, blue, red, brown thickness -1.5-2.5 (I used 1.5 and have no problems at all).
About needed wire lenght - to be on the safe side take
black and blue = 6m each (20ft) and the
red = 2m (6.5ft) and
brown = 6m(20ft)
8. Tweezers (small ones)
9. Patience
As i read up on the
manual and gathered info on how to, where and what would be the best solution, i came to a conclusion - all you need is the list above and the power window buttons/mechanisms!
If you want to do it properly as BMW intended from the start, and have a donor car from where to take parts - do it as shown in the manual
my version is cheaper if you dont have the relay or the original wiring that goes into the door
REMEBER - before doing this, REMOVE the power from the electric system
Step 1.
Take out the plastic that`s guarding the handbrake, if there are any questions on
how to do it - there is a detailed manual a few lines higher,
and remove everything that is around the gear shifter knob, then proceed to the whole console.
DON`T TAKE IT OUT COMPLETELY it is not necessary!
get it to this position, and you are set.
Step 2.
As you can see, I didnt have the plastic with the holes so i had to make em for this to work. All you need is a seam (no idea if that`s what it`s called properly) as shown in the picture and a larger sized screw. When you have your plastic a bit higher and you can freely reach underneath it - search for some markings under it, there are lines where the buttons should go, find the middle of that spot, and puncture it with the screw, after that push the seam trough and work until you have a decent hole for the button to be seated in!
Step 3.
Instert wires (
black and blue) underneath the carpet where the gear shifter knob is at. After that remove everything there is to remove to get your hand under the carpet, and pull the wires towards the spot where is the front speaker located. Remove the speaker and find the hole where the wires from the door come into the interior.
(you can see what has to be removed to loosen everything properly)
Step 4. (and this takes most of the patience needed
)
Get the wires trough this thing.
(the black rubber thing that goes from the frame to the door and keeps your wires safe)
I used tweezers on one, but the other was already with some holes (covered em up with some rubber glue and black tape), so was pretty time and nerve consuming.
Get both of the wires, blue and black, to the inside of the door!
Step 5.
Remove the lower part of the door lining (on how to, check the manual).
And then take out the old manual mechanism, and replace it with the new electric one (use torque wrench with 10mm head) this is where you will need 3 of the hex nuts!
The red circles are where the manual one was screwed on, yellow is where the electric one should be. And there is another one, but that is common to both and is located at the "end" of the doors.
Step 6.
Now you can connect the wires to the mechanism and proceed to the interior!
Step 7.
this is how the button should look like with wires. Connect the black and blue to their respective ends.
Red one is for power, there are many places to take power from, I took it from the "nearby" cigarette lighter as it was really close and had a grounding wire also! (check the picture in
step 1 in the upper left corner you can see the wires where i connected both of front windows)
Don`t connect the red wire straight to the power line, put a fuse in the middle (25amp) just in case something goes wrong, be safe
And the brown wires you can connect and put them both to the grounding line that came to the cigarette lighter! (Also, there are a lot of places to ground the switches against, for example under the rear seat, or under the steering wheel at the "central" grounding point! Just select a spot and wire away, because you have the wires to do it
Step 8.
Take everything back together
(congratz if you won`t have any screws left as "wtf where did this come from")
Seal up every connection, double check the colours (do they match their respective end) and put the battery back in! Check if everything works (it should) and do the same thing on both sides (or all four).
Done, the easy/cheap/lazy way to get power windows
ah, ok then, i`ll re-do it in a week or so! 
