E21 Blade Fuse Upgrade Kit V2 Installation Manual

Installation of the E21 kit is pretty straightforward, but it's a bit more involved than the E28 kit because of the design of the fuse box. Please see photos below to make sure the board is installed correctly.

 

Video install guide here: https://youtu.be/9YK9lMAFwd8

 

Basic instructions:
  1. Disconnect positive terminal from the battery.
  2. Remove old fuses and relays.
  3. Remove back cover from fuse box.
  4. Unplug all wires that connect to the bottom of the bullet-style fuse holders. Make sure you record where they go. Carefully remove the color card (may rip depending on how the glue has survived, do your best).
  5. Destructive step: Remove the bullet-style holders, the horizontal stamped metal strips (NOT all the metal strips), and drill a hole for the extra blade above fuse 11. To remove the holders, you will need pliers and a flat-head screwdriver. The stamped metal strips may require light hammering to remove, see photos below for exactly which to remove.
  6. Put new circuit board in.
  7. Plug all wires back in to their original locations. If a wire plugged into the horizontal strip next to the relay, those are now plugged into the bottom of the relay socket.
  8. Put back cover back on.
  9. Install fuses.
  10. Reconnect positive battery terminal.

 

Photos and details below.

After step 2:

After step 4:

The circled positions had wires clipped into the housing directly, it is easier to do all the work if you remove them completely. Here's a link to a video that explains how to remove them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=pELf2s0xPAs

For tips on removing the fuse holders, see our E28 install video here (around 12:40 mark):  https://youtu.be/m-zf8HLEjp8?t=762

After step 5:

Front view of the fuse box. Drill a hole where the circle is that's at least as big as the slots so the extra blade will fit, only drill after you've removed the horizontal metal strips.

Back view of the fuse box. Pink lines highlight the strips that need to be removed. The topmost one by the bolt can be broken off above the bolt by bending it back and forth with pliers, the rest of the strip below that point (including the bolt connection) is left alone. The two vertical strips in the photo that are not highlighted need to stay in the fuse box, only remove the highlighted one.

 After step 6:

Photo is of a preproduction unit without relays, your unit will have them. Make sure the circuit board is set down all the way (slightly above the plastic) and is not bent.

Here is an angled photo showing the spacing. The toggle switch in the middle of the photo controls the LEDs. The two slide switches towards the bottom from the LED switch control when both the fogs and the low beams are on - one is while cranking, and the other is while the high beams are on. We recommend keeping both off (away from the LED switch) unless you have a reason to change it such as a significantly modified headlight system. The factory sealed beam headlights can overheat if you have both the high and low beam filaments on.

Step 7:

Wires may have been plugged into one or more of the horizontal strips you removed; the fuse box used for photos had one connected to the strip from the unloader relay. The connection point for each has been moved from on the strip to directly below the relay, this is shown for the unloader relay in the above photo. Move the wire that was originally plugged in at the circle to where the arrow is, do the same move for any other wires that were plugged into the strips.