E30 Zone

Can anyone help .Brake lining light keeps appearing on dash ,all brakes new and censors ok ,sometimes if you give the dash a tap it goes for a short while,anyone please.Also the coolant light will mysteriously appear on the check panel ,when levels and gauge are normal,stop and start car and all is dandy.325 89 touring..

You'll have to look in your Haynes Manual for this but i think it might be to do with the little battery in the clock's, i may be wrong but not totally upto date with for electronic's on the E30, sorry

how strange I also have both these problems on an 89 CAB

jonbuoy wrote:You'll have to look in your Haynes Manual for this but i think it might be to do with the little battery in the clock's, i may be wrong but not totally upto date with for electronic's on the E30, sorry

Last place I would look is the Haynes manual!
Coolant light is most probably the sensor in the coolant tank. Water gets inside it and corrodes the wires to the little reed switch inside.
If you get a new one from GSF or Eurocarparts, make sure they give you the right one. One sort fits with the connectors upwards in the setup with the seperate coolant tank on the inner wing, and the other fits terminals downwards in the setup where the coolant tank is built into the radiator.
Brake pad light is almost certainly cracked solder joints on a large 220 ohm resistor inside the instrument cluster.
Remove the cluster from the car and note a rectangular lump on the back of the case almost behind the temp gauge. The resistor is in this lump.
Open up the cluster, place the back half face up, being carefull not to damage the needles, and find the two solder joints holding this resistor, near the temp gauge. Resolder them.