Fitting a 3 Series BMW Dash Clock to a Mazda Bongo

The beemer clock before fitting into the Bongo dash

Step 1: Accessing the Rear of the Dash

To make the fitting much easier it helps if you can increase the access to the rear of the dash. To do this you need to remove the glove box bin.

Pull the highlighted stop peg to the left so that it free to pass the dash surround and allow the bin to open past the stop. Do the same on the left hand side of the bin.

The bin should now just lift out. Put it to one side out of the way.

Step 2: Removing the Existing Cubby Hole

Now that the glove box bin has been removed you should have plenty of room to get up behind the stereo head unit and existing cubby hole.

Now remove the stereo head unit by releasing it from the mounting sleeve and sliding it out of the dash. Also take the stereo mounting sleeve out to aid working access.

The cubby hole is held in place by sereval retaining clips, these need to be released to allow the cubby hole to slide out. They are highligted in the photo so you know where you have to apply pressure to allow them to release. It's held in there quite firmly so don't be too affraid to apply some force, just don't go overboard. You have to do this "blind" from the rear of the dash.

Step 3: Connecting the Clock

The clock has three wires that need to be connected.

Clock +ve
Clock -ve
Backlight +ve

The simplest way to make the connections is to attach to the ISO converter loom for the stereo. Since it can be detached from both the stereo hed unit and the main Bongo loom it can be worked on out of the dash. In addition if yo make a mistake or damage the cabling it can easily be replaced.

Make the following connections using blue scotchlok connectors:

1) Connect the orange/yellow clock wire to the yellow wire (+ve power) of the loom.

2) Connect the brown/black clock wire to the black wire (-ve power) of the loom.

3) Connect the gray/red clock wire to the orange wire (+ve instrument light power) of the loom.

If you ISO loom doesn't use the same colour coding you should be able to work out the correct wires by matching them up to the connector pins as highlighted in the second photo.

Step 4: Trimming the Clock Surround

Even though the clock is sized to the ISO standard and the dash cut out meets the ISO dimensions don't expect the clock to fit. After all we're talking standards here ;)

The make the clock fit you need to trim the clock surround and the dash.

First trim the top locating clips to cfit the dash. In the first photo you can see two fillets that locate the clock surround in the dash. The one cloest in the photo has been trimmed ready for fitting (compare it to the fillet directly behind it). You need to trim it back so that there is approximately 7mm between the rear edge of the clock surround and the fillet. Cut all the locating clips on the top of the surround the same.

Next clear the fillets on the underside of the surround. The other to photos show the fillets before they've been trimmed and the surround after they've all been removed.

Step 5: Trim the Dash

The dash also has some plastic fillets that stop the clock surround fitting neatly so these have to go too. The photo show two fillets the left one has already been removed and the right one has yet to be cut out. As you can see there are several more fillets that also need to be removed, take them out to.