This is the procedure for removing the electic rear seats of an E32 735. If your seats aren't electric, Don Gale has documented the procedure on his web site Gale's Repair Helps, specifically his Rear Seat Removal page. If you are an E32 owner you should have Don's site in your bookmarks.

I started getting warning messages about the tail lights and sidelights, when there was nothing wrong with them. These are classic symptoms of dry joints in the mustard coloured relay.

Symptoms

When the blind is retracted it makes a horrible grinding noise for about 10 seconds Diagnosis ——— It seems that the electronic control unit for the rear blind simply applies power to the motor for a set period of time. When the blind reaches the end of its travel it is supposed to stall the motor until the control unit switches off the power. When the rear blind gearbox was disassembled it was discovered that the main gear had several stripped teeth, with the blind in the closed position. This meant that rather than stalling, the motor continued turning, causing the worn gears to make a loud clicking noise.

When the bracket holding the lock solenoid broke in my driver’s side door lock mechanism, the only solution was to replace the whole assembly. A replacement was obtained from a scrap yard and I just needed to exchange the lock barrels so that my existing key would still work. This repair procedure covers the removal of the barrel from the replacement lock.

It turned out that the mirror switch worked fine, but it was so nicely made that I thought I’d post some pictures anyway.