WIBIMMERS

The time has come to replace my wife's W body Impala and we both wanted a SUV as a replacement. I kept in mind that I wanted to go used BMW over newer economy because while I find the interiors nice in newer economy cars the road noise still speaks to the quality underneath.  It's the curse of growing up with these fine used automobiles knowing how things could be. The goals for this vehicle were really for long trips on vacations or at least day trips. After being impressed with that F10's condition I rented off Turo and @timmer's diesel thread, a E70 35d was the only vehicle we considered looking at. The desire also formed long ago when I worked at the dealership too, I loved driving the E90 and E70 diesels when they were new. They were my go-to errand runners when I had the choice. Father @andyhundley also told me they regularly service 10 of these at his job with no major issues after the EGR is "fixed".

I know its a pretty crazy car market right now but I don't feel like the prices on these have inflated much if any. The v8 X5's are the bottom because of their reliability and the diesels are just above that because its different. I saw many 80-120k examples for $12-15k on the market. CoPart auctions were often going for $8-10k as well for clean titled vehicles. Cinnamon Brown Nevada Leather interior was a must for me so that narrowed my search by quite a bit though. I initially looked in November and prices were a little lower on average then but I didn't see any winners at the time. Around the holidays this popped up in New Jersey though and after a week of contemplation I finally made the call. 

Being a 1 owner, clean carfax with recent service and being at a Euro specific car dealership really sweetened the deal. I'm really glad I looked back on @suspenceful's E70 thread as well because he mentioned using Lemon Squad for a PPI. Jeff at Torch Light Motors was happy to have them come out and inspect the vehicle and I was impressed with their report. I've attached it for those interested, really detailed and 94 pictures all around and under along with 3 short videos. 

Timing worked out pretty perfectly too as @BMWben is currently stationed out in Newport, RI for training before he moves to Japan. Along with a few other things out east I wanted to do, I figured why rent when I can buy? That and along with the Impala giving my wife some more trouble we decide to pull the trigger. Im flying out to Newark, NJ on the 28th and I'll spend a week out east and drive home on the 6th after a weekend of skiing in upstate New York at Whiteface. 

2013 BMW X5 xDrive35D
Deep Sea Blue Metalic
Cinnamon Brown Nevada Leather
Convenience Package (ZCV) - Comfort Access was a must for me
Cold Weather Package (ZCW) - Same with heated seats, heated rears was a bonus. 
Premium Package (ZPP) - All included in ZCV - The Rear view camera with top view I always loved using. 
Option 300 Space Saver Spare, not originally equipped but it has it! Thrilled this doesn't have run flats anymore. 
New Continental ExtremeContact DWS tires

LemonSquad460341.pdf

Friends and those interested in BMW's are always welcome. Asshat WCEC bro's are not.

Good news! Insurance payout came late last week, Not Totaled! They didn't even put up a fight after I denied their initial value and took my word on the current values, so glad this didn't turn into a nightmare battle like I've read about for others. The current auction price insanity on anything old and manual sure helps.

All the parts new were available from BMW to repair this, the fender was the only part that needed to come over from Germany but I still hunted around for used parts. It didnt make too much sense to just paint a new door/fender when the whole car needs paint. Car-Part was a joke and prices were premium as well. LKQ pick and pull has a great CURRENT website for listing inventory so I scoured that around the country. There were at least 2 black E34's and several other colors as well among the Los Angeles area yards so I took the gamble on the parts I wanted being there.

Luckily a side job gave me the opportunity to drive a 2020 F350 out west. I ended up going to 3 different LA LKQ yards and pulled the front doors off one and a fender off another, all perfectly rust free in Schwartz II. The fender does have a good dent towards the nose but paint isn't cracked and should be PDR'd easily. Bought a driver's door too since the door stay was ripped out when the car was bought. $150 total for all the parts was crazy cheap.

Gonna wait to install these come spring as it's cold and I still have remodeling projects to tend too. I also want to rust proof each fender while off and clean things up.

Opened up my box this morning to find one of @B C's famous christmas renditions

Do you Hear What I Hear?

Said the girl friend of the 5er driver,
do you see what I see?
Right there on the dash, 5er driver,
do you see what I see?
A light, a light, flashing in the night
With a noise that gives you a fright
With a noise that gives you a fright

Said the brother of the 5er driver,
do you hear what I hear?
Clanking from the front, both could hear,
Yes I hear what you hear
A knock, a knock, coming from the block
You have got to be kidding me please
You have got to be kidding me please

Said the 5-er driver to his brother,
do you know what I know?
In your drain pan there's a shiny thing,
do you know what I know?
It's wild, it's wild the filter's not that old
But the drain pan is all filled with gold
But the drain pan is all filled with gold

Said Blackstone to the 5er driver,
Listen to what I say
Pray for luck, because we think you're fucked,
There is copper every**-where!**
There is copper every**-where!**

The oil, the oil, it really isn't right
That five twenty Is much much too light
That five twenty is much much too light

Enclosed was a Official BMW safety vest kit for when I inevitably get stranded by German reliablility and some hot sauce! Thanks Brian!

Regardless of lacking BMW ownership, your participation will still be mandatory at get togethers! Sad to see it go but I understand the struggle, I don't have time for my own projects and you managed to make this happen while taking care of your family too.

Had a productive weekend despite the heat. Water Pump and Valley Pan done, new knock, crank and cam position sensors, billet throttle cable bushings, Intake w/ new PCV installed. I was going to do both the valve cover gaskets even though they didn't really need to be done but doing the right side turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. I think 4 of the studs backed out and 2 of them stripped going back in. The fun part is the studs are threaded into the CAM BEARING CAPS  Not happy about that and haven't had this issue before on other M60's. I cleaned up the threads with a tap & die and hand tightened things as tight as I felt comfortable, the spec is only 10Nm and thankfully the lower back corner held tight. The center stud is barely hanging on though, Hopefully no leaks otherwise it'll be quite the job to properly fix that. Gonna leave the other side until it absolutely needs it. 

Engine bay is all back together besides the fan and intake. Just need to replace the battery and battery negative cable before startup. If all goes well and running issues solved it'll be onto swapping out the front doors and fender.

patsbimmer1 said:

How many fucking cars do you guys have and how many of them drive under their own power?  You guys are hoarders.  @YoungCR

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

50% running is good enough

Got my gift today! An awesome E24 Group A shirt from Pat

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Finally got a chance to take this out of storage! I'm harboring @BMWben's car indefinitely while he's presently serving in the Navy. He'll be stationed in Hawaii soon but who knows in a few years where the sub program will take him from there. I think he towed this car up in April but I just moved all my vehicles up to a new storage unit in Appleton last month. This car has more or less been in storage for 1.5 years now so not much is missing from this build thread. Summer of 2017 Ben installed the BC racing coilovers, I don't know the specs on the rates. A rebuilt driveshaft and E60 short shifter were installed with delrin/poly bushings. He also put on the Supersprint Cat-back resonator and muffler. 

Car runs and drives well, just needs some minor fixes, its now just over 150k on the odo. 

To Do:

• Raise car, its too damn low.
• Find oil leak, lock-tight oil pump bolts, replace timing chain tensioner, change oil 
• Detail everything
• Rebuild driver sport seat due to twisting

Last from the trip home, I've been recovering lol. I noticed this lighthouse on Google Maps and wanted to visit. Turns out its on private property but the valet at the Castle Hill Inn was happy to instruct us on how to get there and if we didn't have prior dinner arrangements we would've loved to have eaten there. Its just a short hike from their parking lot.

Thursday I made the trek from Newport to Lake Placid once again racing against a snow storm. Interstate was just starting to get bad, The wrangler unlimited I drove up with was loosing traction in 2wd. He switched over to 4wd as we got off and then it was all mountain roads for 45min after that which this handled flawlessly. This was when we got to the house we stayed at. Friday morning there ended up being a 3ft + pile of snow at the end of the driveway from the plows. 

I couldn't have picked a better day to get back into skiing though. It was around 7* windchill when we got to Whiteface at 8am but the runs were all covered in 5"+ of fresh powder. It was an incredible day. Went to the summit twice in the afternoon. The building on the left is the where the lift ends up and the start of the Men's Olympic Runs. I did end up going down Skyward at the end of the day and it was awesome except for that near vertical drop in. The rest of the run was actually easier because more trafficked runs had iced over at that point vs still being more powder. 

Saturday was more brutal at -18* windchill when we got there but still a blast. Everything was groomed overnight so better overall conditions for me still looking to gain my skills back. Same photo at the summit just before we dropped in Skyward on a way colder but clearer day. It was a lot more challenging to go down even first thing in the morning because of the ice build up hence "ice face" as the resorts nickname.

 

Managed to keep warm and didn't get my lips stuck to a beer can so win win  I gained a lot of confidence and we ran another full day. This is looking up at the summit late afternoon. Skyward is the the run on the right of those 3. 

The worst thing I could've done for recovery though was spend 19 hours in a car but I did so in relatively good comfort. My hamstrings didn't want to stretch out for one of the rest breaks. It's also been a long time since I drove with good modern headlights, which were great to have driving through the woods in the dark for the first 3hrs of the trip. I ended up getting 26.45 and 26.59mpg on the 2 full tanks that I used coming back and that's with a good headwind too so I'm happy to have that as a starting base.

Made it home around 9:30pm Sunday night, threw the awaiting Weathertech seat cover and floor mats in and had the wife and dog out for a short drive. She's very happy with the purchase and figured out the controls quickly too. It was bittersweet too as our dog Maggie has been having kidney issues since before Christmas so I was so glad she was still around when I got home and she's very much been enjoying her favorite activity of going on car rides. 

157045 Miles Checked a few things off the punch list. Changed the oil with the handy screw in oil funnel kit when it was on sale. Also installed a mishimoto magnetic drain plug. https://www.harborfreight.com/master-oil-funnel-filling-kit-56892.html

Attempted to start the front shocks, ball joint bolt had different plans. Very seized and had to cut/punch out. Replaced with a 10.9 bolt and haven't gone back to that project yet. 

Discovered during the rear shocks replacement that the drivers rear spring had broke and wrapped itself around under the mount. Didn't notice any noise or handling issues so this was quite the surprise but apparently a common issue by 150k. 

OEM spring compressor is short but extremely expensive. Not enough room to use standard ones so just ended up using a small bottle jack and got plenty of room to pull them out. Make sure the brake line is removed from the shock mount location. 

Replaced both sides with LESJÖFORS 4208476 from Rock Auto as they were $20 cheaper each than FCP and didn't care about warranty. Top is the unbroken stock, LESJÖFOR below. Little thicker than the OEM. Replaced rear upper and lower spring pads as well. 

Finally pony up'd the $25 for the Motive bleeder bottles and was happy to toss away my gheto gatorade setup. The seal on my Motive 1100 power bleeder cap had swollen as well, FCP and Amazon don't offer the replacement. I ended up trimming a 3/8 x 2 1/4 with 1/8 center rubber washer from Menards down to 1 3/4 diameter tracing a hole saw bit. Brakes bleed with Pentosin DOT4-LV

Got all the other parts on hand, just need to purchase the tune yet and then I can dig into the major refresh items.

Did the full transmission service a few weekends ago now and got about 2500 trouble free miles on it since. I haven't floored it yet but very happy with the improvement on the 2-3 shift. Overall the job looks more intimidating than it was but it certainly was a full weekend project. This is pretty well covered in these videos but I'll share my tips. 

I did end up pulling the transfer case cross member. People buy or fabricate a shallow Torx wrench to get at the rear pan bolts blocked by the cross member that takes 10min to remove. I unbolted the exhaust as well to get additional clearance for the passenger side center bolt, no issues with that leaking afterwards and my flange nuts were in good shape. 

6HP26/28 how to video. I followed this along with the TIS instructions. I would highly recommend marking the mechatronic sealing sleeve with a paint pen as I had a hell of a time getting that lined back up properly and that would've saved me the headache like the TIS suggests. 

This is a E53 mechatronic rebuild but similar enough procedure with good assembly tips. 

Mechatronic unit after removal and splitting. Split the plate this side up so the accumulator pistons and check valves don't fall out, those are reused along with the filter. 

I let the transmission drain overnight too with the mechatronic unit out and I ended up needing the full 9.5l capacity, luckily NAPA does stock the Liquid Moly Top Tec 1800 so I was able to get what I needed to finish the job. 

Just to reiterate, my E-Shift 6HP28X with with main parts list 1068-050-045 did indeed use the ZF 1068298047 mechatronic service kit as confirmed by California Transmission Supply and Automatic Choice. I even wrote to FCP Euro Support asking them about their product listing comparing to these sources and wrote back to me after a month stating that their BMW Catalog team confirmed this was not for my vehicle and to check with my local BMW Service Center. The dealers only sell the complete mechatronic unit so guessing thats why this "doesn't match my vin". Again not sure why FCP and ECS don't have as complete main parts list compatibility as those transmission sites do but I would reference those. I didn't have any luck getting into ZF's official catalog. 

Also if you are going to do the Sonnax Zip-Kit, remember that the valve body separator plate needs to be replaced as well which in my case was the A065 plate also available through Sonnax. I just ended up doing all the end plugs, pressure regulator sleeves and Clutch A & E control boost valves since I had this out and given the mileage instead of diagnosing what it might just need. Only issue I did have was having to redo 1 or 2 o-rings during assembly as they got cut on the valve bores that were still tight tolerances. Just takes time and make sure everything is well lubricated. Again it's just a tedious job but glad I did it and saved a bunch of $$$.

Interesting news from yesterday, ECS squired Turner Motorsports. No worries Pat, they aren't gonna touch the racing team! Very curious to see how some product pricing might change.

http://www.ecstuning.com/TurnerAnnouncement/

Best comments from the R3V fb post

Guy named Greg: "Next week: Blunttech acquires Guten Parts after being acquired by Pelican"

Levant: "Greg now that it's all legal Steve and I would just marry."

The city of Milwaukee has run out of salt! I was at the Department of Public works this morning practicing for my CDL road test and the examiner said the city has run out of salt and won't be getting any more. You all know what that means

Time to start pulling out the cars!

Having moved to a new shop in July, This car hasn't had any attention between our schedules but we gave things another go yesterday and the car has started! Comparing notes between e30's it's seems to have been a combination of wiring issues and the fuel pressure regulator being bad. Don't really have a clear answer but the fpr was leaking this time after we re-wired the motor as we had planned to pull it for a m50. 

@MattY bought a sedan (build thread will start soon) so just need to tidy up stuff under the car like installing the driveshaft, exhaust, subframe bushings being the major things before this is road worthy.

*knocks on wood* this will be at the picnic, hopefully the sedan too.

Clutch pedals are for getting into first and reverse.

Got my box yesterday!

Not sure what I did lol 

Got a E34 Euro clock! 

and a sweet LED kit. Thanks Santa! 

The mild winter weather got me motivation to order parts from @patsbimmer1 last week and now winter weather has kicked back in since delivery . Ordered 540i rear calipers with brackets this time, ECS SS braided lines as the FCP kit I bought doesn't include the hoses for the rear calipers??. Also got both idler pulleys and a new V belt just in case as nobody stocks these locally. Yes this is all simple stuff as long as I can presumably get the ABS pump bled once the parts are on. The bigger task is really getting the car out from the middle of my storage unit. 

I envy your craftsmanship but you're also crazy!

I suspect Beers were consumed