My Collection of Mostly Broken BMW's - MTechnically's Garage

In reply to AngryCorvair :

Yep, that sums it up pretty succinctly.

The car really does pull of the dual purpose party trick very well. The S62 really is a wonderful engine that is torquey enough for puttering around, but just as happy to pull all the way to redline. The chassis is the same story. Refined and supple enough that you feel like you can drive for hours, but responsive enough that the car still shrinks around you when you really start to push on it. Yes, it's a bit too heavy, a bit too thirsty, and more than a bit expensive to maintain; but the overall balance of the car really shows you why "The Ultimate Driving Machine" wasn't considered just a marketing slogan for a time.

I just wanted to swing by and say I identify with this thread title. Also that 2002 is beautiful. That is all.

A bit of a pattern is starting to develop here.

The M5 was doing great as a daily again. I've never been a horsepower addict, but the ability to pass effortlessly is something a miss a little in the other cars. I finally got to wash the car and I even applied Leatherique to the extended leather interior. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, and in the case of the M5 the good times seem to be even more fleeting.

Started up the car this morning and noticed a little bit of belt squeal. Made a mental note to check them out next time I was poking around the engine bay. Loaded the kiddo up for the school run and headed out. About a mile from our destination, I noticed a sudden lightening of the steering and then a thud. Battery light immediately came on and then the steering became incredibly heavy. Made it to the parking lot, dropped off my daughter and went to assess the damage.

That would be the serpantine belt wrapped around the water pump pulley, berkeley. Definitely not going to solve this problem before I needed to get to work. 

By the looks of it, I got off relatively lightly. The outside of the belt itself only the fan blades are damaged, but that's only a $30 part. Most likely culprit would be the belt tensioner/idler assembly, which isn't the cheapest, but not too horrific.

I'm still chipping away at the 2002. Haven't made it to the auto body supply shop yet, but I'm getting closer to the point where all I can do is mask it off and apply filler and paint.

There is a sizable amount of filler and a bit of rust in this panel. Like I said before, I'm not doing it the "right" way, but it's a good learning experience for the future.

Sorry about that belt, I have been meaning to do mine soon. Just completed a round trip drive up to Laguna Seca  with my dad in the 5. When we got back I admitted that I thought for sure the car would have broken down on us. It did really well on the twisties on the 1 highway.  

The valance is looking good. 

BTW, you probably already know this company but just incase

http://www.kooglewerks.com/products

In reply to OjaiM5 :

Yeah I'm all too aware of Kooglewerks. I'll probably be getting there fog light brackets and there are a few other things I'd like to have from them. I like his air damns, but since the IE one came with the car I'm starting there.

That's why I replaced the serpentine belt on my 911 even tho it looked fine.  I figured it was probably stock, so 16 years old...

In reply to docwyte :

Yeah, I'm starting to learn that deferred maintenance was the name of the game when it comes to this cars past. Luckily I'm starting to get to the point where I have covered a lot of common wear items. Just going to have to be a little more proactive on tracking things down before they go pop.

Kooglewerks is a very dangerous place for a 2002 owner's wallet, but their stuff is really nice. I put one of their air dams on my car and it's really quite a nice piece. I'm trying to resist some of the interior bits pending a few other things that need doing, but it's not easy.

My car with the KW air dam, for reference:

In reply to 02Pilot :

Love the car, and yes their stuff seems to be pretty nice. If I ever damage this air damn beyond repair I'll definitely be looking for one of his pieces. I'm also interested in his center consoles since mine is a bit of a cobbled together mess.

Well it seems my optimism about the M5 situation was unfounded. Looks like the water pump bearing failed. Also on its way out the belt managed to damage all of the pulleys. Estimated cost for this repair is $2,800. 

This one stings pretty badly. 

That really sucks! If you can you should do the work yourself. Probably under $500 if you wrench on it and not too difficult of a job. 

In reply to OjaiM5 :

Unfortunately that's not the case. It's at least $1000 in parts if I source them myself. I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet on this one, but it sure is a bitter pill to swallow.

That's ugly. If there's an upside, be glad you weren't driving something with an N51/52/54/55. When the belt goes on those it tends to get sucked into crankcase through the front main seal and basically destroys the motor.

Time for another update I think. 

I'm slowly moving forward on the 2002. I'm really trying to finish this project up before kid 2.0 arrives and before it starts getting cold. I've been doing some projects around the house, so that's taken a little time away from the garage, but I'm glad that things aren't totally stagnating. 

Ground out most of the old filler and had a buddy come over to help me get the hood off. It's a small joy working on this car simply due to how easy and straightforward disassembly is.

My first time really masking off for any major painting project. I don't really know what I'm doing in that regard, and I'll admit that I am not taking every precaution to ensure I don't have any over spray where I don't want it. Given the nature of the project, I'm okay with that.

Here is the car covered up and starting to get some fresh filler. This is going to be a long process of adding gradual layers to fill in. 

Last night I put down some guide coat to help spot the low spots in the filler. I definitely helps and I think I am getting close to level in all but the worst of the damaged areas. 

This wouldn't be one of my updates if it didn't include spending money on the M5. Noticed a ticking coming from the front wheel bearings, so I ordered them up with a front axle brake kit. I'm going to evaluate the brakes when I am digging into the bearing replacement. I think they might be okay, so it's possible that I'll just keep these until they're more worn.

Noticed that these rotors have a more unique vane pattern than I've seen before. Also, these rotors seem incredibly heavy. I haven't weighed them directly, but they came in their own shipping box that weighed 60 lbs. 

I've also got a set of HPS pads and new rotors for the front of the E34. I'll be trying to get those put on in the near future, but there is a lot that needs to get done in the next month or so.

I guess the positive is that  with 3 BMWs you will never run out of thing to do?

I think I will get my stock Rotors turned if I can. A quality replacement is pretty pricey. 

2002 is coming along!

OjaiM5 said:

I guess the positive is that  with 3 BMWs you will never run out of thing to do?

I think I will get my stock Rotors turned if I can. A quality replacement is pretty pricey. 

2002 is coming along!

Absolutely right about always having something to keep me busy. I've never actually made a complete list of things that need to get done, because I think it would be a bit overwhelming.

The E34 is getting the front brakes done. But I think I'll be doing the front wheel bearings, along with the sway bar end links, and a parking brake rebuild. I still need to see if I'm right about my assumption that the drivers side Koni is blown. And that doesn't even begin to address all the cosmetic stuff...or the engine swap.

The M5 could probably use a new timing chain tensioner and I think I'm going to replace the spark plugs soon. Outside of that, I would like to update the head unit, upgrade to the later steering wheel and replace the shift knob. The brakes are one of the more reasonable parts for this car. The kit for the rotors, pads, and wear sensor only ran $195. I just wasn't 100% sure the vibration I've been experiencing has been solely from the bearings, so this was insurance.

I'm happy with the progress on the 2002. I think I'll probably be ready to spray primer by the time I have another Friday off. What I'm most excited about is that I actually have a plan for what I'm going to do to the car. Or at least the plan for the interior. Need to nail down some of the fine details, but it's nice to be able to at least have some plan of attack. 

The M5 is back on the jack stands. Started on the passenger side as I thought it was the noisy one. Brakes look absolutely fine on this side, but it's possible that the rotor is still causing a little wobble.

The front wheel bearing design on the E39 is definitely an example of the good kind of German engineering. It's a pretty simple job. Remove the wheel speed sensor, remove the brake caliper and rotor, disconnect the tie rod and sway bar end link, remove the collar bolt and slide the carrier out of the strut. 

I was honestly surprised how easy these are to replace, even if the bolts were a little hard to remove. I was able to break them free before sliding the carrier down for better access. 

Installing the new hub was similarly easy. Make sure you align the tab in the back of the bearing with the speed sensor and tighten the hub bolts to 75ft/lbs. Button it all back up and you are done. 

I was surprised on how quiet the bearing I removed was, to be honest. It does appear to be original, but it wasn't particularly noisy out of the car. I'll be tackling the other side tonight, so I guess I will find out if I was misplacing the sound or not. 

As it turns out, the drivers side bearing came out in about the same condition as the other one. Unfortunately, it hasn't remedied the noise I've been hearing, or the vibration I've been feeling.

I'm having the wheels rebalanced today, before I go ahead and replace the brakes. I'm pretty sure that it's the rotors, possibly coupled with a caliper that might be a bit sticky. 

I hope that solves it because otherwise I have to assume it's coming from one of the few front end parts that I haven't replaced yet.

So I started cracking into the brakes to see if I can figure out what is causing the noise and vibration that I've been experiencing. The noise is a constant and steady squeaking/clicking that comes on at about 45 and increases in tempo until about 70 where you can no longer hear it. It also increases in volume as you load up either side of the car. On a right hander, the drivers side seems to get a bit louder and vice versa for left handers. 

There has also been a slight vibration at those speeds and under medium pressure braking. It seems to go away if you really abuse the pedal, and it isn't very noticeable at low effort stops. To me this pointed in the direction of wheel bearings, though I admit it would be unusual for them to go out at the same time, but after replacing them last week the noise persists. Checking the wheel balance confirmed that they were mostly okay and unlikely to be causing much in terms of vibration. So it seems that the brakes are the next logical step.

Passenger side came apart first and the pads and rotors don't show any abnormal wear. As you can see there is still plenty of life on these pads. I think I am going to hold on to these for now. Same goes for the drivers side, nothing unusual, no lip on the rotor or anything that would show an obvious issue with the system.

Passenger side caliper. The only thing I noticed on the caliper is there is a bit of corrosion on the piston. The pads were a little hard to slid out of position so maybe they are sticking a bit, but I would expect to see that born out on the pad or rotor surface.

Got the drivers side apart easily, but when I went to compress the piston some brake fluid started to seep out. Looks like the seal on this side is done for. So maybe the piston is sticking a little and causing the noise? Again, I'm not too confident in that diagnosis, since there is nothing on the pads or rotors to indicate to me that I'm getting any kind of uneven wear patern.

I'm picking up a seal kit for both of the front calipers and I'll look to see the state of the pistons once I dig into them.

What started as a small project, a simple rotor and pad change, turned into a multi-week episode which had me questioning my sanity at times. I'm beginning to learn that my past wrenching experience has not prepared me well for the sophistication of the E39 M5. I ordered the rebuild kits along with new pistons just to be sure that I wasn't caught out and could complete the job smoothly. Smooth was the opposite of how the rebuild went.

First, I mucked up the new boots that seal the outside of the piston. In the process, I also struggled with getting the new pistons seated back in, even with them fully disconnected and on the bench. So I ordered up a new set of seals, seeing as it's only $20 for the front axle, along with a fancy piston compression tool, and front control arms just in case. Next order of business was to get the pistons back out of the calipers. I really didn't want to reconnect them fully, bleed them, press them out with hydraulic pressure, and rebuild them again. Sure, this might have been a good case for me to finally get an air compressor, but I figured I could rely on the charity of my local indy for something that would take about 2 minutes of a techs time. Hell, I would be happy to pay $20 for the headaches it would save me. Unfortunately, they wouldn't touch them for fear of "liability". I though that was a bit of a ridiculous excuse, but I was looking for a favor so I moved on. Luckily, another indy that was recently recommended to me was more than happy to pop my pistons for me. I'll probably let them handle my next alignments, or other small maintenance items to feel out the quality of their work overall.

Now that I had the calipers disassembled, new seal kits and a proper compression tool I was able to get the calipers reassembled with ease. After I managed to pair the wrong bracket with the wrong caliper I got the brakes hooked back on to the car. It took a staggering two weeks to get to this point, but I finally thought I was making real progress. Hooked up my new Motive power bleeder, hung my catch bottle, pressurized the system, and managed to get a decent bleed on the passenger side caliper. Moved to the other side, followed the same steps, and...nothing. Not a drop of fluid or a puff of air, or a wee tiny bubble was produced. I knew immediately what I had forgotten. The E39 M5 with it's relatively sophisticated stability control system, relies on a somewhat complicated ABS system, which contains multiple solenoids and charge pumps. Suddenly it was obvious that the system was completely closed to that circuit of the system. The only way to solve this problem was to talk to that system.

So it was back to a familiar territory, the land of automotive artillery. This time the parts cannon was loaded with a Foxwell NT510 OBD II scan tool. It came preloaded with BMW software, and for $179 shipped seemed like a pretty reasonable deal. Two days later and it was on my doorstep. I was actually pretty excited to play around with this thing, but that excitement was short lived. Plugged the scanner into the OBD II port under the steering wheel and found that for some reason the tool wasn't able to automatically receive the VIN, or talk to the ABS modules, or complete a general scan of the vehicle. The scan tool and the car were having a failure to communicate.

berkeley.

After research, which brought up nightmarish possible issues, it seemed like one of the more likely culprits was the fact that my car is an early build date MY00 (02/2000), which means it's kind of a OBD I and a half.

JOY

Apparently, it's not uncommon for the OBD II port to not really work in E39's of this vintage, but the general consensus is that if you are lucky enough to have the OBD I connection (20-pin), it tends to work unless you have some of the more troubling issues, which will lead you down the terrifying road of individual sensor diagnostics. Figuring that another few days of delay was worth not having to return this shiny new tool, I ordered a 16-pin tp 20-pin adapter (OBD II to OBD I). Another two days wait and the thing showed up on my doorstep today. I almost jumped up and down when the tool was able to read the VIN and subsequently was able to talk to the ABS modules. 

I ran the precharge pump a couple of times, filled the reservoir, re-pressurized the system, and bleed the driver side. SUCCESS, went over to the passenger side, repeated the steps, and got very little air on the first crack of the bleeder valve. Jumped back to the drivers side and got the same results. 

I'm happy to report that the test drive went well. The pedal feels good and I didn't notice the noise or vibration I was originally trying to track down. I'm hoping this car will let me focus on the 2002 and E34 now. I really need to get some things done before kid 2.0 arrives.

Ah, the wonderful world of BMW's, where they sorta went OBD2 in 1996 but really didn't for quite a few years after that...  My 98 M3 still had the round diagnostic port in the engine bay too.

In reply to docwyte :

It caught me totally off guard. Not sure why BMW was having commitment issues at the time, but I am glad that the OBD I port ended up working. The bonus is now the scan tool will work on the E34 as well which will be nice for resetting the maintenance indicator. Apparently with the M5, MY01 was the point where they got rid of the OBD I port, and I read about having to replace DME's if you find that your OBD II port isn't working. Sounds like a real joy.

I just hope I am able to drive the car for a while without having to do much work to it. I really need to get the 2002 back together before we start seeing snow, because it needs to get out of the garage for the winter.

Glad you got it done. I bought the schwaben scan tool  ( I think it is a Foxwell) and have used it on many issues that I cold not have figure out on my own. 

What pressure did you have to pump your bleeder up to? I found that mine worked the best at a pretty hight 30 psi. 

In reply to OjaiM5 :

I believe that the Schwaben branded tool is the same as the Foxwell tool that I purchased. The only discernable difference is the color scheme of the cases. 

The instructions that came with my Motive recommended 15 psi, so I went a tad past that. Admittedly, this was my first time ever using a pressure bleeder, so I was being a bit cautious.  Once I got the precharge pump working, I didn't seem to have issue getting fluid to come out of the bleed screws. I did find that once pressure dropped to 10-12psi, I needed to pump it back up. Seemed to work just fine at those levels. Haven't driven the car many miles yet, but the pedal felt pretty decent during the test drive.

Now I'm just balancing my rotor and pad bedding procedures. According to the instructions the rotors need to be driven over 200 miles "normally", then you can do a few hard stops and allow for a normal cool down. The pad instructions just mention a normal bedding procedure, of multiple 60 to 20 decelerations, but I'm used to doing that immediately after installing new pads. I'm hoping going easy on the rotors and then doing the bedding procedure will give me the desired results.