Building on my fly-and-drive thread, I figured this might be a nice way to log all of the fun and challenging aspects of owning and using a 'bucket list' car for probably more than I should ask of it.
Thanks to Knurled again, I picked up a very clean 2003 540i 6 speed m-sport from Ohio last week. The ride was wholly uneventful, with exception of a running list of niggly bits that need addressing. Nothing that prevents me from driving it, surely though.
here it is on the day I arrived home with it, dirty as heck.
alpine white gets grosssss-
more detailed posts to come.
As stated earlier, my main goals for this car is a daily family hauler with the occasional autocross and mayyyyyve open lap track time if I'm feeling confident with it. Mostly though, I just want to maintain it and enjoy it to the level that it deserves.
A few things popped up as needing addressing in the first few days of ownership-
- the parking brake needs serious adjustment
- there is a significant water leak letting water into the read footwells
- the lights are in serious need of adjustment
today was the first day I got to spend some time on and under it. I already ruled out the sunroof drains, so I set out to see if the second popular culprit was to blame- leaky vapor barriers. It didn't take long to figure out the issue-
the butyl separates off of the vapor barrier for a good 10" on both doors.
yep, that's mold.
Dehumidifier is running and the cards are sealed and watertight now...
Also picking up another set of wheels and snow tires tomorrow for it. Went with studded gisevalds... if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.
I also have a perfectly functional e-brake as wel. Pro-tip: completely bypass trying to adjust the shoes with the rotor still on. Totally fruitless endeavor.
Good luck with the cleanup. It's a great looking car.
I'm a little north of you, in Bow. I drove a 5 series, automatic, rwd, with Dunlop snows last winter. I hadn't driven in snow in 30 years and it was a little dicey at times.
In reply to LarryNH :
Nice, we are practically neighbors, since I now live in weare!
Get ready, snow is coming starting tomorrow night I think. I am over in Somersworth.
Love me some 5-series.
RWD, Manual in upper New England is AWESOME.
And yes, I'm being 100% serious.
I bought some fun things today...
Now with 100% more winter-
guessing by how hard I had to pb blast and kick the wheels off, the tires hadn't been removed in... forever.
also, the pics might not show it, but the fronts had some of the worst cupping I have ever seen. No wonder there was excessive road noise and vibration at speed. I think some star specs might be in order next spring-
After that, I went into holiday decorating mode. Tree is up, decorations are hung, and while I was in the basement I realized that my house was leaking... wonk wonk
...not sure what happened, but a pvc to copper thread is stupid and was pissing out. A 10$ shark bite fitting came to the rescue-
and we also have a Christmas tree.
the end.
I'd have loved to see a picture of your BMW with a Christmas tree on the roof driving in the snow!
Christmas tree or not, we need pics tomorrow if we end up getting snow.
I'd be interested to know why it was cupping.
E39s are hard on the bushings in their thrust arms, especially if driven hard. It'll manifest as a shaky steering wheel under braking and you can also see the remains of the fluid that's leaked out of the bushing. You can either replace the complete thrust arm (gets you a new ball joint) or just the bushing (press required). I just did mine.
It could also be shocks. I've been happy with the Koni Sports on mine, but rear shock installation is amazingly high on the PITA list.
Keith Tanner said:
I'd be interested to know why it was cupping.
E39s are hard on the bushings in their thrust arms, especially if driven hard. It'll manifest as a shaky steering wheel under braking and you can also see the remains of the fluid that's leaked out of the bushing. You can either replace the complete thrust arm (gets you a new ball joint) or just the bushing (press required). I just did mine.
It could also be shocks. I've been happy with the Koni Sports on mine, but rear shock installation is amazingly high on the PITA list.
I had similar thoughts about the cupping. I'd check the alignment first to see if that gives you any hints, but like you said thrust arms are a know weak point. Just did them and then had to replace the bushings after they failed in about 2000 miles. Most likely that was due to improper installation, but it does highlight the stress those bushings are under.
Man - your wood floors are gorgeous!!
In reply to Keith Tanner :
yeah I'm not really sure. I do know that it needs an alignment, and everything looked okay underneath, but t I'm sure I'll be more thorough in the spring once I get out of the snowy season!
dyintorace said:
Man - your wood floors are gorgeous!!
Haha thanks. It's an 1880 farmhouse, and they're original. They have some some age and character to them, that's for sure.
It's tough to tell, but it looks like there's a nail or staple in one of your non-winter tires. Build looks great, I'm following along - I've always loved the 540/6spd combo!
golfduke said:
In reply to Keith Tanner :
yeah I'm not really sure. I do know that it needs an alignment, and everything looked okay underneath, but t I'm sure I'll be more thorough in the spring once I get out of the snowy season!
Have a look for indications of an old leak of dark fluid on the bottom of the thrust arm at the chassis end. A shudder through the wheel under braking is the most obvious symptom. I wouldn’t spend any money on an alignment until you know they’re good, as they can affect alignment.
02Pilot
SuperDork
12/1/19 9:42 p.m.
IMO it's just easier to replace all the control arms at once and be done with it. When I had my E39 I did them as they failed, which in the end resulted in me just replacing all of them over a two or three year period anyway, only with a lot of unnecessary duplication of effort. I learned my lesson and just did the whole set on my E82. FCP Euro sells kits with everything you need except for a decent ball joint separator.
Keith Tanner said:
golfduke said:
In reply to Keith Tanner :
yeah I'm not really sure. I do know that it needs an alignment, and everything looked okay underneath, but t I'm sure I'll be more thorough in the spring once I get out of the snowy season!
Have a look for indications of an old leak of dark fluid on the bottom of the thrust arm at the chassis end. A shudder through the wheel under braking is the most obvious symptom. I wouldn’t spend any money on an alignment until you know they’re good, as they can affect alignment.
So there is no dried dark fluid anywhere really under the car, and the only bushings that look questionable are the front and rear swaybar bushings really. I'm quite amazed at how clean this thing is on the underside.
i have been driving it in all conditions, and I'll say that it's actually got really good snow manners. Studded snows help obviously, but so far so good. I did find a few minor things need addressing though-
- the windshield wipers nozzles barely function. They spray more on the wiper at the bottom than the actual glass. No idea if it's the nozzles or the motor, but it needs addressing soon.
- the rear defrost doesn't work. Not critically important, but something to look into.
- the front passenger seat is jacked up. I need to remove it to see, but it almost looks skewed in the slider tracks, and recline only works on one side of the seat, so the upright corkscrews, if you will.
any ideas on any of these issues? I'm not yet an e39 expert, and these are all unique in that I never had to deal with these issues on my other bmws.
and a pic just to brighten things up. Alpine white gets dirrrrrrty!
The seat problem you are dealing with is usually referred to as "seat twist" on the BMW forums. I know it affects E34's as well as E39's, but I'm not sure if it's more widespread than that. If you search the term you should be able to find a DIY for the repair. You can either replace the seat cables or attempt a repair. On the E34 seats it requires a little fire. Just make sure that the seat is as close to level as you can get it before you disconnect it from the car.
02Pilot
SuperDork
12/8/19 7:40 a.m.
Washer spray could also be a clogged filter at the pickup. It's not a terribly complex system, and thankfully the bottle is up high and accessible.
As far as the seat, believe it or not there will actually be stored codes for the seat motors that you can access with a BMW-specific scan tool. I'd think that one way or another you're going to end up pulling the seat.
Look for date codes on the control arms. Unless they're fairly new, the upper control arm bushings at least are not as good as they should be. In ten years I replaced mine twice (Lemforder, not cheap stuff).
Seat is the cable. You disconnect it, shorten the sheath and reassemble. It’s a well known problem. The passenger seat on mine just requested this service, I did the driver side some time ago.
Keith Tanner said:
I'd be interested to know why it was cupping.
E39s are hard on the bushings in their thrust arms, especially if driven hard. It'll manifest as a shaky steering wheel under braking and you can also see the remains of the fluid that's leaked out of the bushing. You can either replace the complete thrust arm (gets you a new ball joint) or just the bushing (press required). I just did mine.
It could also be shocks. I've been happy with the Koni Sports on mine, but rear shock installation is amazingly high on the PITA list.
It can and will be exacerbated by a complete lack of tire rotation and tire design, No tire rotation possible due to staggered sizing, and once odd wear starts to happen, it never can really fix itself.
I had one customer with an Audi A8 who drove something like 50k per year, and was getting about 20k out of a set of tires because it was all city driving, so we kind of spitballed different tire models on his car to see what worked and what didn't. Most tires cupped horribly, others wore smoothly. I'd like to say that the best tires for him were ContiProContacts, and they even lasted about 50k before they were worn out, too.
