Thanks as well Steve to your great input.
I have tremendous admiration for all you mechs and engineers in this field, I fly Airbuses and I thought it was pretty tricky and difficult landing on a dark stormy night in and out of Queenstown NZ (The Aspen of NZ).. but jeesh opening up the hood of my X5 always reminds of a Dallas Oil refinery gawd :l
Very funny comment about becoming an expert at doing rocker-cover seals when buying el-cheapo Ebay gear, like that one.
what an awesome blue V8, yep water cooled alternators, I've changed many in my lifetime for mates ( girlfriends
) on the Celicas' Corrolas' and Ford Falcons... yet my first nightmare experience with my X% was when I was given it to me as a present for my birthday from my X, very kind of her mind you, she did warn me there "may be some mechanical repairs" needed... had no idea my X5 was to become the Prince of Darkness like an albatross around my neck, cause within 5 minutes of graciously accepting it, the RED alternator came on... I thought ok no big deal, drove it home lifted the hood, to take altnerator off to get it reconditioned to find it is a water cooled one "what the heck??" I needed to get to work the next day and I had no choice BUT to go to an offshoot BMW specialist repairshop and Aust$2,100 later I picked up the X5 and then took a ride in an ambulance to get over the shock !!!!!!!
then within the month, the rear air suspension bellow blew with a window regulator going... another $2,500 later !!! So that's when I decided enough is enough and get on the DIY bandwagon and get stuck into it.
Thanks to Mr youTube and dare I say to avoid your wrath 'EBay' when my driver's door handle failed to work and withing the week the same door handle lock failed to manually open the X5, I went and fixed both which now has my tail up to get stuck into the rocker-covers.
With all your good heads-up gentlemen I will now give it a crack
Awesome respray/paint cover G300
Warm regards from sunny Melbourne Oz
Mike