Originally Posted by BimmerBreaker

I'm actually unsure what caused the failure, if I had to guess, sustained high-RPM driving uphill to Flagstaff awhile back maybe cause some oil starvation issues, bits of timing chain guide may have jiggled loose and found their way into the oiling system, it seemed the wear was caused by contamination. Cylinder 1 was the worst by far, and the scoring/scratching on the bearings coupled with the wear pattern and scoring on the connecting rods tells me the bearings were spinning for quite a while and had done a few rotations. The weird thing is it drove for a couple thousand miles no problems after that trip to Flagstaff, so hard to say. M62's are pretty durable though, I gotta admit!

Been toying with the idea of a RWD conversion as well... but I don't think I'll go through with it.