okay so I clicked on the the ancient youtube link from six years ago and was reading the youtube comments and figured out that this motor was used on

BMW 3 SERIES E46 1998-2005
BMW X5 E53 1999-2006
LAND ROVER FREELANDER 1998-2007
ROVER 75 1998-2008
CHRYSLER - JEEP CHEROKEE 1998-2008

the jeep cherokee one caught my eye. should be PLENTY of these in the junkyard right. in any case, I found this video on youtube. lol! look familiar!?

well, who's got time for the junkyard? a little more research and I found this. and this.

there's a bunch of these kits from different sellers on German ebay. the sellers I linked ship worldwide and have english postings. some of them are full on German. I may go ahead and order one of the full rebuild kits and see if that does the trick. essentially $60 to rebuild the entire motor housing. looks like from the youtube video that often times the metal housing is broken....the locator pins break or something. I didn't notice that being the case with mine yesterday but I wasn't looking for that problem either.

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2005 X5 3.0i - 71k mi (9.2018) -> 81k (9.19) -> 100k 9.21 -> 123k (8.25)
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SOLD : ( 2003 X5 3.0 - 177k mi (9.2018) -> 186k (9.19) -> 205k (9.21)
SOLD : ( 1997 328is Coupe - Hellrot Red
SOLD : ( 1988 528e w/ Bullseye s256 / MS2 Extra / GC Coilovers / Yukon Coils ~ 300+ HP