Just wanted to add, BMW N63 was the first production engine in the world to use the "hot V" setup .. just had to add that in there.



Since car isn't moving, ive decided to knock out the ball joints. Pretty bad, but not TOO bad. Both blind bolts came out fine, but both bolts that were tapped through the carrier have sheared off heads (& I wasn't the one who sheered them off ). First ball joint took me 3 days of slowly hammering it out. Second ball joint took me 3 hours. If anyone is doing this job, I would advise against sticking flat heads between the ears to "break the seal" as a YouTube video suggests. You will chew up the mounting surface of the joint. You don't even need to be on your back, under the car for this job. I didn't remove anything either, no CV, no arms, etc. All you need is a chisel & BFH. Start by chiseling off the top of the ball joint walls until they are flat with the top of the carrier. Then proceed to banging on & around the ball. After sufficient hammering, they will come out. Penetrating fluid around the joint probably helps as well. Ive drilled out & extracted the first stud using HF "warrior" extractor & the quality is actually impressive. This is after I completely stripped the threads of a more expensive extractor from HD; it just would not bite (avoid the very spiraled bits). I need to remove the second stud now, so wish me luck. This one sheered off at an angle so it will be a bit more complicated than the first.
Luckily for me, found that my thrust arm on passenger side is bad......... AGAIN! So I will be replacing that as well with MeyleHD. Excited to get the show back on the road, & stretch the car's legs.