That’s a testament to having the right tools to make a job go well LA02MAX. And since you are just on the other side of the lake from me, maybe I can rent the lot of them from you when the time comes to do my wheel bearings!

I went out to the garage I belong to today and put the X on the lift for an oil and transfer case fluid change. Third oil batch of oil in the new motor, which has about 6600 mi on it now. The batch I replaced had about 5k on it and was dark, but the motor had only used about an 1/8 of a cup of oil in that time.

With the oil cooler I put on I t takes a hair under 9 quarts of oil and it took maybe 2/3 of a quart of what I Found as the backwards comparable (to III) Dexteon fluid for the transfer case at auto zone. The fluid that came out of the Xfer case wasn’t red, but the dextron certainly was going in. I don’t ever recall doing that job before in 20 year. Which is shameful. It may have been done when I had the remanufactured tranny put in, but who knows.

After a bit of searching and head scratching, I suspect the very bright “ping” I hear when moving from drive to reverse might be the rear driveshaft U joint. I can’t feel play in it, but it really seems like the sound the driveshaft makes when you flick it with your finger, and I don’t know what else might make it when torque is applied. Unfortunately new driveshafts are expensive, and I’m not sure if that joint can be rebuilt.

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Current
Original owner 2002 E53 X5 4.4i to 4.6i swap
2026 G80 M3 6 spd
2025 G06 X5 50e
Former
1972 Audi Fox
1986 Saab 900S
1996 BMW Z3
1998 BMW E36 M3 Sedan
2004 BMW E46 M3
2006 Audi A3 Quatro
1993 Mopar 318 Jeep Grand Cherokee
2015 V6 Jeep Grand Cherokee