koister,

Hope you all had a great long weekend, it was much needed for me!

I should warn that this repair is not for the faint of heart, you should be somewhat mechanically inclined, and grasp somewhat of an understanding. I'm not saying it's particularly difficult but know what you are getting yourself into.

This is hardly a DIY guide, but my experiences.

I would have to say that this has become rather time consuming, as I work 12 hours a day and the occasional weekend, I don't have much time to spare for my X5.

Working underneath the X5 was a bit of a pain, but Air Tools helped tremendously on the exhaust and assorted other nuts or bolts, I did have to invest into a transmission floor jack for about four hundred something dollars, but I'll probably end up selling that once I'm done. My biggest word of advice is you HAVE TO TAKE YOUR TIME, otherwise you'll end up creating more headache for yourself, having a friend help you pass the time helps too (plus beer), I found it particularly boring, so it helped to have a friend help/occupy me. My girlfriend just ended up distracting me.... lol

Take the engine cover off in the engine bay, remove the HVAC ducting in the engine bay, this will help you gain access to the top of the transmission to undo the bolts at top. Disconnect sway bar, place transmission jack on transmission, undo transmission brace, unplug everything, go slow and everything worked out pretty good for me. I hope you have a good memory to remember where all the plugs and assorted nuts of bolts go.

At that point I removed the torque converter and undid the bolts in the bell housing to slowly pull apart the rest of the transmission. It's crucial that you are able to spots signs of failure as not all failures are internally the same, a couple x5world'ers already noted slight variances in their failures compared to mine.

I used the part manual from the ZF Website for the 5HP24, and since all my local parts suppliers wanted a fortune for parts around here I ordered them from Kirt Koeller @ AutoSports Unlimited 1.800.624.3876 x 5735 same parts locally would have been 5 times more expensive than ordering from Kirt, including shipping.

I also found Carloine @ European Transmissions 770.888.1425 very helpful and very reasonable, she does entire kits very reasonably, but Kirt was able to sell me only the parts I needed, so I opted for that, some however may find it the perfect time to use a complete overhaul kit with frictions, pistons, seals and gaskets.

The following are the exact parts I had to replace found from the ZF Parts Manual.

x6 77.090 - 1055 270 072 (Friction Plate F)

x1 77.140 - 0734 313 096 (F Drum O Ring)
x2 01.010/120 - 0734 319 623 (Shaft Seals)
x1 10.024 - 0501 315 821 (Bell Housing Gasket)
x1 03.030 - 0501 314 899 (Pan Gasket)
x1 77.040 - 0501 212 967 (F Piston)
x1 27.450 - 0501 004 925 (Fliter)
x4 77.120 - 0736 401 071 (M8x24 Counter Torx)
x4 03.050 - 0736 101 318 (M6x22 Pan Torx)

This all came to about $200 for me.

I hope that answered your question for you, otherwise don't hesitate to ask.