2004 X5 Auxiliary Fan Replacement DIY -part 2

[NashvilleDave]

...Here is part 2 of the thread

Once your bumper is removed, you need to remove the air ducts and the components (circled in red):



(item #15 isn’t addressed in the steps but there is one on each side that comes unclipped and removed)

Passenger side air duct (#7 in above diagram):
(Notice the reusable body rivet in the top of the duct)




Passenger side duct (#2 in diagram): This and the driver side one are both secured by just a reusable rivet and one of the bumper screws (?). Once the fasteners are out, just pull them up and out.





Bottom air duct (#11 in diagram):




Driver side air duct (#1 in diagram):






Then only had to reposition this driver side air duct (#6) I believe:



Remove the bolts on each side of the fan. You should now be able to pull your old fan out. Pull the fan down, and tilt the bottom of it out just a little. It is held in place by a bolt on each side AND, at the top of the fan shroud, plastic pressure clips (one on each side) under which the lip of the fan’s top is slid under and is held in place by friction only…this is where a few guys had a problem….see the graphic below of the pressure clip…this is with the fan removed to give the clearest picture:





….Here’s a picture of the old fan with its tab under the pressure clip at top:




Inserting the new fans is easy, but the top of the fan shroud MUST go under those pressure clips at the top. I did have one problem with the Dorman fan…the “lip” that goes under the pressure clip, was not beveled on the driver side so I had to Dremel it to about a 45 degree angle and just took a couple minutes to do…this is the tab can slide under the pressure clip….here’s a picture of the old fan and you can see how it was beveled (forgot to take picture of new fan without the bevel):






Put new fan in reverse procedure and should look something like this:



Good luck and hope this helped!!!

NashvilleDave