Skeletor's Black E53 5MT Thread

[Skeletor]

Originally Posted by OrangeFurious

It sounds like you came out about as good as could be expected here. Kudos.

You're right these beasts are tough. Back when I had a 4.4 I made a foolish mistake...

....Kids loved it, the X5 didn't have anything but cosmetic damage to the bumper. Neighbor needed a new rear bumper and trunk.

Stuff happens, I'm glad that nobody got hurt! These things take a beating and I'm surprised at how much they don't show damage

I've had the car put back togeather for a couple of weeks now but just got back into the swing of the forum. I will say, the new exhaust really sets off the back of the car now. I'm very pleased with the way that the repair turned out.

I bought a parts car about a week before the accident happened and I was really exited to put the 4.4 mufflers on the X, but something didn't feel right and I didn't get around to doing the work. 3 days after I turned down the opportunity to install the exhaust I got rear ended. How convienient was that? I've got an excuse to put these Bad A$$ tips on The Black One.

The damage was actually kinda bad once we took the bumper off. Everything in the exhaust was bent and both of the rear most exhaust mounts had bent into the battery box and cracked/punched through the box. The crash bars absorbed a lot of the impact and are still a little bent down.The insurance company tried totaling the car since the KBB value is only like 2K freeking dollars we argued and ended up keeping the X's clean title.

The swap was pretty easy, 1 torxs (T55 I think) bolt above each of the muffler tips and 2 (10mm?) bolts in each wheel well hold the bumper on. I found that it helps to have 2 people when removing the torx bolts to hold the tips out of the way to keep them from getting scratched (it was a close fit for me).

After the bumper was off, we ended up using a jack to bend the push bars back up and a skid loader to pull the exhaust mount out of the battery box. We took measurements off of the parts car to make sure all of the brackets were in the correct orientation. I ended up leaving all of the rubber mounts attached to the new exhaust and it was a pretty straight forward plug and play install. The tips are still pushed back a little bit but it's not too noticeable

It took about half a day to complete mainly because ALL of the bolts were seized on both cars. It was really helpful having two 2 post lifts right next to each other but it's still do-able with a jack or a set of ramps.

There is a little bit of a panel gap between the new pumper and the body, but I'm not too concerned about it. This was the second time that I've been rear ended in this particular car and I'm convinced that it's going to happen again. Maybe next time I can get the 4.6is bumper spoiler?

[amancuso]

What an odyssey! Just one note, if you didn't re-install the fresnel lens on your high beam, you have seriously handicapped your headlights. Nice save though.

[Skeletor]

Originally Posted by amancuso

What an odyssey! Just one note, if you didn't re-install the fresnel lens on your high beam, you have seriously handicapped your headlights. Nice save though.

Yeah, I've spent some time working on this beast. But I don't see myself being anywhere close to finished with repairs and mods. The plan is to take this X past 300K miles, which wont be hard at all.

Thanks for letting me know. All of the cool kids leave that lens out and I honestly didn't plan on putting it back in. I'm almost done with my biggest project atm: Replacing the engine in my truck. Once I get done with that I'll get back to the headlights. I wonder if there's any other lens that can be put in place of the old one..... I personaly am not a fan of the lenses they put over the bulbs. The projector lens is pretty cool though, and I think I've seen somebody do a dual projector install into one headlight... That would be pretty cool

[Skeletor]

I was driving down the highway in the fast lane on last Friday and I must have kicked up a piece of metal with the drivers side front tire. I heard a loud *CRACK* and felt something hit the side of the car. Nothing changed in the steering/suspension, so I trucked on the remaining 2 miles to my destination. When I got out, I was greeted to a slashed rocker panel cover. Great way to start my weekend...

I drove back home and started tearing the damage off of the car. All of the plastic clips and been broken off of the bottom of the plastic rocker panel attaching it to the X, and I simply lifted the panel off with out removing any hardware (I was really surprised that it didn't fly off during the 2 hour drive home!) What ever hit the car was pretty solid, It broke through the plastic, through an aluminum stringer, and continued to put a gash in the rocker panel.

Even though the repair only took 20-30 minutes, I wasn't pleased with doing the work because it was about 20 degrees on a Saturday morning and I was working in the driveway thanks to the current engine swap I have going on in the garage. But I can thank the short amount to time it took me to complete this project to the parts car (I've got a good number of parts on hand) So after I took all of the damage off, I walked over to my parts car and robbed the rocker panel off of it. I ended up priming the damage and putting some calking shmoo that I had laying around the shop in the hole.

*Installation of factory rocker panel*
There is a way to slide the reinforcement into its slot without removing the front and rear fender flares (you will notice this when you get to this point) I slid the rear in first and "bottomed it out" until it wouldn't slide back any further and then bent the front fender flare attaching point out of the way and it slid right in.

There are eight or ten 10mm bolts holding the plastic reinforcement onto the car, These bolt holes must line up before the plastic rivets that attach the wheel well arches are attached.

Once the reinforcement is in place and secured by the bolts, there is a plastic rivet on either end of the reinforcement that holds on to the base of the wheel arches. Insert both rivets and continue to the last step.

(I'm sure there's a more proper way to install the outside plastic rocker panel cover, but I didn't have time to look it up) Be careful not to scratch the rocker panel on the door, slide the top part of the panel into position first, then align the bottom to accept 8 plastic rivets. This took me a bit of massaging to get into place. Make sure that it is centered front to rear before you start putting the rivets in! I've got a larger gap in the rear of my panel then I do the front and it gets on the nerves of the OCD part of me. Once all of those rivets are in, you're good to go!

The removal process is the same, just reversed.

I didn't mind doing this repair, and I kind of wish that I had more of a heads up so I could install a set of running boards. But now that I see how easy it is, I might go hunting for a set now.

There's a bonus picture at the end just for giggles.