Spec X5 Overland Build

[plasstik]

Good job on the fabrication


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[Mr.Couch]

that looks awesome!

[Henn28]

Just got my '02 4.4i back from paint and fitted wheels and tires finally. The Method 701 wheels are 16 inch and happily come in a 5x120, but only 16 inch. Thus the calipers in front were catching the inside of the wheels by a hair. A little judicious angle grinding at the one specific spot on the calipers and the rubbing is almost gone. A bit more tomorrow. The tires are about 31.2" and rub the wells a hair at almost full lock. Some work with a heat gun to reshape the wells where they rub should fix that.

The car is basically back together with some new seals and weather-stripping, but I have some clean-up to do as I chase down squeaks and rattles that were not there before I lifted it and monkied with the ride height, etc. The ride height isn't perfect in the back yet but I'll keep tweaking it.

I've got a right front axle to put in this weekend, a fuel filter and a lower radiator hose, in addition to some new fasteners and stupid window regulator clips to replace failing ones, for the millionth time.

The motor refresh is the big job I've been researching and avoiding. I'm looking for the perfect 4.6 to drop into the car, but will end up settling for one that needs work. My plan is to keep all the 4.4 mechanicals (diffs and tranny) and have my DME remapped to work better with the 4.6. Much more to follow.

After the mechanicals I'll return to the cosmetic. I've got an idea for a spare tire carrier in the back and perhaps a front brush bar. My awesome Kenwood AV receiver is still in the ether, a victim of the chip shortage.





Update: I spent the morning angle grinding the high points off the back of the calipers, a few points on the dust shields and the corners of the control arms. They were only hitting the inside of the rims by probably less than a 32nd, but you could definitely hear it. I also took a heat gun to the well wells at 9 and 3 oclock where the tires were rubbing just a bit at the locks and made a deeper well for them to fit into when at the locks.

[Henn28]

Its been a slow couple weeks for my project after getting it back from paint. The heat here in the deep south tends to suck the life-force out of me this time of year.

I did make some mostly overdue maintenance progress on my X5 project including:
- oil change with high mileage synthetic
- aborted fuel filter change, after dropping the protective guard with 4,321 bolts, due to wrong filter received from Pelican
- subframe bushings
- a right front axle
- 4 wheel alignment
- more monkeying with the rear ride height- not perfect, but getting there I hope. There seems to be about .5" to 3/4" of slop in the system from side to side which is driving me nuts. I probably need to suck it up and install ISTA, and learn how to use it.
- a pax side window regulator and new clips on both front windows

I'm holding off on installing a new lower radiator hose and a timing chain tensioner I was planning on putting in because I purchased a 4.6 to swap into my 4.4i. Sort of making it up as I go along because the motor will need work, I don't have a garage and I certainly don't have a lift. I've got some time to think about it while I wait for it to arrive (if it arrives) in several weeks and I see what I'm dealing with.

I still need to get some roof x rails to hold my Thule box at highway speeds, upgrade the factory audio if the chip shortage ever lessens, and work out how to integrate a rear spare tire carrier that looks like it came with the car.

post hood and roof paint.

[Henn28]

Motor will be delivered next Monday and I'm slowly ordering parts, at a rate that won't get my wife's attention hopefully.

Its going to be a slow build on the engine now, given what looks like a hectic fall work schedule, so I plan on buying parts to match the pace. I did grab a long runner intake from Ebay which should be 100% common with the injection and CCV set-up from my 4.4. I'll swap over everything that looks good and replace all the seals and rubber bits. I also bought a coolant accumulator and valley pipes off of ebay as they were dirt cheap and I should be able to clean them up well and get that part assembled, rather than have to pull that junk off my motor after I drop it.

I need to spring for a crank hub and harmonic balancer, once I confirm that the engine doesn't have these pieces on it from the factory. I'll also buy new pulleys for the AC and alternator drives since they are pretty cheap and can be bought pre-assembled. I'd love to buy a fresh alternator since this needs to go in first on the front of them motor, but the one in my 4.4 is about 10 years old and going strong, so the money is probably better spent elsewhere. I may take it to a local rebuild shop for a once-over and new bearings perhaps.

I'm considering pulling the valve covers from the new motor so I can get a fresh dose of assembly grease on all the important bits up top. I'm assuming the stuff that is in there is 15+ years old. If I do that, then I'll get the covers powder coated.

I've mocked up by oil cooler set-up and bought 8' of 10 AN braided hose and the adaptors and fittings required. A clean bracket off the front bumper bar is in work and I've got the plastic cover marked out for the cuts that I will need to make when the time comes.

I've been giving a lot of thought to what DME software would be best, and have gotten some good advice from the e39 forum. Since I'm keeping my 4.4 torque converter and transmission I want to make sure I won't be throwing SES lights and other codes. The good news is that there are guys who have put the 4.6 into 4.4 e39 cars and are running stock 4.4 TCs and gearboxes. One guy in particular is running that combo with a Dinan stage 3 and a tune from DUDMD which makes the whole thing seemless. And he hasn't burnt up his 4.4 TC. My tranny and TC are two years young, so buying a 4.6 unit isn't in the cards if I can find a software solution. I'd rather spend the money elsewhere on the car. So it seems the decision comes down to updating a 4.6 DME software load to work with the 4.6 tranny and TC, or updating my 4.4 DME to optimize the 4.6 motor I'm putting in. It doesn't seem that either choice would be a problem for DUDMD.

In other news...I turned my attention to the oil cooler while I'm waiting for the motor to show up. I had a plan in my head for a bracket that quickly became unworkable and possibly not strong enough, so I roped in my friend with the custom hot rod shop for help. He took a quick look at it and had it solved in 2 minutes.

We hung a bracket that he fabricated from the 10mm bolts that hold the bumper cover on. Everything is accessible from the outside and the arms are very short so movement should be minimal. I need to find wider grommets as the ones I bought wouldn't accommodate the security torx bolts I mounted the cooler with, once they were installed. Or maybe I'll just go with rubber washers.

Bracket:

Bracket mounted back in my driveway:

Cooler mounted:


Waiting for the 10AN lines and fittings from Pegasus to show up, then I can drop the new filter housing in, assemble and run the lines, connect it all and hope for no leaks. The location I went with is good for running the lines directly in and up to the housing. The CSF cooler has male 10 an fittings set at 45 degrees into the side of the cooler already and I'll probably run the lines for a few inches at least out front as they are cool black braided lines. Form and function is my goal.

[franccesco30]

Winter Ready Checked

Finally got around to install my winter set up wheels and decided to go bigger on tires with 265/60/18 Hankook Dynopro AT M. Happy with the performance and look, zero rubbing with no lift. Surprisingly there is no road noise

[Henn28]

The engine arrived today and I got it off the truck, into the garage and unpacked enough to see what I had bought and would be dealing with. I can say with certainty that a motor listed as a "short block" in RealOEM is actually what we would consider a long block here in the us.

Its a brand new, super shiny M62TUB46, which made it over from Germany in one piece as best as I can tell, with a forest of cardboard around it. $120 in shipping expense gets you a flight across the Atlantic on United and a truck from Maryland to New Orleans, in my case. The whole process from order to opening the box was about 2 months.

It includes:
- Heads and valve covers
- Rear main and cover
- crank hub installed (this surprised me because the picture didn't have the hub installed)
- Water pump installed but no pully on it
- Valley pan installed, but no coolant pipes or rear x-pipe/accumulator.
- I think I can feel an E53 oil pan set-up at the bottom of the box.

It comes with a tiny bag of goodies, including the hardware to install the dipstick (which presumably is somewhere in the box) and some locating dowels which I think are to align the transmission on the block.

Beyond that there is one paragraph of instructions in 20 different languages, with helpful hints like "read the instructions", "fill with approved oil", and other tidbits.

Finally, tucked inside is what I think is a build ticket and if Google translate is to be believed, lists the production day (27May2020), the employees and BMW office involved in building it. Based on this, I suspect they build out of production motors, one at a time, to replace inventory, until they run out of parts.

I'm hopeful that all the big ticket fasteners are witness marked, which will allow me to sleep better knowing everything is torqued. I can't imagine that they, for example, install a crank hub or valve cover, but don't torque it fully. Witness marks would make me sleep better.

[kspark]

Originally Posted by Henn28

The engine arrived today and I got it off the truck, into the garage and unpacked enough to see what I had bought and would be dealing with. I can say with certainty that a motor listed as a "short block" in RealOEM is actually what we would consider a long block here in the us.

Its a brand new, super shiny M62TUB46, which made it over from Germany in one piece as best as I can tell, with a forest of cardboard around it. $120 in shipping expense gets you a flight across the Atlantic on United and a truck from Maryland to New Orleans, in my case. The whole process from order to opening the box was about 2 months.

It includes:
- Heads and valve covers
- Rear main and cover
- crank hub installed (this surprised me because the picture didn't have the hub installed)
- Water pump installed but no pully on it
- Valley pan installed, but no coolant pipes or rear x-pipe/accumulator.
- I think I can feel an E53 oil pan set-up at the bottom of the box.

It comes with a tiny bag of goodies, including the hardware to install the dipstick (which presumably is somewhere in the box) and some locating dowels which I think are to align the transmission on the block.

Beyond that there is one paragraph of instructions in 20 different languages, with helpful hints like "read the instructions", "fill with approved oil", and other tidbits.

Finally, tucked inside is what I think is a build ticket and if Google translate is to be believed, lists the production day (27May2020), the employees and BMW office involved in building it. Based on this, I suspect they build out of production motors, one at a time, to replace inventory, until they run out of parts.

I'm hopeful that all the big ticket fasteners are witness marked, which will allow me to sleep better knowing everything is torqued. I can't imagine that they, for example, install a crank hub or valve cover, but don't torque it fully. Witness marks would make me sleep better.

I'm amazed you can still buy a new M62 built in 2020. Where did you buy it from? Would love to hear more about how the install goes.

[Henn28]

I was surprised too that BMW still offers new M62s for sale, much less the 4.6, which I think was a much lower volume version and used in far fewer cars? I bought it from BMW, via GetBMWParts.com, which I think is actually BMW of Silver Springs MD, cleverly disguised as a discount OEM parts biz. They had the best price on it by far and required no core charge.

Its been slow going for the past few weeks due to the recent storm here in Louisiana, and my work schedule. However, I did get a chance to get to the garage and unpack the motor and get it on a stand. It was my first look at it out of the box and I'm happy to report that aside from the crank hub, water pump and other misc. bits, it also has spark plugs and the oil sensor in the pan installed. The thing was sitting in a couple of quarts of oil (it was packed in a very heavy plastic bag) which I suspect leaked out during shipping and was a preservative they sprayed on/in the motor when BMW assembled it in 2020.



My plan is to install the coolant pipes and manifold as soon as the knock sensors arrive that forgot to order. Then I'll turn my attention to the front and get a rebuilt Bosch alternator and possibly a new power steering pump to go with all new belts, hoses, oil separator, etc. I am thinking the only big stuff I'll rob from my 4.4 are the front diff and the entire fuel injection set-up as one unit. I am thinking I can do a pressure test on the coolant system after I install the engine and before I put the manifold and injection back on the valley.


On another note, I've spent a little time laying out and understanding the wiring for the Kenwood radio upgrade I'm installing. Fortunately everything is pretty much color coded, and/or Crutchfield's excellent customer support is just a phone call away. I am waiting for the back-up camera I ordered to arrive and a few misc. parts before I start pulling the inside apart to finish running the satellite radio/camera wiring up to the dash.

[kspark]

Originally Posted by Henn28

I was surprised too that BMW still offers new M62s for sale, much less the 4.6, which I think was a much lower volume version and used in far fewer cars? I bought it from BMW, via GetBMWParts.com, which I think is actually BMW of Silver Springs MD, cleverly disguised as a discount OEM parts biz. They had the best price on it by far and required no core charge.

Its been slow going for the past few weeks due to the recent storm here in Louisiana, and my work schedule. However, I did get a chance to get to the garage and unpack the motor and get it on a stand. It was my first look at it out of the box and I'm happy to report that aside from the crank hub, water pump and other misc. bits, it also has spark plugs and the oil sensor in the pan installed. The thing was sitting in a couple of quarts of oil (it was packed in a very heavy plastic bag) which I suspect leaked out during shipping and was a preservative they sprayed on/in the motor when BMW assembled it in 2020.

My plan is to install the coolant pipes and manifold as soon as the knock sensors arrive that forgot to order. Then I'll turn my attention to the front and get a rebuilt Bosch alternator and possibly a new power steering pump to go with all new belts, hoses, oil separator, etc. I am thinking the only big stuff I'll rob from my 4.4 are the front diff and the entire fuel injection set-up as one unit. I am thinking I can do a pressure test on the coolant system after I install the engine and before I put the manifold and injection back on the valley.

Wow, that's incredible. Sadly it looks like the N62 is fully discontinued, but sure enough there are brand new M62's available to buy.