Spec X5 Overland Build

[X5chemist]

Sweet! Where did you find a front bra? I like to use front bras for long road trips.

The new tires fill in wheel wells nicely.

[we350z]

It’s OEM, kind of getting beat up by now almost 25 years old!!

Thanks yes I’m pretty happy with the wheels and tires for the price!

[Henn28]

I’ve been chasing a slow speed front end clunk, which new OE sway bar links didn't fix so yesterday I jacked it up and checked all the torques. Everything looked good except one of the subframe bolts seems just a tiny bit loose. I dropped it several years ago to get the front diff in and maybe I didn’t torque it quite enough? We’ll see how it drives now. Beyond this I’ll just be throwing parts at it. I just put new lower control arms on it a month ago, and the uppers are 2 year old Turner mono ball pieces so I hope they aren’t bad. Maybe I’ll try those polyurethane pieces next.

I recently put all new “edge protection “/ weather stripping on all 4 doors, and the trunk. I’d been slowly buying these pieces over the past 6 months and now that they are on the doors close much more firmly. The 23 year old original pieces were ripped and worn. I also re-tightened the upper trunk lid hinge bolts, which seems to have fixed a persistent clunk from the back of the car as it flexed at slow speeds on uneven surfaces.











in other news, my block and crank are back and sitting on my porch, waiting to begin reassembly. The block and oil pans were just cleaned up and the crank was polished. Also, the block amd crank were were measured by the shop , to back up my micrometer measurements. Everything was within OE specs, except one of the cylinders was very slightly out of round tolerance. I’m going with new rings and a rebuild anyway on it.


I kept the x5 oil pan as I need to punch a hole in the 540 eBay pan at approximately the correct place for the OSV and PCV oil return to drain into. The 540/RWD OSV setup is under the timing cover, so I’d like to keep ourmx5 setup, as it seems much better. There will be some challenges though modifying the hardline that runs down the back of the motor from the OSV and PCV, especially where it goes around the exhaust manifold. It’s a needlessly complicated BMW design



my plan now is to lap the cylinders with felt pads and the Sunnen lapping compound used on alusil blocks. AM Tuned (Audi shop) sells a kit to get this done. I figure why not, and from what I read exposing the silicon again is the best way to ensure a good break in when using new rings. I’ve found some good and definitive reading on the process and plan on renting a profilometer to ensure I get the correct hone. That’s the plan anyway.

[Henn28]

Not technically x5 related, beyond the fact that the motor below started life in my 4.4, maybe useful for someone doing a rebuild someday.

I finally have my block and crank back (block cleaned and crank polished) so I can get to work on the bottom end. I don't have my pistons back yet, but I can at least get the crank in with new bearing shells. First though, I decided that since this was a project, I might as well put a lap on the cylinders to help the new rings seat. I've read everything I can find on this process, and got some good advice from Peter Partee at Partee racing. Key to the process is having a profilometer on hand to see where the cylinder wall are before lapping, and then again after lapping to make sure you get them into spec. I ended up renting a profilometer for the job because, again, its a project so why not. As it turns out nothing is an exact science, even with an instrument that measures in microns.



My pre-measurements generally put the cylinder walls in the .2 micron range for average height (Ra) and (mostly) in the 2 micron or below range for mean height (Rpk). There are several other measurements that I took with the profilometer, including valley depth numbers, but Rpk in particular seems to to be the most telling. Valley depth was interesting and difficult to obtain reliably because in addition to 20 years of crap in the valleys of the cylinder walls, between the silicon crystals, the lapping paste builds up in there too I think, despite vigorous cleaning with brake cleaner. I took measurements at three places on the walls, and often had to repeat the measurements several times to get numbers that made sense. Bottom line though is that all the cylinders save for a few showed wear below what my reading indicates is a minimum Rpk of 3, and a desired of .4 - .7ish.

On to lapping then. The kit I bought from AM Tuned had the felt lapping tool, a tin of the lapping compound and some directions. Basically you slather it on the walls (there is just enough for 8, plus 2 re-do cylinders), put some on your felts, and lubricate the whole mess with wd-40. Then you set your watch and start honining with a drill on low RPM (600 or below). I started at 60 seconds on cylinder one and then did about 80 seconds on number 2. After measuring 2 was showing Rpk and RA numbers of .422 and .406 while number 1 was barely at .3 microns. This lead me to lap every cylinder for about 70 to 80 seconds which produced in spec Rpk and RA numbers on all but two. I used the remaining paste to redo these two cylinders, along with number 1 and got all of the cylinders up to at least .3+ and often .4 or .5ish.




All 4 bores on one side ready for lapping in the pic above.
After lapping the bores look 80% better. Some of the wear marks are still there, but there is a much more uniform gray to them, which I read is good.
Bore 1 below has been lapped while bore 2 has not:


A messy job, but hopefully one which will pay off with the ring change.

[Henn28]

I figure I’ll pick up the sway bar end link discussion here, since I’m way past the sway bar end links while trying to fix my persistent front end clunk. Initially it developed over slow speed bumps, but then developed to include under braking from slow speeds. I also have a steering wheel shudder at about 50 to 60 mph, like from a wheel balance issue but I just had them balanced a couple weeks while getting an alignment after doing the lower control arms with OE pieces.

I was convinced that the Turner monoball thrust arm bushings were bad after 2 years, which is about what I see on OE bushings on the x5. As such, I replaced them with poly bushings from Powerflex, and updated the other thread accordingly. The clunk under braking has gone away it seems, but not the clunk over bumps at lower speeds. While I had the thrust arms off I found the right ball joint that it attaches to at the knuckle to have failed. Super loose in all axes, including up and down…I think I’ve finally found the culprit. Long story short tho, they aren’t coming out easily due to stripped hex/torx heads on the bolts, so I bought an eBay knuckle for the right side ($80 or so) and ordered a bearing kit and hub from FCP.

Thr hub arrived and looked to be in good shape. After a quick clean-up, I took it to my local steering shop and they pressed the hub and bearing out in 1/100 of the time it would have taken me.




My bearing kit and Loctite 638 order arrive tomorrow, so I tapped off the dust shield and took some 1500 wet dry paper (wd40 lube) to the inner surface of the knuckle where the bearing race sits. Then I put a brush on my drill and cleaned up the bores where the control arms attach. It all cleaned up pretty nicely and is ready to go after a brake kleen wash.




Fortunately the ball joint was held in by torx head bolts that although beaten up, came off easily with a slightly smaller socket hammered on them. The ball joint popped out way easier than I recall any other doing in the past. My lemforder kit has the crappy torx screw heads that strip so easily, so I may see about replacing them with hex bolts. Per TIS the torque on them is only 60 NM, but they have thread locker on them and obviously take a beating under the car from corrosion.

[Homerlovesbeer]

I feel for your font end knock.

I cannot fix mine which is pissing me off. Nothing really left to replace with mine :-(

I've done top mounts, new struts, new lower front and rear control arms, new tie rods. The only thing not replaced were the ball joints which looked in good shape with no sloppy movement (previous owner must have replaced).

Let me know if you find a fix.

I've had 2 independent suspension shops look now and neither can locate. My next guess would be worn LH CV joint.

[Henn28]

Yeah, I’ve been throwing parts at mine too, along with double checking the torques on everything down there…subframe, stiffener, etc.. I do finally think that my knocking is the right front thrust arm ball joint. It was floppy when I had the thrust arm off. The left side was moveable by hand, but not outright floppy. It will go on the project list.

[Henn28]

The torx head screws that are most often used on the tension strut ball joint have always been a hassle for me to remove reliably so I ordered some 20mm, M10, 10.9 grade hex bolts to see if they would work.


I had assumed that there wasn’t clearance for a socket, and that’s why they use the torx head screws, but not so. I can’t think of any reason not to try these, with a little blue loctite of course. Same grade as OE, zinc plated, 20mm.


The bearing value line kit arrived, but I’m still waiting on my Amazon prime Loctite 638 which should have been here yesterday, but now shows mid-next week. The inner seat that the bearing gets pressed into is coated 50% in the stuff. The kit is pretty complete, and has a new dust shield and all the single use suspension nuts needed.


The second problem is that I thought I bought the last word on cheap yet huge Amazon bearing and bushing tool sets, but although it has a ton of cups, none are close to the 90mm I need to pull the wheel bearing in.


I’ll either take it back to the machine shop, or try to find a size that will work.

[Henn28]

I’m finally back to the steering knuckle, or swivel bearing in BMW speak, rebuild. In truth tho, I was in a hurry and knocked it back together a week ago, but put the dust shield on backwards. Idiotic mistake, especially because I knew which way it goes on because I took pictures, but I was in a hurry. So down to the steering shop I went where they destroyed the bearing to get it all apart again. No way around it though. The back shoulder in the knuckle that the bearing presses up to precludes any ability to press either the hub or the bearing out cleanly.

Round two with a new bearing went down this am. The last time I struggled to pull the bearing in with my monster, and cheap, eBay bearing press set so this time I froze the bearing all night and put the knuckle in the oven for a few hours at 150 degrees. A much easier time was had. I fact I didn’t bother with the press, but rather hammered it in with the 90mm cup and a BFH. Whereas the first time took over an hour, and most of that spent on the final 10mm, this time I spent about 10 min total banging the bearing home. I did remember to spread a thin layer of loctite 638 over 50% of the knuckle bore.







On my first attempt the wheel hub drew in easily with my bearing puller. No so much this time because it kept starting at an angle, no matter how many times I tried. My solution was to use a large wood clamp to put max pressure on the “high” side, then continue to pull with the bearing kit. It righted itself and then pulled in easily.





The gotchas on this job are the fact that you can’t fix anything done incorrectly once the wheel hub is in, so take your time getting the dust shield and brake shield on correctly.

Finally I popped the new tension strut ball joint (“guide joint” in BMW speak) into the knuckle and used the new hex bolts torqued to 60NM, per TIS. I hit the guide joint with some anti-seize where it goes into the knuckle, and used blue loctite on the bolts. I also witness marked them so I can make sure they aren’t moving. They should be much easier to remove so I don’t have to go through this BS again.

[Henn28]

Took the afternoon yesterday and got the “swivel bearing” (right side steering knuckle) installed. Not a terrible job, now that I’ve had these things off a few time in the past. The correct tools really, really make a difference in how fast the job can be done. It took me about 4 hours to remove and replace the knuckle this time, with some shooting of the $hit at times.

Previously, and before I owned some key tools, it took 6 or 7. Once I had to take the knuckle, with the axle and control arms attached, down to my friends at the local steering shop so they could press everything out. As much as I hate owning BMW only tools, the axle puller kit turns an hour + with a hammer and block into a 10 min exercise. Likewise, my giant 3 leg press gets used rarely, but makes quick work pressing the axle out of the road hub.

Happily the low speed knocking is finally gone and the front end it BMW tight again. Replacing the entire knuckle is a tough way to replace a tension strut guide/ball joint, but at least I’ve got a new bearing in there too. The left side joint is soon to fail too, I’m sure but I’m going to give some more thought as to how I can get it out without pulling the entire knuckle. It too has a stripped head on the crappy torx head screws holding it in.

At any rate…
I loosed the lug bolts, tapped the stakes on the axle nut back as much as I could with a punch and broke it free with my 3’ breaker bar. Then it was up in the air and the wheel came off, as did all the nuts on the hub for the arms and tie rod end. The ABS sensor are looked quite rusty so I elected to leave it in until I freed the entire knuckle and had more room to work. Next time I’ll just buy a new one as mine have 170k on them. Then the caliper came off and got hung on the spring. From here I put a floor jack under the road hub and compressed the suspension several inches. I’ve found this to be helpful because otherwise the arms and tie rod are fully extended and don’t want to come free from the knuckle. Regardless, it took some pounding with a heavy brass punch to pop the lower arm and tie rod end out, but they came free without having to get out a puller. The tension strut has only been on the job a few months and it came off with a little hammering on its upper surface. I did have to pull the lower control arm end at the subframe eventually to get enough clearance for it to drop out of the knuckle.

I tried some hammering on the axle end with a punch in the hopes it would pop out easily, but no luck. Note, if you go this route it helps to put the old axle nut back on the axle a bit to protect the threads. Regardless it’s a crapshoot as to if you’ll ruin the threads. I threw in the towel quickly and got out my large three leg puller, which took longer to set up than to press the axle out. Finally, the big bolts at on the strut came out and the knuckle was free.

Puller in the process of being installed:


Next up was to rest the knuckle on the floor jack and work the speed sensor out. A liberal spray PB Blaster and some very gentle persuasion freed it up. Lots of surface rust in that area so I cleaned it well. I should have bought a new one, but I’ve also found the connectors and the plastic box where they connect to the car can get very brittle and shatter.

I had to take some time to trim up the dust shield with an angle grinder to match the one I was taking off. Otherwise it rubs the 16” wheels I’ve got on the X5.

Lots of grease still visible on the splines as this axle has only been in for a couple years. The boot is already failing though. Cheap rebuilds versus expensive OE axles…still not sure where those curves intersect.




As with most jobs like this, disassembly takes 2/3 of the time spent. The toughest part of putting the new knuckle in is getting the rear control arm back in at the subframe, which just takes time, effort and moving the knuckle around to get the holes to line up.

First I hoisted the knuckle into place while sliding the axle into the hub, then popping in the big bolts that secure it to the strut to hold it. Then the axle puller came out and I pulled the axle into the hub maybe 50% or 75% of the way (just in case I screwed something up and had to get it back out, a punch would easily do it at this stage). The tie rod and tension strut ends slide in by finding the right combo of ball joint, jack height, and steering angle to pop them in enough to get the nuts started enough to hold them…a few threads. Then I put the lower control arm ball joint into the knuckle, popped a nut on a few threads and wrestled with the whole thing for 20 min until I could get the bolt through it at the subframe. At this point I pulled the axle in fully. After that it was down to torquing and witness marking everything , and reinstalling the speed sensor, the rotor and the caliper. I really need to rebuild that caliper.

Last up was the axle nut. I ran it down until it bottomed out with a small breaker bar, then hung the wheel with a few lug bolts. Before the bolts went on I did remember to spin the wheel on the hub and check for rubbing. In fact the dust shield had gotten bent in shipping or me working on it and it was rubbing on the rotor in a few places…quick fix with a hammer. Lug bolts on with a little torque and the car went down on the ground so I could put an initial 250 ftlbs on the axle nut (max available with my big torque wrench), and then another 30ish degrees with my 3’ breaker I bought just for axle nuts and the M62 crank jesus bolt. The axle nut is supposed to be at 320 ftlbs I think, so it’s got to be close to that.


Back up in the air for a final check of everything and then the wheel went back on. No ABS lights or trifectas, and the steering wheel is only off 20ish degrees which I’ll adjust when I have time. Best of all, the clunk is finally gone. The tension strut ball joint thst came out was a mess and flopped around freely. 3 years old.

All in all it could have been a 3 hour job if I hadn’t spent time talking to guys who were also at the shop. The axle tools make all the difference.