Spec X5 Overland Build

[Henn28]

Great thread!

I've got a 2002 4.4 e53 that I recently re-inherited from my kids who drove it while they were in the house, and for the 14 years before that it was my wife's daily driver since new. It is now officially my project car, mostly because it's the one I've got in my driveway and I don't see a 911 or 67 Camaro build showing up any time soon with two kids in college.

It seems to be a real unicorn in many ways at this point, so your post, and all the replies, comments, and questions are of very real value to me. Thanks all.

I officially kicked off today what will be a slow motion build by pulling the instrument cluster and DME and sending them off to Fixels, to be replaced with a 4.8 cluster and properly coded DME. Gotta start somewhere...up next on the agenda:
- roof and hood paint. The rest of the car (blue) is in pretty good shape, but the roof and hood are completely shot. Looking at John Deere Blitz Black because its a cheap, easy to spray matte that hot rodders have been using for years and is easy to take care of, unlike other mattes and satins. The two tone blue/matte black should be nice for a while. I have a long term vision of a two tone matt black/british racing green look.
- Wheels/tires. Really like the Cragar Series 342 D window 17x8s, but would need adapters for the 5x4.5 pattern. I might need them anyway to fit the 285/60/17s I would like to run, although I think that might be a 30.5" total, so maybe not? I'm lost at how much "poke" that combo will have so I'd love to pick the collective brain.
- FMU lift if needed to get everything playing nicely together.
- Fix the stupid seat memory controller/steering wheel adjust failure interconnect-goat-rope. Hopefully a used control module off of ebay will do the trick.
- Lots of broken and rotted trim and assorted plastic and rubber to be replaced.
- Aftermarket sound of some sort or the other. Crutchfield seems to think its plug-and-play easy, but almost everything they carry that claim will work is on backorder.
- rack cross bars for the Thule that normally goes on my wife's Grand Cherokee for hurricane evacuations and bird hunting trips to Iowa.
- New subframe bushings all around (I redid all the big ticket suspension pieces on all four corners a few years ago when I had access to a lift, but didn't do the subframe bushings).
- Headliner and door panel work. The panels are shot up front due to my ham-fisting them off and on too many times to fix the stupid windows. My have to go to a custom upholstery shop since the beige panels seem to be harder and harder to come by in better shape than mine.

Finally, the big tix mechanicals...
The tranny is a two year old remanufactured unit I got from Euro Transmission Specialists (including the torque converter). I've been happy with the investment so knock-on-wood no money is needed there. I'm not certain about the transfer case chain and may just replace it for piece of mind after I finally find out how many mile are actually on the car.

The mighty M62 is leaking from every nook and cranny and I'm guessing within a couple years of a serious midlife crisis. A recent compression and leak-down test showed 7 very middle aged cylinders, and 1 cylinder with two feet in the departure lounge potentially. Number 8s performance was pretty far out of whack, so I'm crossing my fingers that it was a large speck of carbon maybe and the motor will last, reliably, until I'm done with college bills. At that point I'm dreaming of engaging Henry Lawrence to build me a bulletproof steel lined 5L M62 monster to drop in.

At the end of the day my goal is to build an overland style X5 that I won't think twice about driving 14 hours to the midwest in with my mutts to bird hunt in the winter.

I'll start posting pics once I figure out how.

[Emory39]

We can be twins!

[thstone]

Henn28, thanks for the post! Let's see some pic's and keep us updated on your progress.

[thstone]

Emory39, your X looks great! What lightbar did you use and how hard was it to wire up?

[Emory39]

This is the one that I purchased, its not hard to wire up.

Originally Posted by thstone

Emory39, your X looks great! What lightbar did you use and how hard was it to wire up?

[Henn28]

Nice pup Emory...good breeding program to get those choppers! I've got two knuckle-head Griffons who hunt for 3 months of the year and then lay around the house dreaming of quail and phez the other 9.

What wheels and tire sizes are you running? And did you lift your X5? The front looks like it is up, but I can't tell clearly about the back. Thanks!

[Emory39]

Originally Posted by Henn28

Nice pup Emory...good breeding program to get those choppers! I've got two knuckle-head Griffons who hunt for 3 months of the year and then lay around the house dreaming of quail and phez the other 9.

What wheels and tire sizes are you running? And did you lift your X5? The front looks like it is up, but I can't tell clearly about the back. Thanks!

Thanks! those are not my pups just a picture that I use in all the forums that I am at. anyways yes the X5 is lifted and I am running spacers in all four the tires sizes is 265/70/17 the lift is 3" on front and 2.5" on the back

[Henn28]

A few "before" pics of my doorstop (no DME or cluster currently).

[thstone]

Originally Posted by Henn28

A few "before" pics of my doorstop (no DME or cluster currently).

Nice starting point, I really like the blue, it stands out in a sea of white, black, and grey/silver X5's.

[Henn28]

I heasitate to use the word “build” on my X5 rabbit hole just yet, because what I’ve been doing is mostly deferred maintenance, research, and spending money of course.

I decided to go with 285/75/16 tires and after much angst pulled the trigger on a set of 16x8 Method Racing Wheel model 701s, in bronze of course because all those subaru guys can’t be wrong. They are zero offset wheels with 4.5” backspacing in a very convenient 5x120 bolt pattern and 72.6 bore. Frankly the bolt pattern and hub bore sealed the deal since spacers and adapters seem like they will cause my brain cell undue damage. I’m only a little concerned about brake clearance with the 16” wheels.

The end result will be a tire that is 1.9” taller, .9” farther away from the inside and 2.1” of poke. I think they will fill up the wheel well very nicely, and it remains to be seen if I can run them without a lift. I’m going to try, but will put a lift on the thing if they rub excessively, or if it looks odd. My goal is to keep it daily driveable and retain some decent manners on the highway, while ensuring I have decent odds of not getting stuck in Midwest muck while bird hunting.

My daughter and I have fixed the seat memory, replaced the Original and very opaque headlights, and painted and installed a new trunk lid grip. The instrument cluster has been swapped with a 4.8 car’s cluster and the DME reprogrammed with work with same.

Up next will be a trip to our local Navy base to put it on the lift and do the rear subframe bushings, fuel filter, oil change and air filters. Then I’ll revisit two of the windows for the umpteenth time and replace those absurdly delicate clips.

In the works in a couple weeks is a hood and roof respray by a local hot rod shop in a charcoal/grey (on the flat-ish side), decide on tires and install the new wheels, and install a Kenwood receiver and Sirius receiver units, and run the antennas. I’d like to get a sharkfin from a later model car/aftermarket unit and install it on the trunk spoiler but will need to run the cables end to end somehow. I’m sure this is doable, but like most things BMW will be painful and result in the loss of lots knuckle skin. I’ve got time to research it tho because almost everything at Crutchfield seems to be in back order.

Progress update after my parts all arrive and I get it on the lift.