Overheated

[nick325xit 5spd]

Can you steal a battery out of one of your other vehicles to test? I'm skeptical that the starter is dead.

I would suggest doing a leakdown test on the engine. If you blow bubbles in the coolant, that'll tell you a lot.

After that, check for spark and fuel.

[Spanker]

Any updates?

[ahlem]

Update...
Last Monday my position was eliminated at work so everything has been put on pause for a (hopefully) brief moment until I am reemployed. Now I'm putting the snow tires on the 335i with sport suspension. Woohoo.

[Effduration]

Good Luck brother...

[Spanker]

Oh dang..... things will get better. Still a ton of jobs out there.....

[ahlem]

In looking at RealOEM.com there appears to be only one starter for my 3.0 2001. I would think these would cross reference with any M54 3.0 motor. Anyone have any experience on this?
And to make matters worse, I tested positive for COVID and am butt-dragging sequestered at home.

[oldskewel]

Sorry to hear of your troubles. I also have a 2001 M54, also did a warped head repair about 4 years ago, also facing new motor challenges and others too. When I had things all apart for the engine work, I took apart the starter for a look, and ended up replacing the brushes assembly (not really needed at all, but I had already bought the part by the time I got in there to see that the brushes had 70% left at ~180k miles).

I'm with @nick325 (as on most things) - would be very cautious about replacing a part like that before careful diagnosis.

Here is a pic of the starter in my car from back when I took it apart. (still working as well as ever).


Some other pics from the replacement. A lot easier of course with the head off. It is held on there with Torx screws coming in from the rear. I have read (and can believe) that the easiest replacement when the engine is all together is to get at it from below. So I'll repeat that this is really something you want to be sure you need to replace before doing it.







And I even found my notes from the starter work:
Starter rebuild. x5 m54 starter wiring: B+ comes from jump port on firewall, goes to starter (solenoid), then terminates at alternator. Control wire is black and yellow, 8mm nut. Other solenoid wire is black, 10mm nut. Removal required E12 with a tight fit. To break loose, used E12 socket on 3/8" breaker (needed due to low profile). Then Craftsman universal 3/8" ratcheting wrench to unthread it. Threads and dowel were in very good shape, but I tapped, cut, sanded, and greased to make any future removal easy (when the intake manifold might still be in place, making it much harder). Took it apart, cleaned, greased. Brushes were only worn down about 30% (13 mm down to a little less than 10 mm), but I bought a new brush assembly (4 brushes) and installed it.

Part numbers:
BMW 12-41-7-501-738.
Bosch PN: SR-0474-N.
On the starter shell itself: Bosch 0 001 108 190. Decoding the Bosch #: all Bosch starters start with 0 001; next 3 digits, 108 are the series of the starter; final 3 digits relate to exactly what type of car it is for.

[ahlem]

I’m thinking with the steam cleaning the starter took, I might just need to clean up all the electrical connections. I’ll pull the intake to get a really good look, hopefully next week.
Thanks for the detailed post. Very helpful.

[oldskewel]

Another tip on bench testing your starter, whether you do it on your bench or in the car to see if it is a wiring problem ...

It is a little different vs. most cars. I had taken it in to my local O'Reilly's for them to test it before I reinstalled it, even told them what they needed to do, but they probably did not do this, and told me it was bad. But my own bench testing confirmed it good. And it's still working perfectly to this day, so ...

(all that said, I don't 100% remember this, but think it is right)

1. You of course need 12V on the big stud where the B+ wire goes.

2. Ground on the aluminum body somewhere.

I use a spare (old but OK) car battery and jumper cables for those connections.

3. Then as normally on all other starters, you just need to touch the control wire (the 8mm nut in this case) with 12V to give it the signal to start. And then of course be ready to take it back off so the thing does not spin up excessively.

4. But the rarer thing is that you need to ground that last wire - the black wire with the 10mm nut. I have vague memories of tracing the circuit diagram for that and finding it to be a security interlock, so if that wire is not grounded by the ECU, it will not allow the starter to fire.

And a little more detail on that Torx E12 socket and the Craftsman ratcheting wrench I mentioned above, for once it is broken loose - those are really tough to find old unique ratcheting wrenches. They have 12 nubs instead of being 6 or 12-point like most wrenches. Makes them "universal" for 6, 12, square, and as I found here, even E-Torx. The 3/8" size is a perfect fit for E12, and in such a difficult spot was very helpful in getting the E12 bolts out. 3/8" is also pretty small, so not sized overall properly to break it loose (would likely damage the wrench before breaking loose). Here is a pic I found on the web just now:

[ahlem]

Update… after our 20 “ of snow, it hit 50 degrees and I pulled the intake. I disconnected the three wires to the starter plus the alternator wire to avoid back feeding to a bad place. The starter got the jumper cables and jumper wires and turned the engine at about 1/3 speed. I had the plugs out so I tried a compression test on 1 and 2. 75 pounds on 1 and zero on 2. Bummer. Now I have to decide about finding a decent 3.0 motor or selling the x5. I’d be inclined to keep it and look for a motor and replace my wife’s 325. I’ll have to tear down the motor to see what happened.