What did you do to / for your E53 today??

[e30cabrio]

Originally Posted by tmv

^Must be slow in winter time.

I was prepared to pay 100. It was such a mess I sure was not doing it myself.

[J.Belknap]

Thanks, guys. I'm a firm believer in daily vitamins and airborne + chicken noodle soup as required.

Originally Posted by bcredliner

Please will me your 4.6.

I can offer you first dibs if I sell it. (I wonder what I could get for it?)

[bcredliner]

Originally Posted by J.Belknap

Thanks, guys. I'm a firm believer in daily vitamins and airborne + chicken noodle soup as required.



I can offer you first dibs if I sell it. (I wonder what I could get for it?)

Good to hear you are on the mend!

First dibs would be great! I not sure what the open market will pay but if they see your pictorial I think it will kick it up a thousand or more.

[e30cabrio]

I did this:

I got an empty 7 pin connector from BMW thinking it was the harness that came with a mount. I mocked this up and will see if I can cut it at the correct level to use the oem mounting point.





I ordered a mount before I did this about 9am and etrailers already shipped wow that was fast!

[J.Belknap]

Originally Posted by bcredliner

Good to hear you are on the mend!

First dibs would be great! I not sure what the open market will pay but if they see your pictorial I think it will kick it up a thousand or more.

Thanks man. I don't think I could get what it's worth to me as a machine, heh.

So today a friend and I balanced the tires, checked air pressure, did an alignment, replaced the rear driveshaft guibo, replaced the rear driveshaft bearing, and replaced the front right window glass clips. Basically a few hours of driveline love.

Edit: We found slight binding in the rear driveshaft joint. It is livable for now but I will want to replace this soon.

[X5SND]

^^ Have you done the center bearing on the shaft yet? When the time came to rebuild mine, by the time I priced all the parts out, and factored in my time it was cheaper to just replace the whole shaft assembly...even comes with new guibo. Total of a 20 minute R&R! Lol.

If you do rebuild it, I'd love to see pics of the procedure!

[J.Belknap]

We did the guibo and center bearing today. That picture of the lobro joint is what I need to do at some point.

20 minutes is about right. Truck on lift. Drop rear exhaust. Unbolt resonator hangers. Pull down on resonator and remove heat shield. Remove driveshaft. The driveshaft isn't hard to disassemble to service the parts (center bearing or end joint.) Just have to mark the shaft pieces and use locktite red when reassembling.

[X5SND]

Ahh, you did half te work already...Rebuilding makes sense in that case. I don't think that single u-joint further up the shaft is available separately (you'd have to get it out and match it up the old school way to a new one) as it's sold as part of the assembly. Whether or not mine contributed to the slight vibes I was feeling I won't know now...but it was smoother than silk afterwards, so I still feel it was worth the investment. Had I had more free time, I would have loved to get my hands dirty and rebuild the thing!

[StephenVA]

Installed the new wheels and tire in front still waiting on the rears to be refinished so I can mount the tires....waiting sucks!
Replaced the front wheels due to pitting from lack of wheel cleanup from my X5 first owner. Worth it not to see the curb rash everyday.
Now I am looking forward to feeling the difference between the one tires and the new Michelin latitude tours.

[J.Belknap]

RealOEM.com * BMW E53 X5 4.6is Drive shaft, single components, 4-wheel

X5SND, I did #2 and #8 but need to order #17 in this diagram.