Removed the X5 for motor work.

[wippe]

Update:
Removed pass. side VC.
Found a bug. I was hoping this would be the root of all problems.
Sadly, no.
Guess I'll keep looking.
Close proximity to the oil fill cap........
It must've been living in that awesome BMW oil.

[bawareca]

Originally Posted by wippe

I've removed the engine simply because it is easier to work on outside of the car, and I don't know its history.
I bought the car recently, as a project, knowing it had issues.

I wanted to become more familiar with it while doing some proactive work, like gaskets, seals, and other known wear parts, etc.

Some of my questions have been answered here, so I suspect I'll do a little more than I initially expected.

IMHO this is the only way if one wants a reliable N62. Address all known problems and you should be good for 50-100k miles without major problems.

[SeanC]

Originally Posted by gregg3gs

Hahaha, as above... everything.

Let me start off with this:
I am at 170K miles
- car smokes after 3 minutes of idling (bad valve seals)
- poor quality gasket design... every gasket in the engine (gasket hardens and leaks by 100K)
- alternator fails by 125K
- ac compressor fails by 160K
- valley gasket fails by 100K
- oil pressure sensor fails by 100K
- oil pump gasket fails before 100K

... this is just in the engine bay

Let's walk around the car (in my case):
- airbags fail three times by 170K
- rear dif broke by 120K
- transfer case broke by 160K
- transmission leaks internally (I got this fixed before it destroyed the computer) at 120K
- I think I am loosing one of the cats now
- dip mirror was gone since I got the car at 65K
- inside ac blower fan failed by 150K
- dual climate mixing valve by 160K


That is it for now...

Makes me want to list my problems so far at 84k. I keep an excel worksheet so maybe I'll post that instead.

[bawareca]

Valve seals on N62 can cause smoke as early as 50 k miles.

[TriX5]

Great job, keep pics coming but I know it is hard to snap pics with grease up to your elbows.

My 03 e53, M62 is in great shape but leaks oil from every where.... About to drop the sub-frame with motor and trans so that I can seal it back up and hand it to my son so he can use it for a few more years while in college (125k on it). (Fixed the trans at 93k.)