What do you do after buying an X5 that has been sitting for months and with over 200,000 on an engine freshly rebuilt by a garage mechanic?

Drive 600 miles up steep hills on a roadtrip, duh

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She did well. Got a low coolant light the second day which gave me a lot of anxiety aobut the trip home, since there were hundreds of miles and many steep mountains between where we were and my driveway... but she made it. Did pretty darn well I'd say

Nice!

Since I've turned this into my own build thread now... more (arguably pointless) mods!

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Red third brake light. Didn't like the contrast of the white one against the black paint, looked especially out of place once I went to ambers. Red gives it a more "aggressive" look in person, as much as changing the color of a lens can anyways, and works to also sort of hide the light which isn't a bad thing. 10 minutes to replace... very easy job

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Aux-in, put it in the glovebox. Have it wired currently so the wire goes back through the console and pops out from under the e-brake boot - having the wire just come out of the center consle made it not close evenly but putting it off of the glovebox seemed stupid to me. My other cars have the aux-in in the center console so figured why not...

Also got a used seat module to replace the one in the car, original problem was seat position memory wasn't working and steering wheel wouldn't move. Nice to have that working again, thought it isn't raising/lowering when I enter the car. Maybe indicative that the used part I bought is on the way out... either way it works now so I'll enjoy it!

Ribbon cable to fix pixels showed up too... little afraid to tackle the job... but I'll get around to it soon :stickpoke

nice ride, you bought Dannys?
 

Hello i am Cer54467 from BF, i remeber talking to you a few times. i purchased a nice 2000 540i a couple years ago. a friend picked it and screwed me on it. i have been chatting with Danny and i am going to attempt a chainguide job on a M62TU. i have also become a machokist. i picked up an 4.4x5.

You are certainly in the minority as not many switch to ambers from clears. Truck looks good though, and the aux in is a nice mod as it opens up phone apps to playback possibility.

Driving home yesterday and had to do an evasive maneuver to keep from some idiot hitting me... jerked the steering wheel a bit to keep clear of said idiot and in doing so I hear a "POP" - feel a pop through the steering wheel - then "DRPDRPDRPDRPDRPDRP" as my battery light comes on and steering gets heavy. Got it pulled over just as gauge was moving out of TDC, still below 3/4

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Stranded :(

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I know tolerances are tight on water pump impellers, but I think this is over the line

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Water pump pulley shaft. Completely off-axis. That metal thing peeking through...? Nothing to worry about, it's just one of the rollers for the bearing that has completely separated from it's races... :p:

New water pump is already in, filled with coolant and no leaks, but the secondary air pump system o-rings went bad during reinstallation (causes a nasty sounding vacuum leak). Should be back on the road later tonight (knock on wood)

I would never switch to the pre-facelift ambers... those are ugly as sin. The facelift ambers give a welcome bit of contrast and extra dimension to the rear. It also subtly works to make it visually look a bit wider. It will look even better once lowered a bit with some spacers.

Glad to hear that the evasive maneuver worked out with no bent body metal :thumbup:

How much time in service on that water pump?

When my alternator seized up (yes, seized up so badly it required a jump to crank and then the running engine shredded and burnt up the serpentine belt) I took that opportunity to do the water pump, thermostat and all engine cooling system hoses, idlers and belts.

Mike

Water pump took about 5 hours with a friend's help. About 290 minutes of that was just gaining access to the pump (in typical BMW fashion)

Also wanted to quote this... I now believe the coolant leak that caused the low coolant level was due to the water pump bearings beginning to fail. There were signs of some weepage from the pump so had I been more vigilant I may have been able to prevent the failure altogether

Why wasn't the water pumped changed when the timing guides were done? if new and failed then this part should be warranted. Normally when you tear into an engine to do the guides and chain its common procedure to change out the water pump.hmmmm

AND the thermostat!

Yeah, shocking that after all that work the water pump would go, unless it was original to the vehicle or was changed at 100K and now with 200K the replacement was tired :dunno: :dunno: :dunno:

Mike