Yep, no right/wrong way to own the vehicle. So long as you've got your plan for vehicle maintenance... to each their own.

I certainly understand all sides to it. Maintaining 5 BMW's the way I do was still cheaper than a new car payment, but did cost at least $2000/yr.

Maybe if I only had one car then I could justify preventatively replacing everything. But with a bunch of cars, I don't have as much money to spend on each car. Right now my fleet consists of:

- 2000 BMW 540i Touring with 199k miles
- 1996 Mustang GT 5-speed with 184k miles (should be sold pretty soon)
- 1998 Chevy Corvette with 188k miles
- 1987 Porsche 944S with 114k miles (hasn't run in 6 years, it's my project car)

And until recently I also had this X5 4.6is to feed. I want to fix the Porsche and actually do some mods to the Vette so I'm thinning the herd a bit.

I would have done the same with the water pump, it seemed fine, and the replacement wasn't too much. Just a bit of a job to get to but hey, it's a 200K+ 4.6is, what was I expecting :nanana:

The rod bearings on this car also went out in January. I've been trying to keep my other cars on the road so haven't had time to fix it quite yet, but started tearing into it yesterday with Danny and another friend's help since my daily driver isn't on the road right now. Got *to* the subframe... spindle had to come out on the passenger side to remove the axle, was able to get the driver's side axle out while leaving spindle attached to the strut. Suspension is disconnected. Ready to support the engine from the top and drop the subframe and get the diff and oil pan out and get to it....

http://i66.tinypic.com/157dwli.jpg

More soon... would like to get it back on the road by this weekend

The alternator on my 2006 330i slowly died off over a period of a year. I think. I was hearing a whining noise that seem to come from the alternator. The noise would escalate as the rpm went up. A mechanic test drove with me and identified it as an alternator noise.

Since it came and gone Intermittently and didn't affect the performance, I decided to leave it alone til it goes dead.

Sure enough, a few weeks ago the engine refuse to fire up after I have parked it during lunch at a restaurant parking lot.

Had it towed to the shop and replaced both the alternator and serpentine belts.

Now driving a bit stronger, for some reason. And that whining noise left completely.

http://i63.tinypic.com/33xbfpe.jpg

http://i65.tinypic.com/2vlr8g0.jpg


Got to the rod bearings on my 217K mile X5 4.6is, they are in awful shape lol... pictures don't show how bad they really are. The first cylinder was so loose that you could jiggle the connecting rod by hand and hear the slapping of the rod against the bearing. Whats weird is that this car didn't make any noise until maybe 10 miles ago at which point it was babied home and no way did all that wear happen in that time

The crank looked great except the cylinder 1 (which had that chewed up bearing). So engine will be coming out, crank removed and machined then oversized bearings installed. The entire top end of the engine is already new except head gaskets, so since I have to take the engine out I'm going to take this time to replace the piston rings and refresh the lower part of the engine - already had most everything I needed anyways

Joke post
 

Danny, You running that poor thing with KMart oil or what? No Air filter?:rofl:

Now that is out of my system....
Long life from those OE bearing. Great to see that you are rebuilding her instead of parting her out. I know you have posted many times that fixing the old ones with high mileage allows you to drive hi-end cars at rock bottom costs, but this one project will make for a great post. Can not wait to see and hear of the process.

Good luck and please post lots of images for those who own these beasts can see the level of effort and out comes.

I'm actually unsure what caused the failure, if I had to guess, sustained high-RPM driving uphill to Flagstaff awhile back maybe cause some oil starvation issues, bits of timing chain guide may have jiggled loose and found their way into the oiling system, it seemed the wear was caused by contamination. Cylinder 1 was the worst by far, and the scoring/scratching on the bearings coupled with the wear pattern and scoring on the connecting rods tells me the bearings were spinning for quite a while and had done a few rotations. The weird thing is it drove for a couple thousand miles no problems after that trip to Flagstaff, so hard to say. M62's are pretty durable though, I gotta admit!

Been toying with the idea of a RWD conversion as well... but I don't think I'll go through with it.

Do it! No need to keep it AWD:zoom: