I knew it needed work when I offered the price, and if I parted it out I would have made money.
So worst case I would sell the bits.

After test driving it, the motor sounds good and it went, so not a lot is wrong if motor runs.

Wow, didnt know they could cause such damage, will get an Aux fan asap.

Ahhhhhh, well!! That is a long list of stuff... I just pulled a perfect aux fan off the donor X5 at the salvage yard the other day... I have to go back for the shroud that I didn't know was broken on my 4.6is, and can pick up some stuff for you... Knock sensor are probably still there... May even have a spare in my shed... I have the hatch release/tag light body cover (new)... Oh, I grabbed two in-dash business CD players... Do they plug and play in place of the tape unit? I'd have to see the wires your tape unit has... And the fan clutch... OEM with aftermarket crappy fan... This fan clutch has the four bolt fan... My 4.6is has the three bolt version...

Gotta go... Will chat later...

Cheers!!

Aux fan removal
 

So got to take out tye Aux fan, advice from williamx
Will test it using a signal generator

Have placed and order with BMW or some parts, should be here on Thursday
It is inlet manifold gasket set

Will re-install the inlet manifold and see how it goes

Weekend work
 

Order new gaskets for the inlet manifold.
The four inlet gaskets
The throttle gasket and the CCV gasket, the one in the back
They arrived on Friday

I soldered the wires together on the knock sensor, installed it and seems to be working now.

Added new pipes for the CCV system as the original ones had been squashed.

Installed all the new gaskets, and the inlet manifold.

Checked all the connections, and then started it.

Well, it cranked, carried on for a little, stuttered and then finaly caught. Yeah, it lives again.

And as with all good mechanics, there was only one spare bolt:rofl:

It runs well now, but I suspect a lifter is faulty, has a slight uneven idle on one cylinder,
Will check all the spark plugs today, and see how they all look.

Second hand car sales place gave me the slips of the work that he had done.
One of which was to replace all the spark plugs.
The other was to replace the oil, which wasnt done. The filter was sort of squished, showing it was blocked from not being changed.
The new oil looks a lot cleaner. And is still clean after driving.

I need to get a matching rim, as the spare is on the back left,
It was so,d without one of the rims.

I found a scrap car shop. They have annidentical X5, it was scrapped as the PO didnt want to buy a new alternator, as it cost to much, so scrapped the car.

Next is ti replace the filter in the gearbox, that should be fun....

Window control panel
 

Been looking at the window control buttons,
You know the dirt that one cant clean out, there inside the holes

Well, I removed the control unit and stripped it apart.

Was three screws on the back, and unclip the ribbon cable.
Unlcip the top cover and all the buttons are exposed

The one trick is to take off the mirror selector switch.
This clips in and out. It prevents the top cover coming off once the side clips are unclipped

As can be seen the sides of the switches are dirty

With that, I could clean all the difficult to get to parts.

Put it together and it still works:p:

Loving this, keep up the good work! Wish I could find a 4.4 in Australia for that price!!

I believe you have the SMG transmission. SO it is technically "shiftable" and there is no way you can manually shift a transmission faster than an SMG. But beware, beating on it will only hassen it's demise. Enjoy your new ride.

It is a sport box
When I got the car none of the lights worked on the gear shift indicator
The sport shift did not work either

I lifted up the cover, found all the wire disconnectes.
Connected them all and sports shift works now.

I agree with you, am very conservative regards pushing the box.
I dont want to have to fix that, the motor isnt so much of an issue to fix, but gearbox would be.

So have used sport mode shift a few times, but only up hills when I want a little more go.

This car is a weekend driver.
A toy to fix and drive weekends.

Daily driver is a E46 325. That is a lot of fun

The car has 167004 kms, so about 100 000 miles,

So I want to do a progressive flush of the gearbox
Drop the sump, and check for bits, close it all and fill, do this a few times over a few months so that there is new fluid in the gearbox.
It does shift nicely, but has a slight surge, suspect the oil or the oil level in box

Yep, that's the best way to do it. Yours is right around the mileage where it's most effective to change the fluid. I also recommend changing the filter if you're going to be dropping the transmission oil pan (sump). Get a proper OEM Filtran filter because the cheap aftermarket filters cause whining and other problems.