I took some pics, will UL them tomorrow. Thank you very much for the assistance, hopefully machining a replacement won't be necessary, but may be the strongest option.

The bump I'm speaking was large. Truck got air time on both axles. Was more of a drop off than a bump. Think construction workers repaving on a Saturday before having Sunday off... "We'll scrape this layer off... it'll be fine with a 4" drop for 24 hours in a 75mph zone without a slope down. Screw people using this offramp." And it broke the previous repair, so it wasn't as strong as it should be. Honestly, I think I bought the X5 with the bar broken back in 2015 and just didn't realize it until such time that service dictated it had to removed. Then I discovered the broken eye-bolt, had it welded, and reinstalled.

I would be one of your competition, yes. :D;):thumbup:

I was going to tack on a reply to my last post about working on the iS but I went back 50 pages and couldn't find it. In forum time 50 pages is pre-industrial revolution (smdh).

Now the update: I did the timing guide job along with a number of other refreshes (like 6 months ago) but kept getting a P0021 after reassembly, retimed a couple times, traced every possible wire, reached out and spoke directly with Raj, a few of the original test group for the VANOS, and even wrote an email to Steve Dinan (he never replied). Finally after a whole hell of a lot of time spent NOT working on the ailing iS because the CEO said that the kitchen remodel was more important. I finally got her back opened up over the weekend and discovered that I am a DA of the highest degree. Timing is fixed. I should be back to terrorizing the communities surrounding Lake Houston shortly, erhm, well, a lot more shortly than the 6 months that the iS has been confined to the garage.

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

Each of the times I've done chain guides on M62tu I got P0021 error.

Resolved with real-time measure of the requested vs. actual cam angle which were not well matched to confirm computer didn't see the cam matching request with refurbished vanos and just redone timing with a new chain.

I wasn't sure from the read above what was the fix.

Did you do like me and hook up the timing alignment jigs symmetrically? Oops.

I have the GAS Master Tool Set so the timing jigs are labeled per bank so that wasn't the issue.

Here is an excerpt from my post on Bimmerforums explaining the resolution and why I didn't catch the issue the first two times I opened it up

"UPDATE: I finally carved out enough time to get her opened back up. So my last hunch was spot on. The Bank 1 Exh and Int cams were dead on and the tools slipped on dead flat (intake was turned manually until it stopped), the Bank 2 Exh and Int cams were both ~20* retarded (didn't measure the exact angle, I eyeballed it, it was enough for me). The two contributing factors it appears were:

1) When doing the timing the previous times I didn't have the chain tensioner tool as tight as I should have. I was scared to overtighten it previously because of all the warnings in the GAS and Beisan instructions. This time I almost bottomed the tensioner bolt to the tool body, the fact that the chain has had a chance to run some and rotating the engine a few times by hand while taking up the slack helped settle everything prior to timing the engine.
2) Turning the crank CCW even the slightest bit creates a big enough difference in the position of the chain and the relative position of the cams which likely made up the rest of issue. If you miss the mark when trying to set TDC DO NOT ROTATE CCW, turn the crank CW the entire 720 degrees!

Further I will state the hypothesis that the 41.93 crank degrees which coincides 20.965 cam degrees is in fact the physical limit of the VANOS. Which makes sense because for proper operation of 20* adjustment 2.5% is an acceptable added engineered tolerance. No one has ever shown more than 41.93 and 41.93 has appeared often enough to confirm that its not random."

Here's a link to the full thread if anyone is interested.
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...d-INPA-Reading

Hell of a tale.

I used the GAS timing gear. The banks are labeled but with pins out both sides you can put them on wrong. (kind of a foolish design oversight).

I put them on in a way they were symmetrical, think eyebrows where in reality they have to not be.

I did figure it out before I put any chain guide covers back on though.

Yeah, kind of want to beat my head against a brick wall after all this. Master Tool Set I have has separate tools for each bank that are labeled with a single pin on one side only, and machined lip on each so it would be really difficult to mix up, I guess not impossible. I think GAS kept getting calls from confused customers so they went ahead and added the second tool.

I have had the parts to change timing guides for a year or more. Many posts over the years have claimed it is not that complex and don't be concerned about tackling the job if you have the right tools. But, in the same vein there have been many posts about having problems with the project. My conclusion is, I will have somebody help me that has done it before just to be safe.

Here you go Andrew.

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Then, not on the E53, but my Dad's F10. I got tired of looking at his very poorly etched screen on the odd occurrence I'm in it (brought it over recently for shimmy diagnosis and noise - warped rotor, noise TBD) and so ordered up a polishing kit from Amazon, a screen protector, and some polishing pads for the drill. Results are impressive. Going to do this to all of our OE screens now even though they aren't nearly as bad as his.

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CW, Looks brand new and amazing! Did the screeen protector come in the correct size or was cutting it to fit required?

Thanks. He was amazed. And grateful, a replacement screen is ~$1000 and all the used ones exhibited the same problem. Yes, the screen protector came cut to fit already. Was ordered from NuShield. Could have been a few mm bigger in all directions, but no big deal.