Finished the last of the valve stem seals today. So satisfying to have that all complete and without any real hitches. I only dropped two valve keepers during the entire job and both ended up right on top of the little brushes that come with the AGA tool kit to plug up the oil passages. I also bumped one of the intake cams followers off it’s spring and it took a bit of head scratching to get it back on, but once I figured out a good method, it went on pretty easily. A nice long pair of pliers helps to compress that torsion spring.

Now I need to replace the driver’s side upper timing cover, and then re-assemble everything, start her up, and pray there aren’t any leaks!

Fantastic work. Looking forward to hearing how it started right up.

My wife's brother in law built a crate. He's driving 2.5 hours to pick up something for me. It will be crate protected until I pick it up this summer. Never hurts to have extra parts! Anyone want to take a guess at the mystery part? :bustingup

Thanks, me too! I'll put together a summary thread of the work I've done so far. It's going to take some work for me to put it all together.

That's a serious crate... lol. Headliner or sunroof cartridge? Not sure what else is that large, flat, and fragile :confused:

It's easy to come to the conclusion by following the forum that E53s have a huge number of common failures. Members post because of problems but seldom about how few problems they have had. I bought my 4.6 new. Now has 122,000+ miles. In comparison to what I read here I must be the luckiest owner on the planet. I have had very few problems, even those that are called common. Stay the course.

Agree completely. With a few exceptions my E53 has been extremely reliable, since new in 2002. I did what was called for by the maintenance sked until it became my kids car and then I neglected it utterly for several years in anticipation of getting rid of it after getting them off the payroll. That I kept the car has been costly in that I've had to do a lot of deferred maintenance, but I would have had to do that anyway, over time if I hadn't neglected it.

The exceptions have been window regulators and clips, which drive me crazy and are a woefully inadequate design, bordering on engineering malpractice. I think one could argue too that the cars shouldn't leak as much as they do, starting at an early age. I have, and have had significantly older cars that don't leak anywhere near as much as my BMW's have.

Speaking of deferred maintenance, I'm about to order Range Rover L322 spring conversion front struts for my X5. I need new struts and my hope is that they are 1.5 to 2" taller than the X53 struts so I can yank the spacer lift I am using now up front. I read that BMW cribbed the RR L322 suspension and subframe design in mass for the E53 and the struts do look like carbon copies in terms of steering knuckle attachment, strut tower bolt placement and sway bar fitting.

I have replaced one window regulator. I had one leak but it was the sunroof drain.

Yeah, I'd call you pretty lucky then. When I picked mine up with just under 100k on it, there were leaks from:

- Power steering hoses and reservoir (massive leak)
- Alternator bracket gasket (massive leak)
- Valve cover gaskets (driver's side was particularly bad)
- Upper timing cover gaskets
- upper oil pan gasket (albeit small)

From all my experience with this generation BMW and older, it's the same story. My 2002 maxima with over 250k miles on it has oily residue along the edge of the timing cover but it's never had a leak that drips. That's 4 years older and 150k miles greater than my leaky X5.

Not saying BMWs aren't worth the extra effort, but let's call a spade a spade here :)

Yup, a free working pano roof cartridge! The glass and spare parts are hard to pass up. I'll pick it up in Alabama this summer.