the X5 decided to drop a bunch of coolant right before I wanted to leve for a vacation... turned out the steering mechnism had ground away at a coolant hose. Mechanic rerouted it away from the moving parts to prevent it happening in the future.

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

They are stupidly close. On the e70 just as bad. That's kind of best case scenario though

yeah this is the second hose that failed because of clearance issues, another was cut by the serpentine belt. Otherwise pleasantly surprised by the hose conditions; supply and not contaminated on the inside

I spent a couple hours last night modifying some ebay speaker "cones" and installing Kicker speakers into them. My on and off again stereo upgrade had stalled for a while I attended to the trifecta, building a new shed, etc., but the boxes had been sitting in my dining room in the "X5 shipping and receiving area" for too long and I finally got to it last night.

Nothing groundbreaking here as I followed Chrystalwork's excellent posted instructions, advice and lessons learned closely. I don't plan on dragging new speaker wire around the car like he did though (will use OE speaker wires as much as possible) and already have a powered 10" sub in the left rear cubby that sounds fantastic (no OE sub in my car).

The rear speakers are 6.5" 2-way Kickers and the fronts are 6.5" component Kickers, with the tweeters going into either the pilar locations or the dash locations, whichever is easier to install and wire up. I realize I'm losing the small mid in the rear door, and one tweeter or mid up front, but I think the quality will be so much better than OE (and 20-year-old OE at that), that a non-audiophile like me will appreciate a bit easier install and much better sound and not notice the missing speakers.

Speaker enclosures came from ebay and popping the OE speakers out was fairly easy with a mat-knife and some force. I ground the mounting ears off the Kickers with a belt sander, vacuumed up all the shavings that stuck to the magnetized parts of the speakers, and test fit each into the enclosures. Each door has a specific enclosure, but the PN stickers were still on each used piece. A qick reference to RealOEM made sure I was putting the correct speaker into the correct front/back enclosure. I plan on using the OE plugs/wiring so "clocked" the connection points relatively close to each other. I stupidly got a bit wrapped up worrying about OE wire colors, + and/or -, but then realized I can just make brown - and the other color +...which is probably what BMW did anyway.

Some 3m double sided tape around the enclosure lip went down to hold the speaker and cusion it, then a drop of Gorilla super glue gel at each of the ground-down attach points (which touch the sides of the enclosures) went on. After that dried a bead of 3M Black weatherstrip and gasket adhesive filled in the gap between the speakers and enclosures. This stuff flows very nicely into the gaps where the speaker edges don't fit exactly into the enclosures.

All in all not a bad job, especially with an old fashioned within reach. I need to buy the Kenwood amp I plan on using in the next month or so (a very compact 4 channel 4 ohm, 70 watt/channel amp and fashion a bracket, or modify the existing amp bracket in the left cubby. Then I can take a day or two and finish the installation once I have all the prep work done and parts on hand. I ran RCA cable overhead from the Kenwood receiver to each cubby last year when the headliner was out, so I'm hopeful I can avoid unwanted interference noise buy going overhead. The Kicker powered sub is plugged in and sounds very clean.

3M tape is the way to go. Forgot it on the first one and hope I don't have any plastic on plastic vibrations.
https://i.postimg.cc/dVhcbx2t/speaker_1.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/CM40kDMY/speaker_2.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/WbWPfvJH/speaker_3.jpg

Kickers came with speaker wire and connectors on one end, and I'll trim the wires to length and solder the other end to the enclosure posts.
https://i.postimg.cc/K8ChxDf7/speaker_4.jpg

I think the component tweeters and these crossovers will be a challenge. The crossovers may need to go back by the amp, if I'm to use the existing speaker wires at the front tweeter locations.
https://i.postimg.cc/MKKSDTXB/speaker-5.jpg

Was it "water hose" #12 below? It was the one I stupidly ran below the frame rail instead of on top of it and the steering shaft rubbed a hole in it. I don't know why I didn't see at the time that the metal section goes on top of the left frame rail. Rushing to get the job done I'm sure.

https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/sho...diagId=64_1064

Just got all four o2 sensors through customs and now have my LF wheel speed sensor intermittently shitting the bed.

I had hoped to do o2 this Saturday but now I can only pray that I can get all five things done without something screwing up or needing an item that's impossible to find in one day.... [emoji28]

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One of my WSS crapped out it was just rust. Cleaned and replaced. Bingo


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I hope so, because apparently my wife thinks that "parts waiting to be installed" don't belong anywhere she has to sweep, mop or dust... [emoji53]

Saturday afternoon is the only time I can use the lift at the Haji shop. [emoji28]

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I finished this job up a few days ago (was in no hurry) and finally started it up and drove it yesterday. So nice to have that nasty vibration at idle gone. With the new engine mounts, it's smooth as can be.

AM.

159869 miles. Its first oil change since fixing the oil pan leak. 6k miles with about 3 quarts within the miles. 255/60R17 tire rotation too. Running smooth and straight. Quick wash and driven into the garage. Rain and marble size hail reported. Up next, a few more parts for a coolant pipe and CCV installation.