four.8iS, my X was rear ended and pushed into the tow hook of the SUV in front. That's the mark left from the ball.

soldered the other taillight contact today.

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

Finished up my suspension project by changing the front lower control arms. I picked up a balljoint removal tool from harforfreight ($19 plus 20% coupon!) which needed a little modification (grinding) to make it open-up a little more to fit over the balljoint screw. The tool isn't quite big enough as it is, but with a little modification worked great!

I took the X for a ride around the block and it feels and sounds so much more solid with a refreshed front and rear suspension! Now I need to get it aligned!



http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/14...fa471915aa.jpg


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Backed into a trailer in the dark yesterday. Scratched the driver's rear passenger door, rear quarter panel, kissed the lower part of the bumper. I wasn't too impressed. It definitely won't "buff right out" as they say.

Had a good chat with my Indy a couple of weeks ago about a slight leak from the plug sleeve on the gearbox housing. Told him that, although I wasn't having major problems with the box, I felt it was holding onto the gears for longer than it should. Not slipping, per se, but the car seemed to spend virtually no time below 1500-2000 revs. He immediately said change the fluid, along with a new pan, filter and sleeve. I mentioned the horror stories I'd heard about doing this at my mileage (95,000) and he said that previous to having his own place, he was a master tech at BMW and spent some time working with someone who had been an employee of ZF and was brought to the UK by BMW to work with them. This guy had said categorically that the fluid should be changed before 100k miles, no matter what. I didn't hesitate to book that job in.

Whilst there it had:
2x drop links installed.
2x trailing arms fitted (the bushes were shot which was making the car wallow quite a bit.)
All brake lines/rear flexi hoses replaced as a pre-emptive maintenance job.
Handbrake tightened up.

All in £668, which is about $1100, but the car has been totally transformed.

Car is so much quicker going through gears and revs sit at just over 1,000rpm at 30mph now.

Oh another thing I should mention is that the ATF was really clean when it came out, and still clean when it overfilled on the second stage of filling, so it does appear that the fluid was still in good condition at 95,000 miles, however despite this, the gearbox is behaving quite differently since the fluid change, so there's definitely a case for changing it even if it doesn't appear black or full of metal particles!

Installed a new Air Pump in the X, only to still find a leak somewhere in the front passenger side. I had the truck towed to Circle BMW because I don't care any more.

I also filmed and uploaded a procedure video.



Installed Winter wheels too. One day I'll get to drive it...

Did my winter detail prep this weekend, lubricated door seals with Gummi Pflege, and a nice coat of Collinite 845 wax, I already had some Menzerna Power Lock on there from about 2 months ago so I should be good to get through winter now.

After 3 ABS Trifectas in the last 2 weeks I am also going to actively park the X in the next week or so and send out my module to get rebuilt (finally), put it off too long.

In the pic below, which parts are you referring to as the drop links and control arms?

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/diagrams/q/e/230.png

Drop link is number 7 Here RealOEM.com * BMW E53 X5 4.4i Stabilizer, front
The trailing arm is listed as wishbone here: RealOEM.com * BMW E53 X5 4.4i Service Kit for A-arm / Value Line