There is a video in my thread about the stereo upgrade I did that shows how to use one wire from the harness and the antenna or amp wire from the radio to turn the dsp on. That plus the ibus adapter mentioned above solves it.

Changed front wheel bearings, cv axles, both giubos, and subframe bushings. Almost scary how smooth it handles again. Still have the rear wheel bearings to do, as well as both rear air bags. Discovered the drivers side has a slow leak while I was working on everything else. On the fence about arnott, or spring conversion...

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I did a rear bearing without any suspension or drive shaft disassembly. If memory serves I may have had to replace a dust shield but that might have been front.

The favorite tips:

1) cut a slot in the tip of the E torx bolts to remove/install from the outside. I had to break the bolt loose from under but 95% of the work was done with a flat blade bit in my Impact screw driver.

2) to break the bolts loose I used two wobble extensions. I think I first loosened the axle nut and pushed the cv in an inch or so to make room for the Etorx socket.

I'll be doing that bearing swap one more time as I've replaced 3/4 of wife's bearings and want to preemptive strike on that last one.


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Any noticeable improvement from the guibos?
 

Was there Any noticeable improvement from the guibos?

How difficult was that replacement?

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

A little hard to tell, since I was getting a good bit of vibration from my bad cv axles. Guess I should have waited to replace the giubos till after i drove it for awhile again. Decided to replace them, since they looked pretty stress-cracked, and I'm at 186k. Wasn't bad changing them, had to unbolt the carrier bearing from the body to allow the rear driveshaft to pull away enough to get the giubos in/out. Front one wasn't to bad either, just took a bit of prying and finagling to get it to slip out. Really quite easy, I'd say... just have to get it off the ground far enough to be able to work with them.


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I'll have to check my guibos
 

Thanks!

[QUOTE=mam4.6;1119754]A little hard to tell, since I was getting a good bit of vibration from my bad cv axles. Guess I should have waited to replace the giubos till after i drove it for awhile again. Decided to replace them, since they looked pretty stress-cracked, and I'm at 186k. Wasn't bad changing them, had to unbolt the carrier bearing from the body to allow the rear driveshaft to pull away enough to get the giubos in/out. Front one wasn't to bad either, just took a bit of prying and finagling to get it to slip out. Really quite easy, I'd say... just have to get it off the ground far enough to be able to work with them.


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Bought some struts, strut bearings and top strut mounts. Was going to put them in after work, but it can wait until tomorrow.

Preparing it to get a reman'd valve body and solenoids. Rolled the window down to clear some dew off the window to move it, and the damn thing won't roll up again. I guess it's time for clips and/or a regulator. Startin to really feel the e53 reliability curse, and it hasn't even been a month. Still love it regardless.

Just in case you have not been informed. Some years of X5s have a recall for airbag replacement. I had mine replaced recently.

Just checked for my 2004 4.8is. I guess the sport wheel is not a part of that recall. Says no open recalls.