New owner resurrecting an E53 3.0L
 

New to the site, but not BMWs (Also have an E30 and E46). Back in December, I managed to pick up a 3.0 E53 for $500. Yes, $500.00 USD. lol The previous owner blew the motor, so all it needed was a new engine and other various components. She had another X5 and was quick to sell this one because it was sitting for almost 2 years. Managed to source a used engine from an E39 and completely overhauled the cooling, CCV, and belt drive system. It was a lot of work but I feel that it was worth it.

I just got done buttoning her up last week and have been scooting it around the parking lot at work until I'm finally ready to use it as a daily driver (currently using my E30 as my wife uses the E46 since she works one city over). I have been reading and searching as much as I can on the site to see any common issues. Looking forward to being a member on here! :thumbup:

Welcome aboard!!!

that is a nice find for $500 - how much did the car cost out the garage, and onto the road after all of the things were done? how much time did you put in?

Wow...that's impressive that you were able to get all that done. Yeah..how much did it cost you to put it back on the road?

It took me some time because of finances and I wanted to take my time on it. Last time I rushed something and tried to cut corners, I ended up costing my self an engine rebuild.

To break it down, this is what everything cost me:

$500 - the whole vehicle as it sat. Oxford Green, non self-levelling suspension, regular headlamps. Just the basic X5 for that year.

$1100 - engine. That one was probably what took the most time because I wanted it to be out of a car with 134k or less miles (to match the chassis, of course) and one that I knew was guaranteed to run. After calling several salvage yards, the lowest I could find was $2000 and they were still questionable. A local scrapper here, Quarry Motors, specializes in parting out BMW and Minis...so I called him and eventually he had an E39 M54B30 that ran pretty well. Saw it run, even had him take another video of it and send it to me to re-verify it was the same car before he ripped it out. Because I deal with him on a daily basis (I work at a BMW dealer), he gave me a break on the engine price. The original price was $1200 but he knocked off $100 and kept the oil pan.

$100 - window regulators. I initially did the driver's window regulator as that's what was 100% needed. When I put a jump box on, I started playing with the switches. Not a smart move, especially for a vehicle that's been sitting. I got to the right rear window regulator and it broke. I went aftermarket on the regulators because of how often they fail, I might as well get the "cost-effective" ones. lol

Those were the major components needed to get it road ready. But as I dug deeper and deeper into it, there was a lot of "while you're in there" things I did. For instance, all new vacuum lines, filters, gaskets, CCV stuff, pretty much to prevent anything crazy from going down. Those were all OEM and cost me a pretty penny. Grand total was probably over $3k over the span of 4 months.

Now as far as time put into it, I stayed late and came into work on the weekends. One day I spent 18 hours on it, but I did a lot of it myself using the shop equipment. My original plan was to take the engine out from the front but as I started to look around, there was no way in hell that would happen in relation to the location of the TC and trans tunnel. So I dropped the subframe with the engine, trans, and TC attached. I was only able to work on it sparingly because of work and waiting for parts or just being lazy. haha

This was definitely a learning lesson for me, but had I known it was going to cost me this much....I probably wouldn't have done it. But with that said and I'm finished, it was definitely a learning experience.

wow thats great, im glad you were able to save it and get here running again, and i think you will come out well on it even if you decide to sell it. Nice work! post pics!!

Anyone who saves an E53 from the graveyard is a winner in my book... enjoy the truck and welcome to the forum!

Thanks! I will eventually post pictures up when I get a chance. I still need to attach the exhaust. :rofl:

who needs an exhaust? dump tube to smokestacks on it LOL!

two smokestacks and a snorkel!!! some mud tires with big, BIG teeth, sticking out a half foot on each side!!!

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

So I decided to take a leap and drive the X5 home last night. All I can say is wow...it's a nice and quiet ride. Definitely doesn't handle like an SUV. The only downside is that all the rubber bushings are shot in the front, so going over bumps and such made all sorts of noises. In the near future, I will be replacing all 4 rotors, brake pads, CABs, TABs, and the ball joints.

All that work done to the engine was definitely worth it, though. It runs smooth as silk through all the gears and has no problem revving up.

:xoutpost: nice pick up for sure

:worthless:

Here is the way she sat when I got her (nothing special, plus I only took one shot with my phone):
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...psf1b9f9ad.jpg

Before I was using the dealer shop, I had it towed home and thought that I could do the whole process at home. I was wrong from the start, but the X5 didn't just sit. I ordered the window regulators and installed them at home and kept it in the garage until it was time for me to make the decision for it to go back to the dealer to do the engine swap.

I went in one Saturday and managed to get her on the lift:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...psf460523a.jpg

That engine bay was a mess. For starters, it had a missing cover for the spark plugs, the wiring harness was halfway unplugged (that made for a nice amount of frustration later on), nothing was capped off to shield itself from weather elements, and various other things that would piss a normal person off.

Dropped the engine, transmission, and transfer case with the subframe:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...psa60c0728.jpg

See that table? That's probably the best thing BMW has offered a dealership. I am still wondering how far my head was up my ass when I thought I could do all this at home in a single car garage. :rofl:

Removed the engine, trans, and TC from the subframe:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...psb6935cd0.jpg

The cut exhaust was a result of the tech that was helping me trying to cut corners. It would make for a nice fabrication later on that involved two trips to the auto parts store and a grinder wheel.

From there I separated the transmission from the engine and put both into our tire/storage room and would periodically finish the engine as a few weeks went by.

Here is the "new" engine:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps136400fc.jpg

Coolant passages were nice and clean. I was pretty impressed and also relieved that this was a motor that was taken care of for the most part:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps5c849035.jpg

http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps42bc6891.jpg

Before I removed the engine, I drained the oil....well, I guess you could say PART oil. Water and sludge came out of the crankcase. This is what it looks like when you decide to keep driving with a blown headgasket:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps1a9590dc.jpg

Pretty gross, eh?

I'll continue with more pics on my next post.

Now that was a sad sight :(

Here is the "new" engine with the exhaust manifold on with new studs, gaskets, and nuts:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps5225b231.jpg

I also completely resealed it minus a headgasket; oil pan gasket, rear main seal, oil filter housing gasket, and VANOS line seals.

Intake manifold back on:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps4c802a44.jpg

Although I don't have pictures of it, I replaced anything that would potentially give me a problem in the near future. In this case, it was the crank case ventilation and its associated hoses, IM gaskets, throttle body boot, the plastic water lines that run underneath the IM. I hate doing a job twice and I am a firm believer in preventative maintenance.

Better shot of IM and such:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps7431060a.jpg

Also replaced the flywheel bolts:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...psa29705f3.jpg

I had a tech argue with me that I could reuse the flywheel bolts and that they wouldn't pose a threat. After confirming with the master tech, he said they were one time use and even if they weren't, it's not worth the chance.

Wiring harness attached to the engine:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...psa1466a2d.jpg

Coils are in and she is ready to go back in!:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps658431d4.jpg

http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps3d0e7863.jpg

Called it a night and the next morning, I came in early to get a head start. Plus it was a Saturday, so I still wanted to enjoy the rest of the weekend
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...psa22dbd55.jpg

The most frustrating part of the whole process was probably coming across parts that were either missing or just misplaced. Had I not had access to a parts catalog and a nice wide array of parts that were readily available, this could have potentially been an abandoned project. But I kept on going.

Although it wasn't 100% buttoned up and good to go, I decided to crank the engine real quick to make sure it started up with no issues:
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps73fb2403.jpg

The engine was throwing a code for all the oxygen sensors and because it was late at night and I was so tired, I initially thought the cats were clogged or the sensors were completely ruined from the PO. Turns out I was wrong; I just had the oxygen sensors switched around. Whoever dug into this before me just started unplugging shit without marking anything. I ended up fixing that later on in the parking lot on my lunch break. :D

I didn't take any more pictures because I was in the home stretch to get it done. Plus when you're focused on getting something done before summer time, you don't take the time to stop and snap some pics. I wish I would have so everyone gets a better idea of the headaches that I went through, but ultimately cleared them up one by one.

The M54 is a fantastic engine in its own form. I believe it was the last true engine BMW put effort into before everything switched to electronic control (N5x, anyone?). At first, I was quite intimidated at tackling this particular motor, but because I had some experience on it with my E46 330i, I just used that as a small reference. Had this X5 been an M62-powered, I probably wouldn't be on this forum.

Nice to see the progress pictures and that you replaced items preventatively as well. I would guess you also changed the front diff oil, P/S oil, etc. at the same time.

Yes. All the fluids were changed accordingly. The only thing that I didn't change was the rear diff. I just left that alone and it isn't leaking nor is it making any noises so its safe for now.

The car worth way more than $500 in part alone. Good works on bringing it back to life.

One of the very reasons why I bought it. days after I purchased it from the lady, I had some techs offering me anywhere from $750 to $1500 for it. lol

Small update: I replaced all the bushings in the front, as well as the ball joints. What a difference! No more racket in the front end, which was a major annoyance. Now a check engine light has popped up for an intake cam sensor and idle control valve. Seems like this is a neverending project. lol

Very cool, thanks for posting that up.

Now I feel guilty when I get pissed at (many) minor problems with my X!

No problem. It is a lot of work, don't let it seem like what I did was just taking pictures and putting stuff in. There were a few times where my patience was tested. I think the important thing to keep in mind is to know when to stop. Fatigue can cloud your judgement.

Oh yes, I understand the effort you put into that, which reminds me the (relatively) minor problems I am sorting out are just that, minor.

Good luck with the rest of it!

i had the intake CPS and ICV codes as well did you solve yours?

I did an alignment and the idle control valve last night. I knew my ICV was dead due to 2 reasons: 1) the idle control valve I put in there from the original motor was seized, so it was idling at 1k in parking, sometimes a tad bit higher (not to mention it didn't move when you shook it around; the new one I got did) and 2)cleared the faults twice in the car and it kept popping up, so I replaced it as necessary. Idles just fine now.

Because this car had sat for a while, I am getting problems one after another. I don't mind sorting them out, but it is a nuisance and I often wonder, "is this ever going to end?".

As I was driving home last night, I heard a small crack like something might have broke behind the steering wheel. When I got in the truck this morning, air bag light was on, multifunction buttons don't work at all, and the horn is inoperable. From what I've gathered, it's a clock spring/slip ring...so now that has been added to the list.

My current list of issues to tackle in the next few days:
-Intake cam sensor
-Clock spring
-Fan likes to stay on in the mornings even though the ambient temps are cool. I'm sure it kicks off but it's still odd that it would do something like that when it's not hot outside.
-Something smells like it's burning; I'm trying to determine if it's oil, trans, or PS fluid. I didn't take care of the PS system like I should have, so I'm -hoping- that's the issue.

I really like this truck so far and I would hate to get rid of it, but I also don't want to dump too much money into this if it's not going to be worthwhile.

This is a really great project. It's always nice to see someone who's not willing to junk a perfectly good chassis, even if the car was mass-produced.

:)

Thanks! A lot of people ask what my plans are for it and I say, "100% stock. it's a daily driver and that's all it will be". I have seen videos of people doing various swaps for it and as cool as they seem, I can only focus on one project at a time.

Now my E30...that's a different story. :D

Lots of work but it must be gratifying to accomplish so much. Here's hoping you don't run into any other problems for a long time.

I sure hope not! I don't think it can get any more complicated than what I have already fixed. At least I won't have to worry about the air suspension. Those are a pretty penny when they take a dump.

Certainly not! Good job!

So another nice update as I slew through the problems that this beast is giving me:

Living in Florida during the summer, A/C is a necessity. My E53 has been blowing cold air from the side vents, but barely cold from the center driver's vent and nothing but hot air from the passenger's center vent. I have been researching this and it seems the water valves go bad in these.

My next step is to get rid of that gremlin, but before I do, has anyone personally experienced this? My freon level is normal and I even did a deep vac and recharge and still the same symptoms. One tech tells me it could possibly be a blend door, but I am sketchy about that.

Read back through the thread don't see the year of your X? Do you have iDrive?
Is the wheel in the center as far into the blue as it will go?
Will it blow cold air if the AC is on max?
I assume the temp setting on passenger side is same as driver? Have you checked the temperature of the input hose to the water valve to the temperatures of the two output hoses when at high and and low cabin temperatures? Unplug the water control valve--should blow cold from all vents. The blend door independently controls the driver and passenger air and temp to adjust to the desired temperatures. Are you showing any fault codes? If you set the drivers side and passenger side temperature controls at the maximum opposite temperatures with the air on and press the control to blow air in your face you should feel one side blowing hot air and the other cold including that part of the center vent for driver or passenger.

2001 and no X-drive. (doubt that is relevant).

I am certain it is the water valve; it popped up on my stored faults when I scanned it, so I will be replacing that in the future.

it is relevant because there are temperature controls with i-drive. If you were certain it is the water control valve why the question? It appeared to me you were trying to determine if you or the tech was correct. Why did the BMW tech think it could be the blend door rather than the water valve control?

I wasnt aware of any E53 having the I-drive system.

OP, its the valve...same thing happened on my E36....

Thanks for the input. I figured it was but I do have a terrible habit of second guessing my instincts. lol

e53s didn't have i-drive, think it started in 2007. Didn't look at the pictures of your X. Oopsie. I have seen either act similar. Some have replaced the water valve and still had the problem that was the reason to mention ways to narrow it down. I don't recall if they had a fault code or not, hopefully that pinpoints the problem. Why did the tech think it was the blend control with a water control valve fault?

Well, that was just a hypothesis. Nothing concrete.

My point was that being that we are in the E53 forum, that its known that it wouldnt have I-drive. You are indeed correct the Idrive in the X5's started with the E70 platform, however I dont know if it was in the first years models or not.

As far as the heater temp, OP did you get that fixed, was it indeed the water valves?

Haven't had a chance. Infact, I went to go test it yesterday by unplugging it and blocking off the hoses...and guess what just HAD to happen at that moment? A/C Compressor seized up! So I'm going to get a compressor in a day or two and figure it out then.

Wow! One thing after another. Sucks.

Lowblock,

The idrive was part of the 2nd generation introduction but we are not on the E70 forum. Sorry for the more general response, I lost my E53 head.

It's almost as if letting a car just sit for 2 years is a bad thing.

That's to be expected, Daniel-san. :D

This doesn't really anger me or put me into a huge fit of frustration, mainly because it isn't my daily driver. I have 2 other vehicles at my disposal and even if I didn't, I live a few miles away from work so I could just ride a bike to work. Hell, it would probably be a more active thing to do and possibly make me less lazy.

Mandatory 90 day update!

Well, I am still driving the X5 around. The more I drive it, the more I like it. since my last update, I have replaced the compressor, steering wheel clock spring, and the idle control valve. Some weeks later, my radio display took a dump so I am weighing out the option of replacing with an OEM unit or get one of those aftermarket navigation units. Other than that, everything was fine...up until I scanned the car again and sure enough, a code for the exhaust side VANOS popped up.

From what I've gathered, it is a symptom on virtually every M54 engine, regardless of what model it is in. The remedy? New teflon seals from Beisan Systems. There is even a nice writeup on the website itself, so I recommend checking it out. I plan to follow that this weekend so I can get my X5 back to its full potential. I will post pictures when I get to that particular procedure.

If you need to get the MID screen repaired there are ebay sellers who will fix with a lifetime warranty for 100 bucks. I had my Speedometer LCD repaired recently to new condition and its flawless.

I may have to go that route! thanks! I was a little skeptical about services on eBay, especially if I'm fully capable of doing it myself.-

I see myself as fully capable as well, but I don't have the steadiest of hands so I paid the extra in labor to make sure it was done right the first time!

So I promised everyone pictures of the VANOS seal repair. Unfortunately I didn't take time to snap pics so there won't be any. However, I can tell you the procedure is pretty straightforward.

While I was ripping apart the VANOS unit, I walked outside to get a better look to see if anything was damaged and I did manage to come across one particular thing that threw me off: inside the area where the banjo bolt threads into the unit, a chunk of balled up paper towel was lodged in there! That lead me to believe that was the culprit the entire time and my seals were completely fine. When i got the replacement motor when I did the engine swap, there were various places where shop paper towels were put to keep any fluids from leaking while in transport. At this point I had already replaced the seals (the old ones were trashed for sure), so it was definitely a good learning experience.

Took her out for a test drive, and although I'm sure it was due to the VANOS line being clogged, it was a major difference. The engine had much more torque. According to Beisan's website (where I got the seals from), it will take 200 miles to "break in" the new Teflon seals. If it is running excellent now, I can't imagine what 200 miles will be.

Additional information:

I was driving this morning and wow...what pep this thing has again! I can see myself doing more spirited driving with this beast now. Not to mention it shut off the check engine light on its own. Glad to know my X5 is back in top shape again!

Reading that last bit with the outcome on the VANOS has me (slightly) more motivated to tackle the seals on mine now!

It's a known fact, X5SND.
Beisan has a very thorough write-up for Vanos seal replacement, and there's a forum about it on there too. Both my E39 and the old 3.0 had them replaced.

Oh I know the results are proven!

The detail in that write-up for the seal replacement is a nice thing to have, as it essentially walks you through the whole procedure...so it's something us DIY guys always appreciate!

Reading what the OP wrote was pretty much what I needed to get my ass in gear on this. I already have all the parts (including VC gasket and accessories), so it's just a matter of making some time! (hopefully this week):thumbup:

Get on it. You will definitely appreciate it. I have noticed since I changed it, I have been driving more spirited. My wife has yet to drive it since the work was done, but I can already tell she will like it. She currently drives the E46 as a daily driver and loves that thing.