Danny's Japan Rot 540i Touring Thread

[dannyzabolotny]

Nice. Should look good. I think you just need an LCM IIIB or newer. I bought one along with OEM Celis tails to retrofit into my sedan once I have some free time.

The cool thing with the sedan is that you can buy the official Hella Celis retrofit kit from Schmiedmann. That's what I did for my 2000 M5— it was like $350 shipped to my door and it was completely plug and play. Sadly there's no easy option like that for the tourings, so I'll have to do some coding. The 2001 wagon should have the LCM IIIB which supports the LED tail lights, I just need to figure out how to make that LCM IIIB play nicely with my car.

[itsbrokeagain]

Mind giving me a link? I love a good build thread, even if the E61 isn't my thing. I wonder how hard the E61 manual swap was with all the extra computer stuff going on.

I'll send ya a pm. Don't know how the mods are around here about linking other forums.

[cnsorial]

The cool thing with the sedan is that you can buy the official Hella Celis retrofit kit from Schmiedmann. That's what I did for my 2000 M5— it was like $350 shipped to my door and it was completely plug and play. Sadly there's no easy option like that for the tourings, so I'll have to do some coding. The 2001 wagon should have the LCM IIIB which supports the LED tail lights, I just need to figure out how to make that LCM IIIB play nicely with my car.

Yea I was going to go that route. But it was much cheaper this way (I'm in about $150) and I wanted the US spec lights. Should anything happen to these, it would be easy to get a replacement.

Since you're taking the LCM from another E39, all you would have to do is plug it in and use PA soft to code mileage to 0, then program the vin. The LCM should pull the mileage from the cluster when you start the car.

That's how it works from my understanding anyway.


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[philly98540]

Nice Danny! Yeah, PA soft for mileage, then NCS Expert/Dummy for any special coding. Works great.

[dannyzabolotny]

And so the part-out continues...





All that's left to remove are the front door cards and the carpet. The dash and center console all came out pretty easily, and the metal dashboard frame didn't put up much of a fight either. Now I have to figure out how to remove the HVAC core in the middle... I have a guy who wants to buy the heater core and I also want to remove the carpet properly without cutting it.

[computiNATEor]

Sooo much wiring in these cars!

[itsbrokeagain]

That steering column looks like a pita. I have to drop mine to see why I'm getting codes for 'motor transmission jammed' when I try to operate it.

Did that one work?

[dannyzabolotny]

That steering column looks like a pita. I have to drop mine to see why I'm getting codes for 'motor transmission jammed' when I try to operate it.

Did that one work?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it worked. All the power functions in this car worked as intended, aside from the front driver's side window regulator.

[Island Grown]

Any chance you'll be parting out the beige interior?

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[dannyzabolotny]

Any chance you'll be parting out the beige interior?

I might be, what parts are you looking for? A lot of it isn't really worth selling due to the wear and tear of 194k miles...

I haven't started the interior swap yet— I want to buy some AC parts so I can refresh my whole AC system when I have everything apart. And my X5 4.6is decided to kill one of its window regulators so I have to fix that before I take apart my 540it for the swap.

[Island Grown]

I might be, what parts are you looking for? A lot of it isn't really worth selling due to the wear and tear of 194k miles...

I haven't started the interior swap yet— I want to buy some AC parts so I can refresh my whole AC system when I have everything apart. And my X5 4.6is decided to kill one of its window regulators so I have to fix that before I take apart my 540it for the swap.

Odds and ends, but particularly the upper rear hatch trim since mine is completely missing. Do you have rear window shades by any chance? I'm guessing my PM to you earlier on didn't go through but it's probably because I'm still a noob haha.

Sorry to hear about the X5...

I'm in no rush. Please keep me in mind when you're ready. Thanks for responding.

Looking forward to seeing the progress!

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[NordmanMg]

Might also reupholster your headliner and pillars as well

[dannyzabolotny]

Might also reupholster your headliner and pillars as well

I do want to get my headliner and pillars done in alcantara, but that'll be later on in the future. I can do that independently of the rest of the interior since everything comes apart pretty easily. I have a bunch of things that I want to do first:

- Black interior swap. I have all the parts, just waiting on the X5 to be drivable again so I can take the touring off the road for a week or two to do the swap at a relaxed pace. It's too hot to just swap the interior in one go.

- AC system refresh. Somebody poured in a massive amount of yellow dye into the system which has contaminated everything. I think it's a big part of why the AC system isn't working too well. I've properly recharged my AC system twice at this point but the vent temps aren't getting any lower than 46º, whereas my friend is getting 38º temps in his 540i. It also takes forever for the system to start blowing cool air, so it's definitely not working as well as it should be. I plan to fully flush the system and replace the condenser, aux fan, receiver/drier, and whatever else I find. I also plan to remove and clean the HVAC core when it's out during my interior swap, it's got 17 years of funky smells on it.

- Taillight swap to the facelift style. I have the taillights and the updated LCM, just gotta get it all coded and installed.

- Rear suspension overhaul. I have all the parts for this aside from new shocks, which I'll be getting at some point in the coming weeks. Doing the lower ball joints, upper control arms, sway bar end links, integral links, and replacing the stock swaybar with an M5 sway bar, along with new bushings and brackets. I replaced the subframe bushings a year ago so once all of this stuff is done, the suspension on this 540it will be 100% new.

- Overhaul the brakes. My pedal feels quite soft, the brakes all squeak a ton, and the rotors all have giant lips on them, so I'll be replacing the rotors and pads along with installing stainless braided brake lines. I might also rebuild and powder coat the calipers while everything's apart.

I don't have the money to get all this stuff done at once, so I'll be doing it all gradually over the next few months to spread out the costs.

- - - Updated - - -

Odds and ends, but particularly the upper rear hatch trim since mine is completely missing. Do you have rear window shades by any chance? I'm guessing my PM to you earlier on didn't go through but it's probably because I'm still a noob haha.

Sorry to hear about the X5...

I'm in no rush. Please keep me in mind when you're ready. Thanks for responding.

Looking forward to seeing the progress!

My upper hatch trim is completely destroyed too. I took it out a few months back because it kept falling off and rattling around. I might still have it laying in my garage, I'll look for it tonight. My tan interior doesn't have the sun shades, unfortunately. The black one I'm putting in has the sunshades though, so I'm pretty stoked about that.

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

Danny, if your left tail light is in good shape, and you want to sell it, lemme know. two little cracks just magically appeared on mine this week.

[dannyzabolotny]

Danny, if your left tail light is in good shape, and you want to sell it, lemme know. two little cracks just magically appeared on mine this week.

Yeah, it's in good shape. No cracks or anything.



I'll PM you once I have these removed.

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

Yeah, it's in good shape. No cracks or anything.



I'll PM you once I have these removed.

Cool man, thanks! You can't see the cracks on my tail light, until the lights are on, don't know how they got there. I don't mind the stock lights at all. The plain red lights remind me of my old Audi A8's tail lights.

[justinca540i]

Cool man, thanks! You can't see the cracks on my tail light, until the lights are on, don't know how they got there. I don't mind the stock lights at all. The plain red lights remind me of my old Audi A8's tail lights.

Maybe quit hitting that bong while you're in reverse and actually pay attention

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[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

I have not taken bong hits for over 20 years, man!!! But I still remember the stench of spill't bong water on the carpet floor...

[dannyzabolotny]

Anyways, back on topic. I've done a buncha stuff to the car since the last update so I'll post it all here. Not all of it was terribly important stuff, but I like to log it all for my personal records either way.

First off was giving the car a much-needed wash... the last time I had washed it was the end of May. I blame monsoon season, tons of random rain makes it not worth washing the car during that time. Phoenix has super hard water so the rain leaves icky water spots everywhere. I remember driving home a few weeks back during a crazy storm, the roads all had like 6 inches of water everywhere so I was a little nervous, especially since my car is lowered. Everything turned out alright, thankfully I don't have a cold air intake or else I would have been looking for a new engine.

After I washed the car I replaced the rear wiper with a new Valeo one— it was only $8 at AutohausAZ so how could I say no? I also replaced the gas cap with a nice new Genuine BMW one. It has an incredibly satisfying click and I got the little rubber retainer string back. That makes me really happy for some reason. $25 for something that I touch every week (or more), not bad.

Then I decided to install the facelift taillights. Dunno why I picked midnight on a Wednesday night to do it, but my mind works in strange ways sometimes (that's why I daily drive a 540i, after all). The old lights came out easily, and the new ones were very easy to put. Everything was pretty much plug and play in terms of the physical connectors.

Before:



During:



After:



I like the way the facelift taillights look, they definitely make the car look a lot newer. For some reason a lot of people never upgrade these, whereas almost everyone does the headlight retrofit. I guess it's because facelift touring taillights are kinda hard to find used and they're quite expensive to buy new.

Comparison of new on the left vs. old on the right:



And fully done:



The colors may be a little weird in those pictures because of the 1000 watt dual halogen light setup I was using to do this at night. My neighbors must love me.

The LEDs are all the same brightness, my phone camera was just freaking out about them. All of the taillight functions work correctly.



Here's a picture of them in the daytime:



I haven't done any coding yet, I plan to do the LCM swap + coding sometime next week. The taillights work fine for now aside from some minor flickering and a "check rear lights" warning in the cluster.

Last night I changed the oil before my road trip to Prescott for the weekend. My last oil change was in March at 186,628 miles, and this oil change was at 193,887, meaning my interval was 7,259 miles. Oil looked okay coming out, so I'll be sticking to a roughly 7k interval. Maybe I'll send out a sample to Blackstone next time I do an oil change, just to see what they say. I used Mobil 1 0W40 and a Hengst filter kit, which is my go-to combo for the M62tu.

While changing the oil I also found my temperature sensor which had presumably gone missing and was giving false readings like -40ºC every one in a while. Turns out it wrapped itself around my secondary air pump. At some point there must have been some rubbing against the tire because the tip was worn down pretty badly. I replaced it with a good condition temperature sensor from the 2001 540it parts car in my backyard. I also zip tied the sensor into place so it wouldn't flop around like before. I have no intention of ever replacing the fender liners with proper ones for the M5 bumper, so the zip tie solution is likely a permanent one.

Old sensor:



New sensor, zip tied into place. Yes, my foglights are not plugged in— I have to find an adapter for the wiring, I don't want to do any cutting.

[dannyzabolotny]

Today I drove from Phoenix to Prescott to spend a nice long weekend with my girlfriend at a sweet cabin/house that my company owns there.

I did my usual pre-trip inspection: coolant and oil levels looked good, power steering fluid levels looked good, and the brake fluid level looked fine too. I added a bit of air to the tires to bring them all to an even 34psi. They were all at 29-30psi before, and it's funny how noticeable that difference is, I guess it's because the tires are relatively low profile.

The drive to Prescott was pretty uneventful— the touring pulled like a freight train, easily doing 80mph even when going up a pretty steep mountain road. Gotta love having a V8. I rolled over 194,000 miles right as I rolled into town:



Getting close to that magical 200k mile number that I love

The cabin has a pretty steep unpaved driveway and I scrape a bit in some parts, but oh well that's the price of having a lowered car. I'm glad I didn't pay a fortune to paint my bumper, because the bottom of it is all scraped up after only two months of having it on the car.

And of course, here are the pictures I took of the touring around sunset. It almost looks like Imola Red in these pictures... Japan Red is a funny color when it comes to lighting, it always looks different.











I'm pretty happy with how the touring looks at this point. The ride height is just right, the front end is all updated, and now the rear is starting to take shape too. All that's left to do for the front is to get some new OEM grilles to replace the eBay specials, mount the M5 bumper grille, and polish the headlights to get them looking perfect. Then I'll work on getting a rear M-Sport bumper which will basically complete the touring's exterior conversion.

Compare those pictures above to the picture when I first bought the touring... quite a difference!

[purplecty]

Like night and day! The touring looks amazing ! Great progress! Looked good before now looks so much nicer!

[amancuso]

Nice job. It was still a handsome vehicle when you brought it home!

[spngr311]

Looks great! I know what you mean about the tail lights. I scored a cheap set recently and just got them on my wagon. They really do update the look. I did the coding, but my LCM is too old and I still get the start up flicker on the LED's. I have an LCM III-b for it, just have to get it in and fully coded.

[Rossagge]

... Yes, my foglights are not plugged in— I have to find an adapter for the wiring, I don't want to do any cutting.

Haha, mine are in the same config for the same reason on my 02. I beleive this is what you need, 9006 bulb to H8 socket. Have a pair coming from this ebay seller, newminiatureworld, soon. Was on backorder.

Nice looking Touring, BTW!

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[dannyzabolotny]

Like night and day! The touring looks amazing ! Great progress! Looked good before now looks so much nicer!

Thanks! Yeah, it was a pretty solid car to start with, so facelifting it went pretty smoothly. Having no body damage made fitting everything quite easy.

Nice job. It was still a handsome vehicle when you brought it home!

For sure, it was pretty nice when I got it, at least in terms of cosmetics. If I had kept my M5 I would have just polished the touring's headlights and called it a day. The suspension and wheels were totally messed up though, so I've been chasing that stuff down for the past year.

Looks great! I know what you mean about the tail lights. I scored a cheap set recently and just got them on my wagon. They really do update the look. I did the coding, but my LCM is too old and I still get the start up flicker on the LED's. I have an LCM III-b for it, just have to get it in and fully coded.

Yep, I just have to get them coded.

Haha, mine are in the same config for the same reason on my 02. I beleive this is what you need, 9006 bulb to H8 socket. Have a pair coming from this ebay seller, newminiatureworld, soon. Was on backorder.

Nice looking Touring, BTW!

Ah, thanks for the tip! I wasn't exactly sure what the connectors were called, so that's super helpful. I'll check for those on eBay.