Danny's Japan Rot 540i Touring Thread

[Rossagge]

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.



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.



Yep, I just have to get them coded.



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.

Sent from my SM-G610Y using Tapatalk

[philly98540]

Looking good Danny!

[Rossagge]

Here's what i got and installed yesterday. Got em on ebay for under 6 bucks. Fitment is good and wiring looks right. Grab up a set if you decide.


Sent from my SM-G610Y using Tapatalk

[dannyzabolotny]

Here's what i got and installed yesterday. Got em on ebay for under 6 bucks. Fitment is good and wiring looks right. Grab up a set if you decide.

I got my eBay adapters the other day... they looked kinda like yours, but I quickly discovered that they didn't fit. Apparently the pre-facelift foglight plug is completely different from the facelift one. No idea why BMW changed it. So I cut the connectors off and started fabricating my own solution.



With the magic of butt connectors I was back in business. I'm sure it's not the best way to do this, but it was easy and I never use my foglights anyway... this was mostly to eliminate the "check fog lights" warning on the cluster.



For the first time in several months I have working foglights, yay! I'm sure I'll never use them though.



While under the car I also noticed the oil pan was dented and some of the paint had come off. I wonder when that happened. I might replace it the next time I change the oil, but then again it isn't leaking so I might just leave it for now.



The bumper has its fair share of scrapes too, after only being mounted on the car for about three months. Good thing I did the paint myself, I'd feel really bad if I was destroying an expensive paint job. Such is the life of a daily driver, I guess.

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

Danny, those butt connectors, squirt in some dialectric grease on each end so that the elements don't start to corrode the copper in your wires, and the aluminum in the butt connector, just thought I'd throw that in there, in case you didn't.

[Rossagge]

Looks good. Same here on the fogs. Got the amber just for looks, plus if we do get actual fog amber is better. Nice not to see that fog light warning.

Sent from my SM-G610Y using Tapatalk

[Firstbmw528]

This touring is so nice my wife loves the color and I'm not sure what it is but I love the body on it.

Great looking car.

[cnsorial]

Looking good, Danny. For my fog lights I just soldered the new 9006 connectors on and used heat shrink and loom tape to ensure I never have problems with moisture or anything. Time to get some white fog lights to match your halos!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dannyzabolotny]

This touring is so nice my wife loves the color and I'm not sure what it is but I love the body on it.

Great looking car.

Thanks! The color is Japan Red, it's somewhat uncommon in the E39 generation, with Imola Red being much more popular. I like the touring body style in this E39 generation, something about it just looks so good. The lines work very well. Of course, some people will disagree— wagons seem to be a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing.

Looking good, Danny. For my fog lights I just soldered the new 9006 connectors on and used heat shrink and loom tape to ensure I never have problems with moisture or anything. Time to get some white fog lights to match your halos!

Any recommendations on cheap white fog bulbs? I don't use the fog lights enough to justify dropping a lot of money on an HID fog retrofit or anything like that. I'm also going to get new Xenon bulbs, you can see how mine are mismatched in color temperature due to the headlights being from different cars (I bought the headlights used).

I'll re-do the fog light connections if I start having trouble with them. It doesn't really rain much in Arizona so moisture isn't a major concern. In my defense, it was like 108º yesterday, and I did not want to spend any extra time outside, especially not with a hot soldering iron. Maybe once it cools down I'll revisit the wiring.

[cnsorial]

Thanks! The color is Japan Red, it's somewhat uncommon in the E39 generation, with Imola Red being much more popular. I like the touring body style in this E39 generation, something about it just looks so good. The lines work very well. Of course, some people will disagree— wagons seem to be a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing.



Any recommendations on cheap white fog bulbs? I don't use the fog lights enough to justify dropping a lot of money on an HID fog retrofit or anything like that. I'm also going to get new Xenon bulbs, you can see how mine are mismatched in color temperature due to the headlights being from different cars (I bought the headlights used).

I'll re-do the fog light connections if I start having trouble with them. It doesn't really rain much in Arizona so moisture isn't a major concern. In my defense, it was like 108º yesterday, and I did not want to spend any extra time outside, especially not with a hot soldering iron. Maybe once it cools down I'll revisit the wiring.

Yea. I'm in Florida and feel like I'm dying when it's 90 outside. Although we have 600% humidity

I've tried numerous rather inexpensive led fog light bulbs and they all end up being too blue for my 5500k xenon bulbs.

It's getting pretty frustrating. If anyone has any suggestions on a pure white bulb, please post.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ColtonBH]

Look for a 5300k LED bulb? Even though 6000k is "white" they tend to always look a bit blue to me, especially in LED form

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[justinca540i]

In for white fogs, the R56 probably uses different bulbs tho

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[auaq]

Honestly I would leave the fog light bulbs alone and upgrade the headlight bulbs. Go 5000k or 5500k bulbs. They are bright and very white.

[dannyzabolotny]

Honestly I would leave the fog light bulbs alone and upgrade the headlight bulbs. Go 5000k or 5500k bulbs. They are bright and very white.

Yeah, unless there are some really cheap white fog light bulbs out there it's not a top priority. I do want 5500K xenon bulbs, I think they'll match the 6000K angel eyes better. 6000K xenon bulbs might be too blue.

[auaq]

6000k would start to appear bluish. 5500k Morimoto D2S is what I have in mine and I got it from www.theretrofitsource.com

[dannyzabolotny]

6000k would start to appear bluish. 5500k Morimoto D2S is what I have in mine and I got it from www.theretrofitsource.com

Any pics of your headlights? I was thinking about Morimotos already, so that's likely what I'll go with. Should be nice to have a matched set of new bulbs for once, in all of my BMWs so far I've just been running with whatever old bulbs came with the car, haha.

[auaq]

Just search for my thread called Light upgrades and you should see some good night time pics.

- - - Updated - - -

Here's some pics.

https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...7#post29705357

[computiNATEor]

Any updates on the Porsche?

[dannyzabolotny]

Any updates on the Porsche?

Nah, it's just been sitting around. My motivation to work on that car kinda comes and goes. Right now I'm fixing my X5's endless issues to get it ready to sell, and it just keeps breaking. I replaced the front right window regulator a few weeks ago, and the other day the front left window regulator died. Ugh. I also replaced the battery and the front right tire (tire popped on a curb). And I still have to fix an exhaust leak.

On the bright side, I did get to work on the touring over the past week. I replaced the rear shocks with Koni Yellows, along with new shock mounts, new lower rear ball joints, M5 rear sway bar, and new sway bar links. I'll get some pictures up once I unload them off the camera, but the old shocks and shock mounts were well past their prime. Somehow the shock mounts had twisted like 90º, how odd.

I finished the job yesterday and torqued everything at ride height. There's certainly an improvement in damping, but the new shocks haven't gotten rid of all the harshness like I thought they would. I still feel a bit of a crashing in the back every time I go over a big bump or pothole, which makes me think I should revisit my rear subframe bushings. I replaced them with Meyle HD solid subframe bushings about a year ago, but maybe they were installed incorrectly or are just too firm. So I'm thinking of replacing them with the OEM Lemforder bushings, that might make things a little smoother in the back.

Oh and there's a "Self-Leveling Inactive" warning on the cluster, so maybe I disconnected a sensor accidentally during my rear suspension refresh. My air bags don't really leak so I can drive just fine for now, but I'll have to plug in my INPA rig and see what's up with the self-leveling system before I start taking things apart.

[dannyzabolotny]

So I've been doing some reading, and apparently a lot of people recommend cutting the bump stops in half for the Koni Sport shocks since they have a different travel length and bottom out too quickly with the stock bump stops...

[dannyzabolotny]

I hooked up my INPA rig and checked for errors in the self-leveling system. The only error I could find was an error with the right rear height sensor. I cleared the errors and took the touring for a quick drive. The self-leveling warning came back after a a quarter of a mile, meaning there actually is a problem that's recurring and not a one-time malfunction. I jacked up the touring and checked the right rear height sensor, which seemed to be okay otherwise. No loose connections or anything. I've noticed that the touring does sit a little lower on the right side now...

Thankfully there's a 2001 540it in my backyard, so I'll pull the sensor from that tomorrow morning and swap it onto my touring to see if it fixes the issue.

[computiNATEor]

Having parts cars is the best!

[carlova789]

I need to order some of those butt connectors

[itsbrokeagain]

Any updates on the Porsche?

Wait wut? Did I miss something?

- - - Updated - - -

So I've been doing some reading, and apparently a lot of people recommend cutting the bump stops in half for the Koni Sport shocks since they have a different travel length and bottom out too quickly with the stock bump stops...

Common issue on the E90s as well. Bmw designed zero droop (control arms pretty much stay parallel to the ground when unloaded) and have all their range of motion while loaded. Dropping the car on even the slightest things like eibach prokit resulted in slamming into the bumpstops. Replacement shocks never cured the issue.

Only when HP Autowerks released their konis with the shortened bodies with built in coilover sleeves did it rectify the problem. Otherwise you were forced to go with $2800+ JZs or Ohlins for the street.

Now people swap in m3 bumpstops and such as a cheaper alternative if you want to run stock style shocks.

[computiNATEor]

Wait wut? Did I miss something?

Danny has a project car!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW9iepBNHHY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW5HKC3qlb0