Danny's 2003 X5 4.6 Thread

[dannyzabolotny]

Hey y'all,

I just signed the paperwork and wired over the money for a 2003 X5 4.6, so it looks like I have an X5 now! It's Sapphire Black Metallic with black leather sport seats. It's pretty much fully loaded, I can't think of a single feature it doesn't have, aside from the running boards. Heated seats front & back, power seats front & back, sliding cargo tray, PDC, nav, rear window shades, tow hitch, etc.

I paid a bit under $4k for it, not including the shipping costs. I'm working on getting it shipped to my house right now— it's in Seattle and I'm here in Phoenix. How'd I get it for so cheap? Pretty simple, actually. It has 213,000 miles and it needs timing chain guides. Clean history otherwise: it's originally a Cali car, spent some time in Arizona, and then went to Seattle. No accidents and the Carfax actually shows quite a bit of dealer service. It also has a freshly rebuilt transmission so once I take care of the guides it should be quite solid. The engine still runs but it's pretty rough due to the bad guides. That's why I'm having it shipped.

Am I insane for buying an X5 4.6 with 213,000 miles and engine issues? Nah. I've done the timing chain guide + Vanos rebuild job in 6 different M62tu's (4 E39s, 1 E38, 1 Range Rover) as well as a rod bearing replacement on an S62, so this should be quite a breeze for me. I also spent the last few months daily driving a $3000 2004 Range Rover with 160k miles and zero service history (after I rebuilt the M62tu and replaced the fuel pump) and I survived just fine. Most of the parts are shared anyways, so it should all be quite familiar. I had a 2003 540i/6 M-Sport with 200,000 miles not too long ago, so high mileage really doesn't bother me— I find it quite endearing, in fact.

Anyways, enough blathering, here are some pictures. These are from the dealership and I'll post some better pictures once I receive it.















My goal with this X5 is to use it as a daily driver and an occasional tow rig. It already has a proper tow hitch so at most I'd have to just wire up the trailer harness and trailer brakes. I own a two-axle open car trailer with a friend so this will be perfect for that. My other car is a 2000 540i Touring with 183k miles that I'm always working on— I plan to turn it into an M5 Touring so that's why I need something to daily drive once I take the plunge and start the swap.

[Trasportador]

Who are you? I feel like I know your life story! Lol. Great buy, and I look forward to seeing your progress on this. Evident that she is in capable hands. I too have gone through multiple chain guide jobs. I have an alpine on black msport e38, a titanium on grey 540it sport wagon with Dinan software, 6 speed e34 and the e53. Good save on this one, and the rebuilt trans offsets the cost you paid for the SAV.

Welcome

[angeleye540i]

I guess that's your thing now Danny... Buying car on the verge of totaling themselves and fix their timing chain guides...I love the 62 block dedication tho

[AquilaBMW]

Nice One! Look forward to the revival thread. Now I can do me in secret , you have taken over the Hoarder Overlord Title.

[Trasportador]

Nice One! Look forward to the revival thread. Now I can do me in secret , you have taken over the Hoarder Overlord Title.

Don't flatter yourself homie. You own that title forever.

[dannyzabolotny]

Who are you? I feel like I know your life story! Lol. Great buy, and I look forward to seeing your progress on this. Evident that she is in capable hands. I too have gone through multiple chain guide jobs. I have an alpine on black msport e38, a titanium on grey 540it sport wagon with Dinan software, 6 speed e34 and the e53. Good save on this one, and the rebuilt trans offsets the cost you paid for the SAV.

Welcome

I was definitely happy to hear that the transmission was rebuilt recently, because that means once the engine is rebuilt the drivetrain should be more or less bulletproof for a while. I can't wait to start towing with this thing.

I guess that's your thing now Danny... Buying car on the verge of totaling themselves and fix their timing chain guides...I love the 62 block dedication tho

I know the M62tu platform super well so it's easy for me to dive into a car when it has a familiar engine. I find it to be a really easy engine to work on and it's excellent for a daily driver with all the low end torque.

Nice One! Look forward to the revival thread. Now I can do me in secret , you have taken over the Hoarder Overlord Title.

I can't really say I'm a hoarder since I sell all my cars... Now if I had a warehouse like you then yeah I could totally be a professional hoarder. For the time being, I'm limited to 4 cars at a time. Maybe once I move to a different house in a non-HOA area I can become the hoarder I was destined to be.

[AquilaBMW]

I was definitely happy to hear that the transmission was rebuilt recently, because that means once the engine is rebuilt the drivetrain should be more or less bulletproof for a while. I can't wait to start towing with this thing.



I know the M62tu platform super well so it's easy for me to dive into a car when it has a familiar engine. I find it to be a really easy engine to work on and it's excellent for a daily driver with all the low end torque.



I can't really say I'm a hoarder since I sell all my cars... Now if I had a warehouse like you then yeah I could totally be a professional hoarder. For the time being, I'm limited to 4 cars at a time. Maybe once I move to a different house in a non-HOA area I can become the hoarder I was destined to be.

Same here buddy.... you and I have nothing on Transportador!

[dannyzabolotny]

Same here buddy.... you and I have nothing on Transportador!

What, you're limited to 4 cars at a time? I thought you had a warehouse that could fit dozens of cars, haha :P

I'd love to have a big warehouse/garage so I could collect cars— kinda like Jay Leno except way less money. Ideally I'd love to have an E39 Touring (already have), an X5 (already have), Porsche 944 Turbo, BMW Z3 M-Roadster, DeTomaso Pantera, BMW 850csi, E46 M3, mint E38 750il, a Porsche 911 of some kind, and an older Ferrari like a 355/360.

Anyways, as an update on the X5 4.6, it got put on a truck Monday afternoon in Seattle, so it should be at my house on Friday or Saturday. I'm pretty excited to tear into it and start fixing it. I also got a really clean 2001 740i Sport shipped to me a few days ago, the owner shipped it to me to fix the timing chain guides so I'll be doing that as well.

I was actually wondering about how to place the X5 and the 740i in my garage, since one of my garage spots is longer than the other due to having a water heater taking up a bunch of space in one corner. I looked up the lengths of the two vehicles and it turns out the X5 is actually shorter than the 740i by a whole foot! The 740i is 196" long, whereas the X5 is 184" long.

[dannyzabolotny]

It arrived today! The shipper was a nice Russian man so we talked for a while in Russian while we unloaded the X5. Apparently he drove through some snow storms up north so the X5 was quite filthy. The battery needed to be jumped and then it started right up! By the clatter of the engine it definitely sounds like bad guides, but the engine still runs pretty smoothly otherwise which is a good sign.



I'll give it a good wash tomorrow to get all this grime off before I can start working on it. It's way too dirty to put in my garage right now, haha.

Funnily enough, the engine compartment is the cleanest part of this X5 right now, aside from the interior (which is super clean, more on that later). I got a bunch of service records with the X5 which was pretty cool.




213,111 miles. Some of the pixels are missing, so I'll probably be sending this cluster to Blackknight530i for repairs. It should be a good time to do it since the X5 will be down for a few weeks during the chain guide job.



Other than the cluster pixelation and some cracked wood trim, the interior is in very good condition. The leather seats are soft and supple, with pretty minimal wear on the driver's seat for a 213k mile car. The passenger seat is perfect and the back seat looks practically untouched. This doesn't really feel like a 213k mile car— I've had cars with half the mileage that weren't as nice. I guess it just goes to show how well built these cars are.

I'll have more details and better pictures tomorrow!

[NordmanMg]

Nice Danny, very nice

[AquilaBMW]

Nice one Danny - Your proficiency continues to grow and expand. Proud of ya man - might starting reaching out to you for tutoring :-) Sounds like this was a good risk.

[dannyzabolotny]

Nice Danny, very nice

Thanks!

Nice one Danny - Your proficiency continues to grow and expand. Proud of ya man - might starting reaching out to you for tutoring :-) Sounds like this was a good risk.

Thanks! I'm always trying to expand my knowledge of these old BMW's, so I figured why not get an X5? It's the final piece of my M62tu puzzle— once I do the guides on this one I'll have done the guides on every single type of M62tu-powered vehicle. Buying a vehicle sight unseen with a relatively serious mechanical issue is certainly a gamble, but for how little I paid for it I figured I could easily part it out and transplant the 4.6 engine into my wagon if things went south. Having the space and time to consider these options is a blessing for sure.

-------------

Anyways, onto the X5 updates!

Yesterday I gave the X5 a nice bath, which got about 90% of the dirt off. It's not perfect but it'll do for now.

Before:









After:












I initially rinsed it down with water, used a foam gun attached to my hose to get most of the dirt off, rinsed again with water, washed with a soapy wash mitt, rinsed, washed with a mitt again, rinsed, and then towel dried to avoid water spots (Arizona has very hard water). It was extremely satisfying to see the X5 all clean and shiny, I can't wait to do a full paint correction on it!

The interior is pretty clean already, and I took some pictures:









For 213k miles, the driver's seat wear is pretty minimal— it's less worn than the seat in my (formerly owned) 160k mile 2004 Range Rover! Somebody took real good care of this X5. All of the rear window shades work perfectly too.

The only things that doesn't work inside the X5 are the steering wheel adjustments and the driver's seat memory. From doing some research, I see that the driver's seat memory module is known to fail which causes the wheel adjustments to stop working as well. I'll tackle that once I get the engine all sorted out.

[AquilaBMW]

Very nice man, very nice.

[dannyzabolotny]

Very nice man, very nice.

Thanks

Tonight I did what is possibly the most important mod you can do on any car... removing the front license plate mount.

Before:



After:



Much better. I'm so happy that Arizona doesn't require front plates.

The X5 is now inside the garage along with its timing chain guide twin.

[Trasportador]

Very, very nice. She cleaned up well. Such a bespoke monster that SAV is. The things it can do above 4k rpm and 85 miles an hour are impressive. Road handling actually outpaces the e38 imo

[dannyzabolotny]

Very, very nice. She cleaned up well. Such a bespoke monster that SAV is. The things it can do above 4k rpm and 85 miles an hour are impressive. Road handling actually outpaces the e38 imo

Well now you've got me all excited. My last SUV was a Range Rover which handled like a big box on wheels and hated going above 80mph...

[Trasportador]

Well now you've got me all excited. My last SUV was a Range Rover which handled like a big box on wheels and hated going above 80mph...

I did 120 mph in my x5. Solid as rock of Gibraltar. The brakes are phenomenal too

[dannyzabolotny]

I did 120 mph in my x5. Solid as rock of Gibraltar. The brakes are phenomenal too

I'd certainly expect the brakes to be great with how huge those rotors are... I've done 155mph in my 2003 540i/6 and like 160mph in my 2000 M5, now that was a thrill.

---------

Last night, I started taking apart the engine in the X5. Removing the intake and air filter housing was quite easy, it was one 10mm bolt and 4 pop clips. That was the only thing I wasn't already familiar with, after that it was standard M62tu stuff.

I gotta say though, I didn't miss all the secondary air system crap. My Range Rover didn't have any of that stuff which was awesome. That got me thinking about how hard it would be to delete the whole secondary air system on the X5. The trickiest part would likely be coding it out of the DME so there wouldn't be any check engine lights for it. It would be so nice to get rid of the miles of vacuum hoses and that stupid little vacuum cleaner.



The ignition coils are all mismatched which is pretty funny, but as long as they work I don't particularly care. If they start dying I'll replace all of them at once. Everything was pretty clean and dry around the valve covers since the valve cover gaskets were replaced quite recently.

The valve covers were old but not particularly nasty, just typical worn M62tu valve covers. I dropped them off at my powder coating guy's place today, they should be ready late this week or early next week. I'm getting a nice two-tone black and silver finish done, it should turn out pretty sweet.

With the passenger side valve cover removed, I got my first look at the engine. It looked pretty decent and not overly varnished considering it has 213k miles.



Then I looked closer...



Yep, those are chain guide plastic pieces laying around there. The engine must have flung them up there at some point. Good thing I didn't drive this home from Seattle, eh?



These are most likely from the tensioner chain guide on the passenger side. From what I could see, the guide plastic is completely gone on both the U-guide and the tensioner guide. What's surprising is that the chain really doesn't have much slack, but that's probably because the driver's side plastic guide is still somewhat intact. This engine could have either run for another 5k or exploded on the next startup, haha.

The other valve cover came off pretty easily, but I had to push some cooling hoses out of the way first. This is what the engine looks like at this point, after about 2 hours of disassembly:



Next up is to drain the cooling system, remove the expansion tank, remove the fan shroud/fan, and I'm also considering removing the washer fluid reservoir as well since it's huge and annoying.

I've also decided that I'll be doing the valley pan gasket and the intake manifold gaskets since that won't require too much extra labor.

[Trasportador]

The position of the motor in bay makes it difficult to do this job. Duddmd, à sponsored vendor here, can code off the secondary air system. Contact him, his prices are insanely reasonable.

[dannyzabolotny]

The position of the motor in bay makes it difficult to do this job. Duddmd, à sponsored vendor here, can code off the secondary air system. Contact him, his prices are insanely reasonable.

For sure, there's a lot of stuff in the way. I'd say it's even more annoying than the Range Rover, haha. Once I take the expansion tank and wiper fluid reservoir out I'll have more space. I'm also going to try and remove the cabin air filter housing thing near the rear to give myself even more space, because I'll need to reach back there for timing and whatnot.

Thanks for the tip on DUDMD, I was thinking about that too. I'll probably get a tune with a SAS delete after I get this X5 running well.

- - - Updated - - -

I just placed a massive parts order from FCP Euro for all of the chain guide-related parts. It was quite the list, especially since I'm doing the valley pan as well. The total ended up being around $650 with shipping, thanks to some aggressive price-matching.

[thedcorvette]

Nice build!


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[tmvE39E53Z32TT]

It clean up nicely. Sure the paint will need proper correction.
I've notice that all the blk 4.6iS has clear 3rd brake light. I want it for my 4.8iS.

[dannyzabolotny]

It clean up nicely. Sure the paint will need proper correction.
I've notice that all the blk 4.6iS has clear 3rd brake light. I want it for my 4.8iS.

Thanks! I can't wait to give it a full detail when it's done, I have all the proper equipment for it. I plan to wash it, clay bar it, wash it again, compound it, polish it, and then seal it with some Ammo Skin. Interesting info about the third brake light, I wasn't aware of that!

---------

And of course the day after I last posted an update I got sick and that threw me off for a few days, ugh. I was finally feeling better last night so I got some more work done.

The first thing I did was drain the cooling system so I could remove all the hoses. Thankfully on the X5 there's a proper drain plug in the radiator on the driver's side, but you have to remove the expansion tank cap up top or else practically nothing comes out. Once I drained a lot of the coolant out I was able to remove the expansion tank and all the cooling hoses. More coolant came out when I removed the lower radiator hose, and some came out of the alternator housing as well, so keep those drain pans handy!

Once the cooling hoses were removed, I proceeded to removing the clutch fan. I do own the proper tool for this, but a friend is borrowing it, so I had to remove it with the redneck method. I sprayed the fan clutch nut with PB blaster, let it sit for a little, and then put a 32mm wrench on the nut and whacked the wrench with the mallet until the nut came loose. It's not the most glamorous method, but it does work every time! With the fan removed, I was able to remove the fan shroud, which is only secured with three push rivets. This is what the engine looked like at this point:



Look at the nasty gunk around the passenger side upper timing cover:



Yum.



I removed the belts and continued the disassembly, moving on to removing the upper timing covers. I initially sprayed the timing covers down with brake cleaner so I could find the bolts in the sea of grime. The Vanos solenoid gaskets had a bunch of goopy black rubbery stuff around them, which makes me think somebody had messed with them before. The Vanos solenoids came out pretty easily with the proper socket tool. Once those were out, I undid the 6 bolts on each timing cover and removed the timing covers. Neither timing cover presented too much of an issue, and their gaskets were hard as a rock and practically disintegrated upon removal. Once the timing covers came off, that's when things got interesting...

The tensioner rail had been ground down quite a bit by the chain, indicating that the plastic had worn away a long time ago. There was no plastic at all on the U-guide.



Over on the other side, the U-guide was missing all of its plastic as well.



Curiously enough, the plastic guide on the driver's side looked pretty much intact.



I also found a few interesting pieces of plastic laying around...



Looks like one of the guide pieces got caught somewhere particularly warm and started melting, how fascinating!

This is how the engine looked when I called it a night:



Next on the agenda is to disconnect the battery (which is annoyingly placed under the compressor in the trunk), remove the harmonic balancer, remove the water pump, remove the alternator, and then undo the big crank bolt (aka the Jesus bolt). Fun times ahead!

[NordmanMg]

Danny, since you made TCG job your hobby, then you need a good torqie impact gun, with that undoing a crank bolt is like 10-15 seconds job as torquing it back as well

[dannyzabolotny]

Danny, since you made TCG job your hobby, then you need a good torqie impact gun, with that undoing a crank bolt is like 10-15 seconds job as torquing it back as well

Nah, I manage just fine with a 3/4" drive breaker bar and a 6 foot steel pipe over it. Takes me like 3-5 minutes each time to undo the bolt. As for torquing it down, I prefer to follow the official specs, which is to torque to roughly 100 ft/lbs and then do the angle torque. I don't like impact guns, they're noisy and can damage stuff. Plus I don't have an air compressor so I'd be limited to electric impact guns that never really have enough power to undo the crank bolt.

Also, I don't remove the radiator or the front clip when doing this job, so an impact gun wouldn't even fit in the space I have to work with.