Got me a 540i wagon—to TCT or not to TCT?

[chowza]

After (way too) much deliberation, some of which you may have followed in the "Talk me out of this" thread, I picked up a 540i touring on Ebay at the end of October.

(Seriously, way too much deliberation. I even test drove a C55 AMG at one point before drifting back to E39 land.)

It's this car:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2000-BMW-5-...vip=true&rt=nc

It's not a sport package, despite what the listing says.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. The first owner was supposedly a BMW mechanic, at least according to the second owner, who I bought it from. Not 100% sure if that's true, but he was a CCA guy. Even left his CCA membership card in the glove box.

Exterior is in great shape, and it was supposedly garaged its whole life. Put about 1k miles on it so far, and it runs and shifts reassuringly.

First thing I did was change out all the pistons in the back to concussion-proof the liftgate.

It's got the nav+DSP and a (non-functioning) tape deck, with the head unit that seemed to be more common in E38s, so I wonder if the original was swapped out at some point. It's also got PDC, which beeps loudly when I back out of the garage, and... not much else. Didn't have that feature on my last E39 or my E91, so I'm not sure exactly when or how it's supposed to work. So far I haven't backed into anything, yet.

In other news, I'm chasing a small oil leak. The center support bearing is also squeaking like a mf, so I might tackle that once I can pick up some jack stands and gin up the courage to crawl under the car (plus find a buddy to help me haul the exhaust).

Which brings me to the timing chain... it's the one big piece I wasn't able to verify before purchase, and my assumption is the guides have NOT been done. The previous owner didn't do them, and he didn't have any records from the first guy.

As a first measure, I was all set to pick up a new lower timing chain tensioner, but stumbled on a couple threads that had me questioning whether it's actually worth it to replace it:

http://www.bimmerforums.co.uk/forum/...acing-t298857/
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...ensioner-Brand

Thoughts?

[dannyzabolotny]

Congrats on joining the wagon brotherhood!

Given the relatively low mileage, I think it's a decent precaution to change the chain tensioner. Make sure to replace the crush washer and torque the new chain tensioner carefully to avoid stripping the soft threads in the aluminum timing cover.

Good call changing the shocks in the hatch, I still have to do that. Any tips or tricks you learned from that job?

The tape deck + nav head unit was definitely more common in E38's because those tended to be specced better, but it's not unique to the E38. Early E39's, E46's, and E53's got the same head unit. Most have non-functioning tape decks at this point. A lot of people upgrade them to either the newer MKIII/MKIV widescreen navs or to something aftermarket like a Dynavin N6 (which is what I did).

The PDC in your car is a rear-only setup, just like on my 2000 540it. There's no button to turn it on or off, it just turns on when you shift into reverse. It's a pretty simple system and it works well enough.

I started with a similar-looking wagon, except mine was the sport package:



And this is what it looks like as of Sunday, with 199k miles:

[msvphoto]

Looks like a good car and a more than fair deal. I would do the tensioner. I'm fairly new to the 540i game, but if it were me I would enjoy it and not worry about guides until it starts making noise. That is my plan and our 2000 is about 60k miles higher.

[chowza]

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, I like the color a lot.

And haha, guess I'll start by cleaning the tensioner as wagons ho suggested (that is what you meant, right?).

dannyzabolotny, the lift shocks weren't too bad. Time-intensive, and the first side had me cursing at points, but the second side went a fair bit faster. I bought a cheap pry bar set to help getting the old shocks out and the new ones in. The trickiest part was situating the end of the piston on the ball. Two things would have made the job a little easier: zip-tying the pry bar to the new shock to guide it in when installing (I didn't have any so used rubber bands, which helped a little), and using a snake light that's small enough to fit into the hood cavity and can be adjusted to just the right angle. I used a small Maglite, but something like that would have helped a lot. Lack of light was probably the biggest challenge. I propped up the liftgate with an extendable pole, with the end lodged in one of the handles on the inside of the lower gate. It was also a good opportunity to remove and clean all the trim pieces that had to come off anyway.

Oh, and this car still hilariously has the original Motorola Startac phone, with fraying wires and everything. Still turns on, and would probably work if I ponied up for a service plan (if that's even possible)...

[coolcom]

(The StarTAC, while an iconic and important piece of cellular phone history, cannot be activated and used today )

[M5 Jed]

Indeed, the StarTac is definitely a cool piece to have in the car but absolutely useless. I kept it for the bling effect.

[tinius]

Re: replacing the rear door struts: see my post about the hatch tools here. The post includes a photo of the struts from the top with the roof cut away so you can see how the ball joint mounts are arranged. I also show how to use a $10 piece of copper pipe to remove and install the small struts with almost no effort, and a picture of an inexpensive pry bar from Sears which will do the trick for the large struts.

As others have said, the most important detail is putting the plastic covers back on the wires to prevent chafing and shorts. Pay close attention when you take them apart and look for how to hook the expanding rubber sheath from inside the roof back into the plastic covers.

Get a 2'x4' and cut it to length to fit in the center latch on the floor and either of the hand holds over your head in the tailgate. You'll need something to hold up the hatch when either of the large struts is being swapped.

[tinius]

Also, here's a link to my write-up on rust on the tailgate.

[chowza]

tinius, great DIY on the struts (along with the very thorough DIY on cleaning the rear trim)! Wish I'd seen that before I started. I know a few others who've suggested pipe (copper, PVC, etc) and can see how that would help a lot.

Anyone here done the center support bearing and have some tips on that?

[dannyzabolotny]

You mean the one on the driveshaft? I installed a remanufactured driveshaft from Driveshaft Specialists in Texas, I figured it was worth the $400 or so to get a fully rebuilt shaft instead of just replacing the CSB. The main trick when installing the driveshaft with the new CSB is to preload the CSB before torquing down the bolts. I marked the location of my old CSB before replacing it, so I just installed the new one in the same location.

[chowza]

Danny, yep, on the driveshaft.

But the CSB swap is going to have to wait because... mechanic just told me my oil leak is coming from the cylinder head. They found oil in the coolant, too. Wants to repair the head gaskets. Oof. Gonna start another thread in the main forum shortly for guidance/pity...

[CPHES]

Get a second opinion on that. M62’s are not head gasket problem cars - but the valve cover gaskets make a mess. You could have a head gasket issue, but verify before opening that all up

[chowza]

Would oil in the coolant be a symptom of a leaking VCG? I didn't see it with my own eyes, but they assured me they saw it. No coolant leaks at this point, for what that's worth.

Get a second opinion on that. M62’s are not head gasket problem cars - but the valve cover gaskets make a mess. You could have a head gasket issue, but verify before opening that all up

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CPHES]

Oil mixed with coolant is never good. You don’t know how it got there. Do you have a history with this shop? A compression test is needed to determine which side has the problem. Is there evidence of other engine work being done recently?

[geargrinder]

Welcome to long-roof club man. Just seeing this thread, I gotta check the Touring sub more often...

The first owner was supposedly a BMW mechanic,

Not saying your cars not going to be great, but this is a totally overrated previous-owner plus. Some mechanics suck. Some mechanics are great but their cars are like the proverbial cobbler's kids shoes... they do bare minimum. True some are immaculate and obsessive about their cars... but that's FAR from the majority. At this point from cars I've seen I consider a "mechanic owner" to be a coin toss that's as likely to be a minus as a plus. /rant

Get a second opinion on that. M62’s are not head gasket problem cars - but the valve cover gaskets make a mess. You could have a head gasket issue, but verify before opening that all up

+100. These cars never (Wagons will now disagree w/ me and say he's got 17 spare blocks w/ warped heads in his stash at this very minute) blow headgaskets, at least comparatively. The damn cooling system usually totally explodes and throws codes long before somebody can blow an M6x head gasket. It truly takes evil-clueless-soccer-mom-from-hell continuing to drive for miles and miles with massive "STOP THE CAR NOW YOU STUPID BITCH" warnings showing up on the cluster to blow the HG's... OK so that's possible, but its really hard and you have to be a real dickhead or moron typically for it to happen...

[dannyzabolotny]

To be fair, a friend of mine bought an 03 540i that had that exact issue— the female owner drove it with zero coolant and the gauge pegged at red until the motor seized from the pistons warping. I've never seen an M62tu with warped pistons before that. But that's an extreme case, most mild overheats are relatively harmless to the M62tu.

And yeah, more often than not, "mechanic-owned" cars have sloppy repair work, like zip ties holding on hoses instead of hose clamps, and a generic soft hose instead of the semi-rigid brake booster hose... That's exactly what I saw on the latest 740il that I'm working on for a guy, and that was previously owned by a "mechanic." A lot of mechanics actually suck at what they do, or they're so sick of dealing with cars all day that they cut every corner that they can with their own cars.

[geargrinder]

Gotta be sure your hose is at least semi-rigid.

[chowza]

I had no history with this shop. I'll have to ask them if they did a compression test. They didn't mention seeing evidence of any other engine work.

When you guys say head gasket issues are rare on the M62, do you specifically mean blown head gaskets? Or are you talking about things like chipped/warped cylinder heads or corrosion on the head gasket surface as well? All equally rare?

I popped open the expansion tank cap last night. Nothing I could tell on the cap, and nothing that screamed "oil" inside the reservoir. I did see some yellow-ish residue on top of that white magnet housing, though. See attached pics. (I know the coolant is low.)

The dipstick also looked clean, no sign of oil/coolant mixing there.

Planning on getting a second opinion regardless. Really hoping it's the VCG or intake.

[geargrinder]

When you guys say head gasket issues are rare on the M62, do you specifically mean blown head gaskets? Or are you talking about things like chipped/warped cylinder heads or corrosion on the head gasket surface as well? All equally rare?

Yes.

Even your basic "overheated and blew the HG" is extremely rare for M62's. Let alone warping heads. You always know it's a n00b when they say "oh I have a blown HG" on an M62 cuz dey jes don' do dat. Sure they suck dead goats around the block and twice on Sunday in 15 other ways, but HG's and head issues is NOT one of their weakpoints.

Actually - timing guides excepted - really robust internals all around on them, the engines that have any kind of issues are either crazed abuse/neglect as mentioned above, or forced induction... and some of our boys here believe if you just relieve the ring gap on the pistons, even those rare modified motors that lost cylinders under turbo/blower boost would have been fine...

[CPHES]

Uh, that coolant tank looks empty. The red stick should be parallel to the top threads. I see coolant tank innards there. How many miles have you put on since you got it? Top off the oil, and fill the coolant correctly ( the e39 needs to be filled carefully and bled ). There are instructions on this site, and e38.org on bleeding. Get the levels stable, and monitor the levels.

[chowza]

Oof. Touché. Doing that tomorrow for sure.

Uh, that coolant tank looks empty. The red stick should be parallel to the top threads. I see coolant tank innards there. How many miles have you put on since you got it? Top off the oil, and fill the coolant correctly ( the e39 needs to be filled carefully and bled ). There are instructions on this site, and e38.org on bleeding. Get the levels stable, and monitor the levels.

[geargrinder]

Yeah, the red peener stick is really not as useful as the old transparent eyeball methodlogy on older cars... It can be only a splash low and look from above the same as dead empty.

You can have coolant tested for 'combustion by-products' to try to indicate if there's indeed a HG leak. There's some schmutz around the lip of that thing in the pic but who knows if thats meaningful or just from sloppy filling and dirty engine bay...

Also it looks like they used generic green coolant in the car..? Its a bit of an "oil thread" religious topic and somebuddy is gonna ring in with "well I've used WalMart generic imitation-Prestone for 200k and my car is fine" but I try to keep to the factory coolants for German cars, especially with the funky metallurgy blocks like these Alusils... Kind of blows when somebody has put something green in there cuz you have NO idea what it is, and flushing out every remnant of old coolant is a giant PITA.

Here's a not bad chart... It has at least one minor mistake for the VW/Audi Pentosin coolants (the SF is more pink and E is more purplish, not vice-versa...) but for most part it should be right... I think... BMW specs the blue Pentosin NF stuff - low-silicate, no phosphate.

https://images.oreillyauto.com/uploa...%20Chart-1.pdf

[chowza]

Yeah, I've encountered the old stuck peener stick before (were you still talking about cars?). It was late when I went out to check it last night, so I didn't spend a lot of time fiddling with it. I'm guessing either the stick is stuck, or the shop removed some coolant to check it for oil and forgot to top it back off (but probably the first option). Will take a look again tonight.

I picked up some Pentofrost A2 before I saw your post. Went with green because I didn't want to mix coolant types (and wasn't planning on doing a flush). But now I'm seeing this stuff is recommended for "Asian" cars, and as you said the NF is probably what I want. So maybe I should do a flush and fill with NF instead. Lordy.

Yeah, the red peener stick is really not as useful as the old transparent eyeball methodlogy on older cars... It can be only a splash low and look from above the same as dead empty.

You can have coolant tested for 'combustion by-products' to try to indicate if there's indeed a HG leak. There's some schmutz around the lip of that thing in the pic but who knows if thats meaningful or just from sloppy filling and dirty engine bay...

Also it looks like they used generic green coolant in the car..? Its a bit of an "oil thread" religious topic and somebuddy is gonna ring in with "well I've used WalMart generic imitation-Prestone for 200k and my car is fine" but I try to keep to the factory coolants for German cars, especially with the funky metallurgy blocks like these Alusils... Kind of blows when somebody has put something green in there cuz you have NO idea what it is, and flushing out every remnant of old coolant is a giant PITA.

Here's a not bad chart... It has at least one minor mistake for the VW/Audi Pentosin coolants (the SF is more pink and E is more purplish, not vice-versa...) but for most part it should be right... I think... BMW specs the blue Pentosin NF stuff - low-silicate, no phosphate.

https://images.oreillyauto.com/uploa...%20Chart-1.pdf

[chowza]

Honestly, about 1k. I just spaced on checking the coolant. Ugh.

Haven't had a chance to do the fill/bleed yet. Hoping to tomorrow. Haven't driven the car since Friday.

How many miles have you put on since you got it?

[geargrinder]

Minor note - general forum practice is to reply below the quote as it reads a bit easier for people to see who/what you're responding to (opposite to an email reply w. the prior convo listed below)

Flush will be a pain at this time in our neck of the woods. To really change properly you need to drain as much as possible, fill w/ water, run that for a few minutes or so, then drain again. Best done outside in warm weather needless to say. Otherwise you end up with pockets of the old stuff. To do a reasonably full drain, you need these points...
1. Remove the tranny cooler line from the drivers side bottom corner of the radiator. That's where manuals have a nice drain plug. Auto's connect the tranny cooler there instead. Its a twist-and-pull type of a scenario for that fitting (imagine you're removing a twist-plug instead, uses exact same radiator/fitting).
2. On the lower sides of the block, there are big plugs on either side that are what allow you to drain most of the rest. They are fairly easy to spot but less easy to get the wrench on. In theory you have fresh new crush washers ready to put on the plugs when they go back on. Guys here will take both sides of whether thats required or not. Crush washers are cheap if you have time to pick them up tho.

There will be a few little pockets that can't completely drain (bottom of valley pan, heater core) but that's what the refill-with-water-and-repeat trick is for, to dilute those pockets as much as possible before you put the good new clean stuff in.

Alternatively you can A. just try draining at the radiator, but then run multiple water refills (giant pain, will take much longer for water to be clear), or, B. use the old Prestone 'flush kit' to cut a hose and continuously run water through the motor until its clear... personally I woudln't do that unless I had an old used discard coolant hose to cut up... I'd basically stick with the factory method honestly, the PITA of those block plugs is probably less than either of the other 2 things.

Anecdotally, mixing the green and VW/Audi coolants (i.e. the G11-G12 pinks & purples since the mid-90's) makes an ugly awful brown sludge that stains the expansion tanks and sometimes creates sticky gooey residue, and I've been through that multiple times, buying new exp tanks multiple times. I've spend hours doing a 'proper flush' and $$$ on proper OEM coolant only to pickup the car from a mech a month or two later and find he's thrown it all away and put in cheap green crap. Oh I've had that happen more than once. F___ing a-hoelz.

You shouldn't have that problem with green and blue I don't think, my understanding is the BMW/Pento blue stuff is much more forgiving than the VW/Audi G11 was... however if the mystery green they put in there does NOT play nice with the factory blue, that could explain some of the little bits of sludgey residue you're seeing.