Blackknight530i has a new E39 project - 2002 540it

[blackknight530i]

Hello everyone!

I haven't really posted a lot lately as I've not really had much to post on the 530i->M5 and 525it->530it/6 conversions. They've both been working great. Well, they both had a bit of a crazy week last week and both needed insurance claims to get better. The M5 got rear-ended in a drive-through and needed a new M5 bumper (already got the new one painted and installed) and the wagon got hit by a freak hailstorm while visiting my parents in AL. My parents' X5 took the majority of the impact and they got about $3500 in damage, but it's getting fixed without totaling their car. My car was under a tree for the most part and only the hood, a fender and a few small dings on the roof were all it got. The hood was really bad and they first tried to say that if they tried to get a new BMW hood, they would just total the car. Instead they were going to repair the one on there, but I suggested just finding a used hood instead. My check went from about $1500 to $1680 and they aren't totaling the car. Now, any "normal" person would just get the car fixed and be on their merry way. Me, I'm a glutton for punishment, LOL. I ended up finding a listing for a 2002 540it in Schwarz 2 with only 133k miles just outside of Chicago. It's a CA car though, with no rust and the body is in really good shape. Only issue is that it had a slipping transmission. For the price they were offering, I couldn't pass it up. It wasn't going to be much more than what I got from Geico for the blue wagon, so I figured I would take the good stuff I put on that car and put it on this one and maybe sell the blue car.

Here's some pics from the dealership:













Well, here's where the story gets interesting. I started emailing the dealership on Monday and he replied later in the evening that it was still for sale. Then I told him that I might be able to have a friend (my friend purplecty on here) who lives nearby go look at it on Saturday and asked if that was ok. No reply. On Tuesday, I heard nothing all day while I was at work, so I sent another email when I got home and he replied stating that he thanked me for the email, but that they decided to send the car to auction. In the nicest way possible, I told him that I was sad that they did that and really hoped there was something he could do to maybe get it back. He said he would let me know, but that they weren't really in the business of selling broken cars. When I told purplecty about this, he said he would be happy to give him a call and pester him a bit. Needless to say, after pestering him most of the evening, and into the next day, we were successful and we made a deal. He would need to pick the car up from the Auction and wanted cash for the car before he went, which meant bringing in another friend (a friend of Purplecty's that lives even closer to the dealership and runs his own shop) to bring cash to them and pick up the car. Anyways, here's what the car actually looked like when picked up from the auction:






The front and rear bumpers and the hood will need to be repainted, but the rest of the body actually looks really good. There's no damage to the body and no rust as far as they could tell so far. To be honest, for the price I paid for it, I'm still quite happy with it. The transmission slipping could be a simple fix, or it could be a complicated one, but either way, it will eventually be getting a 6-speed swap anyways, so it doesn't bother me that much. If I can fix it for cheap, I'll keep driving it as an auto for a while. The interior is tan and I have a bunch of good tan interior parts from my blue wagon (after converting it to black), so if I wanted to keep it tan, I could. More than likely I'll be putting the black interior in and swapping the blue car back to tan. It is also not a sport model, so it will either get the tan sport seats, black sport seats, or black e38 sport seats I have.

While I'm told the suspension feels good and it doesn't have any shakes/vibrations, I'll probably still replace the struts/springs with some sports. I have some Konis with M5 springs on them that might work for the fronts, but I'll need some air springs for the rear and might need some 540i M-Sport II front springs or something similar. At some point, it will also get a suspension overhaul, but sounds like I have some time before that's needed.

It does have some error codes, but many are due to a dead or removed battery. What it does have will take a bit of diagnosis, but hopefully won't need much.







This car might actually be a 2003 MY as it has the chrome strip on the rub strips, which was the "M-Sport" treatment for non-Sports in 2003. It's a 8/2002 production, so not 100% on that.

So, the car got picked up in IL tonight and is supposed to be delivered on Sunday or Monday. Once I have it here, I'll post some more info on it. It's going to be an interesting project, but I'm looking forward to it.

[purplecty]

The build thread begins! Cant wait to see this one get put together. I noticed by checking the VIN it has a 3.15 diff and appears to have a sport steptrinic trans. I don't know much about these tourings besides they are becoming hard to find especially the 540. Do these options not make it a sport package?

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[JimLev]

What a difference between the pics from the dealer/used car lot and the actual car.
Hard to beleive the ins co wanted to totaled your car for the cost of a hood.
Good luck with this build, I'll be watching.

[purplecty]

I would say the dealer pictures, depicts the better spots of the car which is pretty much everything but the top of the bumpers and the hood which aren't the spots they tried to capture... If you look closely in the dealer pics you can see the rough spots on the top of the bumpers and a little bit of the hood, especially by the badge which they hid well with their angles...

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[dannyzabolotny]

The build thread begins! Cant wait to see this one get put together. I noticed by checking the VIN it has a 3.15 diff and appears to have a sport steptrinic trans. I don't know much about these tourings besides they are becoming hard to find especially the 540. Do these options not make it a sport package?

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All 540i tourings got a 3.15 diff, regardless of whether they had the sport package or not. Same goes for steptronic— I've never seen a 540it without one.

Congrats on the new touring! I'm still rockin' mine with 210,000 miles. Still on the original automatic, believe it or not. I keep wanting to swap it to a manual but a lack of time and money (mostly money) has kept it an automatic.

[blarf]

What a difference between the pics from the dealer/used car lot and the actual car.
Hard to beleive the ins co wanted to totaled your car for the cost of a hood.
Good luck with this build, I'll be watching.

The hard lighting in the dealer's pics make it look all shiny, but if you look closer you can see the damage on the front bumper as well as stains. The hood's got plenty of spots. I was a bit surprised that someone would move heaven and hell to buy that car based on the dealer's pics.

Dunno what labor cost is but I've seen $600+ just to paint a hood. The hood itself is another $1200 from the dealer (at list price). Depending on what other work needed to be done I could see that being close totaling an E39.

The build thread begins! Cant wait to see this one get put together. I noticed by checking the VIN it has a 3.15 diff and appears to have a sport steptrinic trans. I don't know much about these tourings besides they are becoming hard to find especially the 540. Do these options not make it a sport package?

All the 540 wagons got the 3.15 diff, sport package or not. Sport package touring would've had a sport steering wheel, seats, and different rear air bags among other things.

[blackknight530i]

The hard lighting in the dealer's pics make it look all shiny, but if you look closer you can see the damage on the front bumper as well as stains. The hood's got plenty of spots. I was a bit surprised that someone would move heaven and hell to buy that car based on the dealer's pics.

Dunno what labor cost is but I've seen $600+ just to paint a hood. The hood itself is another $1200 from the dealer (at list price). Depending on what other work needed to be done I could see that being close totaling an E39.



All the 540 wagons got the 3.15 diff, sport package or not. Sport package touring would've had a sport steering wheel, seats, and different rear air bags among other things.

So, hood and bumpers will need paint or replacement with M bumpers, so not worried about those. The rest of the body does look really good. It was a CA car, so the sun definitely faded the plastic bumpers and the largest flat surface of the hood, but the rest came out mostly unscathed. I really don't care about the interior as I have lots of replacement parts available already.

I got the car for $2500 and I feel pretty good with that price, knowing what I plan to do with the car. Knowing that there's no damage to the car and no rust is a big deal, plus it's already a V8, which means if I decide to put my extra s62 that's sitting on an engine stand in it, there's a lot less work and parts required to do it.

On my blue car, yes, new hood was about $1100ish, plus paint and labor. My good on my M5 was about $600-700 to paint. It was also going to need PDR on the fender and roof. All that to just bring it back to the condition it was already in before the storm. I may still try to source a used hood and fender before trying to sell it and might even get the side skirt bends from a PO that jacked it wrong fixed. For now though, I'll keep it as its mechanically perfect.

I've never heard of the sport package having different rear airbags. I do know that a sport package in 2002 would have had different struts, springs, anti-roll bars, shadowline, front seats, and steering wheel. 2003 of course would have made it a M-Sport, which adds a bunch of cosmetic upgrades. I plan to do all the sport mods.

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[JimLev]

Paul, must be nice to have an "extra" S62, lol.

[philly98540]

Cool project! In for updates. Crazy how good those dealer photos look compared to actual.

Hail damage is a major pia!

[geargrinder]

Nice! Had flashbacks reading about the "friends of Pauls facilitating the transaction for an E39T"

Honestly - even though I'm manual-swap poster-boy - the Step with the V8 Tour is really a nice rig. There's an alternate reality where I just drive a fairly-stockish 540iT around as-is as a daily. Times like now when we get brutal summer beach traffic I have my moments of missing the Stepper. (like creeping past Jim's old neighborhood with the other 900,000 clowns trying to 'get away' from each other...)

I could see going 2 ways with a deal project like this... One would be "solid beater daily 540iT"... the other would be the M5T build of course. You guys would be twins, it'd be real cute.

[blackknight530i]

Paul, must be nice to have an "extra" S62, lol.

Got it for $500 too . I was told it has a slight tick, but they didn't find any plastic in the pan and oil analysis came back clean I think. I'm still going to check to be sure and might go ahead and replace them anyways since it has about 130k on it. Probably do rod bearings as well since it's on a stand.

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[blackknight530i]

Nice! Had flashbacks reading about the "friends of Pauls facilitating the transaction for an E39T"

Honestly - even though I'm manual-swap poster-boy - the Step with the V8 Tour is really a nice rig. There's an alternate reality where I just drive a fairly-stockish 540iT around as-is as a daily. Times like now when we get brutal summer beach traffic I have my moments of missing the Stepper. (like creeping past Jim's old neighborhood with the other 900,000 clowns trying to 'get away' from each other...)

I could see going 2 ways with a deal project like this... One would be "solid beater daily 540iT"... the other would be the M5T build of course. You guys would be twins, it'd be real cute.

Yeah, it did feel very reminiscent of when you helped me get the blue wagon. This one runs though . Made it much easier to get shipped and shipping cost is only $600, rather than $800 like last time.

I'll definitely keep it as-is, powertrain wise, for a while since I don't have the S62 ready to go and this time I want to do the appearance stuff first, so if I can get the auto working as it should for cheap, I'll keep it auto. If it's going to involve pulling the trans, I'll just do the 6 speed swap. I've done one auto-to-auto swap in an e39 v8 and I don't really want to do it again.

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[CPHES]

Looks like it found a good home

[blackknight530i]

Looks like it found a good home

It will definitely be happy in my care

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[itsbrokeagain]

Congrats on the new project!

[JimLev]

Got it for $500 too .

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Wow, deal of the year. Great bargain.

[dannyzabolotny]

Got it for $500 too . I was told it has a slight tick, but they didn't find any plastic in the pan and oil analysis came back clean I think. I'm still going to check to be sure and might go ahead and replace them anyways since it has about 130k on it. Probably do rod bearings as well since it's on a stand.

Man, I need to find an S62 for that cheap. $3k (or whatever they usually go for) is just way too much money.

[blarf]

I've never heard of the sport package having different rear airbags. I do know that a sport package in 2002 would have had different struts, springs, anti-roll bars, shadowline, front seats, and steering wheel. 2003 of course would have made it a M-Sport, which adds a bunch of cosmetic upgrades. I plan to do all the sport mods.

For the rear suspension. Most (all?) American 540 tourings got the air suspension.

[TerraPhantm]

This car might actually be a 2003 MY as it has the chrome strip on the rub strips, which was the "M-Sport" treatment for non-Sports in 2003. It's a 8/2002 production, so not 100% on that.

Should be able to tell the model year based on the VIN. But regardless, perhaps it was a late enough August build that it got the September changes (like say they started building it on the 31st or something)

Also congrats on the car! Never ends, right?

[blackknight530i]

Should be able to tell the model year based on the VIN. But regardless, perhaps it was a late enough August build that it got the September changes (like say they started building it on the 31st or something)

Also congrats on the car! Never ends, right?

Yeah, I did look and the 10th digit is a 2, so it's a 2002. It's funny, the car says 8/02 on the VIN tag on driver door, but bmwvin.com says 7/02. Either way, it's about as late of an 02 as it gets.

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[whiteghost1]

I've never heard of the sport package having different rear airbags. I do know that a sport package in 2002 would have had different struts, springs, anti-roll bars, shadowline, front seats, and steering wheel. 2003 of course would have made it a M-Sport, which adds a bunch of cosmetic upgrades. I plan to do all the sport mods.

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My 540iT has the sport suspension option, when I had to replace the rear airbags, I did have the option of ordering standard or sport suspension airbags as they are a different part number.

[purplecty]

Interesting...

https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/sho...diagId=33_0530

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[dannyzabolotny]

If you order from Arnott it’s the same airbags regardless of whether your touring is a sport or not a sport. That’s where I got my replacement airbags from.

[CPHES]

Yes, Sport airbags are shorter. Arnott gets that wrong.

[purplecty]

https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/bmw...SABEgKaB_D_BwE

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