7Iron-Restoring a 2000 e38 750iL

[unleashd]

Hello
I joined this board in 2012 when I bought a 2009 F01. I sold that car in 2016, and now I am back with my most favorite - a 2000 e38 750iL. Here's a pic of the car as it stands now. Picked up the car from NJ yesterday and drove it back home to NoVA. Overall, the ride was awesome, but it did have some quirks as listed below. Please pardon me for the long post. This is my first e38, and I intend to restore it to as close to original as possible.



I have a series of next steps to do before it becomes my DD. I'd like your help with this.

1. Bad pixels on the cluster display. Is Pixelfix the best place to get the replacement parts?
2. SES light is on - This came on during my drive home. Somewhere in the bad display, I read that a side light was out and that the washer fluid was low. Added a gallon of washer fluid, tapped on the marker light on the driver side and both those faults went away. But the SES is still ON. Need to diagnose this.
3. What is the best solution to read the codes? I did a search and found 2 promising solutions iCarsoft and INPA. I will read up on them some more, but can someone please provide some more guidance on this?
4. I realized that PO had replaced the headlight bulbs at some point with some crappy xenon bulb. My fog light shed more light than the head light. What is the correct replacement bulb? I'll take a look around as well.
5. The interior is pretty trashed. Needs a lot of TLC. The headliner is pretty much hanging on the floor, the liners on the B pillar are halfway ripped, one of the B-pillar leather panels is hanging, trash in every cubby inside the car. Add to this, it has been smoked in . My plan is to strip the interiors completely - remove the seats, center console, headliner, pillar liners etc. and do the following
   
   1. I am going to try and wet clean the carpet first. Is this advisable? Or should I try to find a replacement carpet?
   2. Can the seat leather be deep cleaned to remove the smell? Or should I rather have an upholstery shop re-cover them?
   3. Headliner will have to be redone. Alcantara or OEM material - what is the better choice? This will also be applicable to the pillar liners.
   
   
6. The 19" wheels are not my choice. PO also sold me the original M-Pars. I will need to get new tires for them. What is the forum's choice of tire brand?
7. I need to find a new set of kidney grilles. One side went bye bye, and the other has broken tabs.
8. Fluid replacement recommendations needed
   
   1. Engine oil - Mobil 1 or Liqui Moly 5w-30? What is the forum's choice? PO used Mobil 1
   2. Coolant - BMW Blue coolant 50/50?
   3. Transmission - What is the forum's choice?
   
   
9. Brakes need to be adjusted as they seem to work when pushed down more than 1/3rd of the way in. They do stop well at that time.

The car has ~170,000 miles on it. I did not receive any service records from the PO, except for him mentioning that it is up to date. He has recently replaced the suspension components from what I could see visually. What do you all suggest should be my top priority items to work upon at this mileage? I hope to keep this car for a long time.

TIA for the guidance.

[CPHES]

Congrats - both to getting an e38, and to getting a 750. Timm ( https://www.meeknet.co.uk/E38/Index.htm ) and e38.org are your friends. Even the cheap OBD II readers will give you P code. I am sure you will get many suggestions, but if you have a reader, try it.

[Mayorchuck]

Welcome here. Most of your questions have been answered many times in the forum. I will add a few things, the SES light is unrelated to anything you will see in the cluster text. INPA is readily available from many sources.

I would also caution you when wet cleaning the carpet. There is a main fuse block, and many splices, under the carpet, forward the passenger front seat.

[Dion98740il]

Hello
I joined this board in 2012 when I bought a 2009 F01. I sold that car in 2016, and now I am back with my most favorite - a 2000 e38 750iL. Here's a pic of the car as it stands now. Picked up the car from NJ yesterday and drove it back home to NoVA. Overall, the ride was awesome, but it did have some quirks as listed below. Please pardon me for the long post. This is my first e38, and I intend to restore it to as close to original as possible.



I have a series of next steps to do before it becomes my DD. I'd like your help with this.

1. Bad pixels on the cluster display. Is Pixelfix the best place to get the replacement parts?
2. SES light is on - This came on during my drive home. Somewhere in the bad display, I read that a side light was out and that the washer fluid was low. Added a gallon of washer fluid, tapped on the marker light on the driver side and both those faults went away. But the SES is still ON. Need to diagnose this.
3. What is the best solution to read the codes? I did a search and found 2 promising solutions iCarsoft and INPA. I will read up on them some more, but can someone please provide some more guidance on this?
4. I realized that PO had replaced the headlight bulbs at some point with some crappy xenon bulb. My fog light shed more light than the head light. What is the correct replacement bulb? I'll take a look around as well.
5. The interior is pretty trashed. Needs a lot of TLC. The headliner is pretty much hanging on the floor, the liners on the B pillar are halfway ripped, one of the B-pillar leather panels is hanging, trash in every cubby inside the car. Add to this, it has been smoked in . My plan is to strip the interiors completely - remove the seats, center console, headliner, pillar liners etc. and do the following
   
   1. I am going to try and wet clean the carpet first. Is this advisable? Or should I try to find a replacement carpet?
   2. Can the seat leather be deep cleaned to remove the smell? Or should I rather have an upholstery shop re-cover them?
   3. Headliner will have to be redone. Alcantara or OEM material - what is the better choice? This will also be applicable to the pillar liners.
   
   
6. The 19" wheels are not my choice. PO also sold me the original M-Pars. I will need to get new tires for them. What is the forum's choice of tire brand?
7. I need to find a new set of kidney grilles. One side went bye bye, and the other has broken tabs.
8. Fluid replacement recommendations needed
   
   1. Engine oil - Mobil 1 or Liqui Moly 5w-30? What is the forum's choice? PO used Mobil 1
   2. Coolant - BMW Blue coolant 50/50?
   3. Transmission - What is the forum's choice?
   
   
9. Brakes need to be adjusted as they seem to work when pushed down more than 1/3rd of the way in. They do stop well at that time.

The car has ~170,000 miles on it. I did not receive any service records from the PO, except for him mentioning that it is up to date. He has recently replaced the suspension components from what I could see visually. What do you all suggest should be my top priority items to work upon at this mileage? I hope to keep this car for a long time.

TIA for the guidance.

welcome! I am a new owner of a 740 and in the process of a restore as well.
1. I used http://www.bestpixelrepair.com/
2. ...
3. I got INPA working after buying a cable from ebay. Used the software version from bimmergeeks since it works on Windows 10. Fairly easy to get to the codes and real time data but it is not intuitive overall. I have ordered the PA soft (aka BMW diagnostics 1.4) as many have said that is easier but less powerful that INPA/NCS.
4. Use realoem.com to find all of your part numbers
5. I would try cleaning it first with a shampoo machine but don't soak it as there are electronics under it. Smoke might be in the foam but try cleaning it first. Headliner, Alcantara is pricey, synthetic suede is better but hard to stretch, OEM is good but $50-70 a yard vs. close match material is $15-25.
6. I personally like Continental DWS Sport and got a set in November. Have been running them on my Cayenne Twin Turbo and they hold great.
7. lots of online choices or try a junk yard
8. I used Mobil 1 for oil, Zerex Blue for coolant, Valvoline Maxlife for ATF (Transmission and Power Steering)
9. check the brake fluid

Check the suspension, most of the bushings and ball joints are probably ready to be replaced.

[TheAngryBear]

I would recommend Fixels for display issues, INPA for long term diagnosis (you will need the 20-pin underhood connection), and depending on the cleanliness take the carpet out to wet clean it.


2001 750iL DD74441
E65 fan & clutch, E65 headrests, Front First Aid Kit, Ultimate Cup holder

2005 X5 4.8is LE82680
Stock

RIP: 2003 540iA Sport GS56111
H&R front springs, Ultimate Cup Holder, Euro Dash & Armrest, Grom, BavSound Stage1

[unleashd]

Thank you all for some good suggestions to get me started. I’ll post progress updates as they happen.

[GZilla]

Nice! I am also restoring my E38 740i I bought back in July. Some of the things you have issues with are some of the same ones I had besides the SES.

For the carpet I used my rug doctor and let it dry off in the hot sun (this was in July with SoCal weather). For the smoke smell, because I genuinely believe the previous owner was a Japanese gangster and smoked like a chimney, I used my ozone machine for about 45 minutes and the smoke smell disappeared completely. I did the ozone right before I started working on the car. For the pixels that went bad, I would highly recommend Bavtek. Of course, you would need to ship it, but the owner (Thomas) gave the option to upgrade the cluster's appearance (I went for chrome rings and red needles). If you want to do the headliner in suede, I can PM you a link to a store I got my material and tools from. The headliner project was probably my least favorite, since it required taking off the sunroof (I hate cassettes from now on) and scraping off all of the cheeto foam glue that was stuck on it. But the reward was amazing since I redid the whole thing in black suede.

[acspecialists]

Welcome to the V12 club! If you don't have a 50mph shimmy you are way ahead. I just did my headliner and stayed with the factory grey, I think alcantera would just be too dark. I agree with all of the above guidance and wish you well on your E38 journey. You can never go wrong with parallels.

[CPHES]

Comment on 18 inch M-Pars - real ones have the part # etched on the back of the spokes. They are forged - reps are cast, specs are raised characters. Older reps can be good. No 750’s came to US shores with style 37 / MPars as factory installed. Your car came with Style 61’s.

[unleashd]

Thanks for the info. I’ll verify and report.

[unleashd]

Update for 1/11/21

For titling the car and registering it in the state of VA, I have to pass the safety and emissions testing. I knew that the car wouldn't pass these tests with the SES/CEL ON. So, I plugged in a simple OBD bluetooth scanner and it pulled up 2 codes

1. P0174 - System too lean Bank 2
2. P0740 - Torque Clutch Malfunction

I met with @TheAngryBear earlier this afternoon to help confirm this diagnosis. He pulled up the same codes as well using more sophisticated tools. We tried to clear the codes, which seemed to work at first. But, we also found that one of my batteries was not so healthy and read less than 9V. We plugged in a battery tender to give it some life. Later when we got the car started, the SES light came back ON. We gave up as it was getting us nowhere for the day. As I was leaving his place, I plugged in my OBD tool again, pulled the codes and then hit the reset from the iPhone app. That time, it worked. All codes cleared, and the SES was off. Since I still had a couple of hours before the inspection station closed, I headed straight over. The car passed the safety inspection. But, the inspector asked me to come back after a few days for the emissions. Since I had cleared the codes, he said that the emissions system wouldn't pull enough information to give me an approval

[unleashd]

I do have a pronounced whine from (possibly) the transmission as the car shifts through the gears. The shifts are smooth, but the whine is only during the shifts and not during the normal driving. I believe this may be the related to the P0740 code that was pulled. Next steps planned

- Replace 2 batteries. I have had great experiences with Interstate batteries from Costco. I'll repeat the same this time as well
- Transmission service - Drain oil, drop the pan, replace trans filter, close up and refill with Red Line D4 ATF / Liqui Moly Top Tec ATF 1200 (Whichever is available sooner). If this doesn't fix the code and / or the whine, the next step may be to replace the transmission control solenoid. I just hope that the car doesn't need new valve bodies.
- Brake fluid flush. As mentioned earlier, the brake pedal goes down more than 1/3rd of the way before it is actually starting to brake. Fluid level is good, but I figure it is time for a flush.
- I have to watch the O2 sensor(s) for any other fault that shows up for Bank 2.

Hopefully, this will get me through emissions retesting.

[Thresher]

You will get a wide variety of opinion on fluids. On my 740iL I use Liqui Moly 2332 Leichtlauf High Tech 5W-40. I buy it on Amazon when it is on sale. For the oil filter, use a good one that has stiff plastic core and/or ends to avoid partial collapse (I saw this happen to one that didn't have the extra reinforcement). I use oil filters from Mahle. For transmission fluid, track down what your transmission uses. I believe my transmission is different than the one on the v12; I use ZF Lifeguard 5. Not cheap, but get it when it is on sale.

Pixel repair - haven't done it yet, but others recommend Fixels; which is what I plan on doing once I am confident USPS/FedEx catch up on holiday shipments.

For dealing with OBDII codes, I would get a decent handheld scanner first. Switch to more advanced tools at a later date when you are ready to invest more time/effort and $. I use a Foxwell NT510 scanner with the BMW add-on. Your 750iL maybe using the older ADS protocol for a few components (DME, and EDC?); which could be bit trickier to deal with if you wanted to use INPA or ISTA/D (you might be forced down the path of getting an Icom Next interface plus the special 20-pin adapter). For brakes, I used to use Cool Carbon but switched to Akebono Euro pads this past summer. I am beyond thrilled with how clean the wheels stay. Hardly any brake dust build up. I put those pads on my E36 and now I want to see if I can put them on my wife's minivan. :-)

The car looks nice, welcome to the E38 club!

[SilverIris]

Speaking from experience, removing the carpet (it's in 2 pieces, split under the front seats) will make it 100x easier to give it the cleaning it needs and deserves. I did so on my Expedition, using regular carpet cleaning solution from the hardware store, a deck cleaning brush, two pump-up spray bottles (one for solution, the other was plain water) and a wet/dry shop-vac and it made a massive improvement.

Details and pictures of the process are here: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...-cleaning.html

Since I took my carpet out, that let me put a LOT more force on the brush and shop-vac to agitate and extract the dirt than I could do so with it in the truck. I spent a week on it and the results speak volumes.

As for diagnostics, I've found that PA Soft's BMW-Scanner cable and software are a thorough, but easy-to-use package. Check Ebay, you can usually find it for around $20-25. You'll also need a 20-pin adapter as previously mentioned (~$10) INPA/EDIBAS is a bit more advanced in their features, but it seems like it has a steeper learning curve, based on my limited experiences with it. K+DCAN Cables for INPA can be found for around $20 too. If in doubt, get both.

You may find some inspiration and diagnostic ideas from my thread here, especially when it comes to anything regarding Transmissions:
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...IL-with-issues

[unleashd]

You will get a wide variety of opinion on fluids. On my 740iL I use Liqui Moly 2332 Leichtlauf High Tech 5W-40. I buy it on Amazon when it is on sale. For the oil filter, use a good one that has stiff plastic core and/or ends to avoid partial collapse (I saw this happen to one that didn't have the extra reinforcement). I use oil filters from Mahle. For transmission fluid, track down what your transmission uses. I believe my transmission is different than the one on the v12; I use ZF Lifeguard 5. Not cheap, but get it when it is on sale.

Pixel repair - haven't done it yet, but others recommend Fixels; which is what I plan on doing once I am confident USPS/FedEx catch up on holiday shipments.

For dealing with OBDII codes, I would get a decent handheld scanner first. Switch to more advanced tools at a later date when you are ready to invest more time/effort and $. I use a Foxwell NT510 scanner with the BMW add-on. Your 750iL maybe using the older ADS protocol for a few components (DME, and EDC?); which could be bit trickier to deal with if you wanted to use INPA or ISTA/D (you might be forced down the path of getting an Icom Next interface plus the special 20-pin adapter). For brakes, I used to use Cool Carbon but switched to Akebono Euro pads this past summer. I am beyond thrilled with how clean the wheels stay. Hardly any brake dust build up. I put those pads on my E36 and now I want to see if I can put them on my wife's minivan. :-)

The car looks nice, welcome to the E38 club!

Thanks for the pointers. This project will progress slowly and I’ll keep this thread updated as I go through each step.

[unleashd]

Speaking from experience, removing the carpet (it's in 2 pieces, split under the front seats) will make it 100x easier to give it the cleaning it needs and deserves. I did so on my Expedition, using regular carpet cleaning solution from the hardware store, a deck cleaning brush, two pump-up spray bottles (one for solution, the other was plain water) and a wet/dry shop-vac and it made a massive improvement.

Details and pictures of the process are here: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...-cleaning.html

Since I took my carpet out, that let me put a LOT more force on the brush and shop-vac to agitate and extract the dirt than I could do so with it in the truck. I spent a week on it and the results speak volumes.

As for diagnostics, I've found that PA Soft's BMW-Scanner cable and software are a thorough, but easy-to-use package. Check Ebay, you can usually find it for around $20-25. You'll also need a 20-pin adapter as previously mentioned (~$10) INPA/EDIBAS is a bit more advanced in their features, but it seems like it has a steeper learning curve, based on my limited experiences with it. K+DCAN Cables for INPA can be found for around $20 too. If in doubt, get both.

You may find some inspiration and diagnostic ideas from my thread here, especially when it comes to anything regarding Transmissions:
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...IL-with-issues

Good suggestion on removing the carpet for cleaning. I bought an ozone machine as the first step to try and get the smell out. The seats have to come out for recovering anyways. I’ll read through your thread in detail.

BTW, you’ll find me on FTE as well with the same moniker on the Excursion and 7.3 side. I love that forum for all the help received with keeping my truck running great.

[bobzdar]

Comment on 18 inch M-Pars - real ones have the part # etched on the back of the spokes. They are forged - reps are cast, specs are raised characters. Older reps can be good. No 750’s came to US shores with style 37 / MPars as factory installed. Your car came with Style 61’s.

That must be year specific as 2001s were available with mpars.

[unleashd]

Actually, my VIN decodes to have the following package installed. The build is from 04/99.

S780 - BMW LA Wheel, M Parallel Spoke

That must be year specific as 2001s were available with mpars.

[CPHES]

Well then.... nice. That was ordered.

[SilverIris]

Good suggestion on removing the carpet for cleaning. I bought an ozone machine as the first step to try and get the smell out. The seats have to come out for recovering anyways. I’ll read through your thread in detail.

BTW, you’ll find me on FTE as well with the same moniker on the Excursion and 7.3 side. I love that forum for all the help received with keeping my truck running great.

Yeah it's a good forum, though I'd pretty clueless when it comes to anything Diesel-related. OTOH, anything electrical is my forte. You wouldn't believe how many people want to do an EATC climate control retrofit now that I've done it

Before getting too deep into other projects, one thing I would highly suggest is unbolting and slipping the passenger seat back so you can look under the carpet. These cars have sunroof drain issues which end up with water pooling under the passenger seat. Right where the fuse box and EKAT Control Unit is. EKAT is not fused on its power cables, so this can create a runaway short circuit easily.

[unleashd]

Before getting too deep into other projects, one thing I would highly suggest is unbolting and slipping the passenger seat back so you can look under the carpet. These cars have sunroof drain issues which end up with water pooling under the passenger seat. Right where the fuse box and EKAT Control Unit is. EKAT is not fused on its power cables, so this can create a runaway short circuit easily.

Cool. I'll get this checked out.

[Al thex]

Hello everybody. I am new here too and got my 2001 740il around 3 months ago. Speaking of 50mph shimmy, it used to happen to me and then rarely after replacing the 4 tires, wheel balance and alignment were done but still occasionally. What's the reason for the shaking usually? It has just 124,XXX miles on it now.
Thanks

[Al thex]

Hello everyone. I got my 2001 740il 3 months ago and the 50mph shimmy was frequent. After replacing the 4 tires, doing wheel balance and alignment, the shaking is rare. What is usually the reason behind the shaking?
Thanks

[unleashd]

Most of the shimmy/shake etc. are caused by either
1. Suspension components - Ball joints, tie rods, control arms etc.
2. Tires & Wheels - Bad tires, unbalanced wheel, improper alignment etc.

From my experience, #2 above is most often caused by #1 above. I would suggest that you address the problematic components in your suspension first.

Hello everyone. I got my 2001 740il 3 months ago and the 50mph shimmy was frequent. After replacing the 4 tires, doing wheel balance and alignment, the shaking is rare. What is usually the reason behind the shaking?
Thanks

[unleashd]

This is a short video of a cold start yesterday. Temps were in the 30's when the video was shot. The whitish smoke continues until the car warms up. After that I do not see anything. Is this something to worry about?