E53 IHKR to IHKA Retrofit

[nahvkolaj]

I have an ‘01 X5 3.0i with almost everything but the climate package, so it has manual AC.

The blower box has a damper issue that makes the passenger side cooler than the driver side. The evaporator core has a small leak. The heater core probably needs replacing as well. The blower motor needs replacing.

The problem is, the evaporator/heater cores and other manual HVAC parts are either astronomically expensive or hard to find. It’s so bad, I’m considering driving down to the nearest pick ‘n pull yard to yank a whole IHKA system, refurb the damper box, buy new cores and blowers, and fully retrofit the car.

I poured over the diagrams on RealOEM and barring major wiring harness differences, I think it’s doable. Am I missing something or just completely insane?

Edit: fixed weird mobile typos

[X3456]

Totally doable i like you have a good sense of the job. Doing this kind of work there are always the unexpected.
I pulled my dash on the X3 to replace the evaporator core...totally doable. One fatal mistake is to underestimate the task at hand. The BMW car is a simple but yet made with precision. This is not child's work.
But going about it soberly and with patience....to act otherwise is foolish and adolescent...success is at hand for you.

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[Henn28]

Man, that sounds like a challenging project and one I’d love to follow. I worry that anything buried in the dash failing will be a show-stopper for my X5. Will there be coding needed too?

not sure if you are on xoutpost too, but their are quite a few very active E53 guys on that board too who are happy to share info, experiences, lessons learned.