Road trip story & Project thread: 2001 Titanium Silver e39 M5

[wstr75]

2002 M5 expected to sell for $180,000 at Pebble Beach Concours. Great article about E39 M5 valuation. Interesting views on how “analog” cars from that era are rising in value.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...n=openamericas

[san]

2002 M5 expected to sell for $180,000 at Pebble Beach Concours. Great article about E39 M5 valuation. Interesting views on how “analog” cars from that era are rising in value.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...n=openamericas

EAG is gonna try and get it too...


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[ZHPizza]

Damn dude I finally saw your Spain update...

1. Tapas...hell yes
2. Those M5s...hell no
3. Spaniards = Italians?
4. That arts building...good lord

We watched an Anthony Bourdain episode in Spain the other night and planted it firmly on our list, mainly for the tapas. Thanks for sharing and cementing that decision.

Also, since you're using your S9 for travel photos, I highly recommend picking up a Sirui portrait lens that'll clip on to your phone. It'll make car and people pics look 10x better and you're only carrying a few ounces with you instead of a full size camera. We carry it and a Moment wide angle lens (Moment's portrait lens is trash) on our trips and both work great with the Moment phone cases, which we also love because you can add a wrist strap and not feel like you're going to drop your phone off a bridge or lose it to a pickpocket.

Lmk if you want some example pics showing the difference that the lenses make. I'm not posting pics of my wife out here for all the world to see.

[danewilson77]

Thanks for sharing.

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[Sreten]

2002 M5 expected to sell for $180,000 at Pebble Beach Concours. Great article about E39 M5 valuation. Interesting views on how “analog” cars from that era are rising in value.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...n=openamericas

Interesting article. I've already seen this M5 as it was posted on M5board and as someone said, waste of perfectly good M5.

It's funny how Eric from EAG takes every opportunity to promote his misleading spiel that the 2002-2003 models are the most desirable ones when the only big real difference between early '01 model and the latter ones are the vanos spring plates which you upgrade anyway when servicing the vanos.
He's been often criticised about this on M5board as he would tell customers how the '01 models are problematic and he would never buy them because of this. There's a whole thread about this topic.

Though, I will agree that the prices of E39 M5 are going up. In Europe, it's difficult to find a clean facelift M5 under $20k while few years ago you could pick up clean examples for half of that. Few people were telling me that I was dreaming with the price of my previous '01 M5 with 48k miles but I ended up selling it for a price that was very high for the current market. The buyer was looking at that M5 as an investment.

Damn dude I finally saw your Spain update...

1. Tapas...hell yes
2. Those M5s...hell no
3. Spaniards = Italians?
4. That arts building...good lord

We watched an Anthony Bourdain episode in Spain the other night and planted it firmly on our list, mainly for the tapas. Thanks for sharing and cementing that decision.

Also, since you're using your S9 for travel photos, I highly recommend picking up a Sirui portrait lens that'll clip on to your phone. It'll make car and people pics look 10x better and you're only carrying a few ounces with you instead of a full size camera. We carry it and a Moment wide angle lens (Moment's portrait lens is trash) on our trips and both work great with the Moment phone cases, which we also love because you can add a wrist strap and not feel like you're going to drop your phone off a bridge or lose it to a pickpocket.

Lmk if you want some example pics showing the difference that the lenses make. I'm not posting pics of my wife out here for all the world to see.

We had more rounds of tapas but I didn't want to turn this into a food blog.

Spaniards = Italians? I would say pretty damn close. It's been a while since I was being lied this much. Through some car friends, I had a guy in Spain who was in the car business and was speaking English as my contact, he told me he was not surprised at all.
Italians from which I bought my current M5 from were a crazy bunch but at least they loved that car and didn't lie about anything.

Dude, thanks so much for that tip. I read about these but never bothered to do research. I'll look into it though I sent back my S9 plus since it had some issues with the display. The display was noticeable bluer compared to my old S7 edge and my coworkers S9 plus and sometimes it was reacting poorly to the touch input so I'm waiting for a replacement.

Shoot me a pm with a couple of examples when you get a chance. Danke!

Thanks for sharing.

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Anytime, Dane!

[Sreten]

Knocked out a few more things from the list on the M5.

Since I got the car the right side mirror power fold function was kaput - you could hear the motor engaging but the mirror stayed put.
Space in Europe is always tight and having power folding mirrors is actually a useful feature that I wanted to get working again.

I took apart the mirror expecting that the small gears would be the culprit but the problem was obvious.







The large inner ring gear in the black cup in which the motor resides fell apart. From my research this didn't appear to be a common failure point and this part wasn't available on eBay.

The only place I found selling this part was some Chinese website (which I can link later if someone needs it).
They have it listed for E53 X5 but it fits M5 too. At the price tag of $65 plus shipping and customs fees and the long delivery time, I didn't really like this solution.

I did more research and found that few cars share some of the same internal parts for e.g E46 M3, E53 X5, Rover 75, MG ZT, first gen Freelander and even Cadilac STS.

Jumped on UK eBay and found this chunky 2002 Freelander mirror with power folding function for $45 shipped!





Luckily, the motor was indeed the same with some small differences - like the backing plate where the gears are located has different mounting holes.

Right is the M5 motor.





And the metal plate which controls how much the mirror moves and where to stop. If memory serves me right, the silver one is from the M5.







The part the I needed was identical. I reused all of my old parts and just swapped out the black cup with this ring.







Assembled everything and I'm happy to report that now I have fully functional power folding mirrors! It was a simple fix at the end.

The fan clutch was replaced in 2009 but the nut had seized and it put up a quite fight to the point where I pretty much destroyed the whole thread. I was going to replace it anyway so it didn't matter.

Old Sachs fan clutch, the nut was made of cheese apparently.





Got the fresh belts and pulleys installed. Discovered that the alternator bearing is little noisy as well as the PS pump so that might be an upcoming maintenance item.



Drained the coolant from the radiator and both blocks and then flushed the system with around 10L of distilled water.
Refilled with BMW blue coolant in 50/50 mix and followed TIS instructions for bleeding the system which is like the easiest thing in the world on S62.



Then on Sunday headed out to Stuttgart with the M Flight crew for a tour of the MotorWorld classic car museum and Porsche museum.





'04 LSB M3, 54k miles, euro delivery and still with its original owner.



Some cool cars exhibited and most all of them are up for sale.

E30 M3 with a whopping price tag of $100.000.







E30 M3 with a whopping price tag of $100.000.













Porsche museum was put together really well.













I would do desperate things to get behind the wheel of 959 one day.













Another of my favorites is Carrera GT.



M5 in good company. We had a professional photographer there so hopefully better pictures will follow.





It was around 5-hour drive in both directions and M5 performed like a champ. We left early in the morning and on A67 towards Stuttgart there's always traffic that will hold you down but I spotted a short opening and with a friend in the passenger seat and trunk full of tools I got the M5 up to 295 kmh / 183 mph. Just 5 kmh shy of getting it maxed out.

I truly love and enjoy this machine I think more than ever. In its current configuration with D2 Racing BBK, Koni Sport shocks, Sachs Performance reinforced clutch & flywheel which I absolutely love, and Supersprint Magnum and X-pipe it sets it apart and makes for one hell of a driving experience. Even my buddy commented how planted and stable the car felt at that speed. Long live Autobahn!

[704sw]

Oh my god, that 911 GT1 LMP is absolutely stunning. It was my favorite race car growing up, and I actually bid on a diecast of it last week.

And that Guards Red 993...yes please. Great update, and thanks for reminding me how badly I want to go to the Porsche museum.

[Sreten]

I got more pictures from the Porsche museum just didn't post them all.

Phenomenal cars and definitely a must to visit.











Total weight of this fiberglass body is 130 kg.



























































911 GT1 LMP that was actually raced on the Nürburgring few years ago. Properly driven.



















One-millionth 911 finished in Irish green that was driven around the world before putting out on display.

[Sockethead]

Just catching up here,
Damn cool stuff! Pics are great!

We went through the mirror thing with our E53 but never got around to fixing it. now you know why...

Meant to ask you, How's the feel of the Sachs performance clutch? Might not be comparing apples to apples with one for an M54 but still good to know...

[Sreten]

Thanks, Robert!

This should be the clutch that's on my M5 - http://www.ccc-motorsport.de/shop/44...-999786-detail

Nolimit Racing Clutch sold by CCC Motorsport in Germany and invoice that I have for this reads Luk DMF and Sachs Performance Clutch kit.

So the actual clutch is by Nolimit Racing and I think they use Sachs Performance as a base or mix parts.
The description on their website reads: "NRC Nolimit Racing Clutches" Reinforced Carbon Kevlar Sport Clutch BMW M62 S62...

And these are the pictures that I have from the PO.





If you remember, I installed brand new Luk clutch kit on my previous M5 and these 2 are very different. Luk being a stock clutch feels like a stock clutch, the pedal firmed up after a while and it was very easy to operate, easy to slip and similar to my old ZHP but with less pedal travel.

This being a sports clutch feels like it, it has around 12k miles since the install and the pedal is light, bites in the middle and it's more like an on/off switch. When speeding down die Autobahn and shifting at 5-6-7 rpm the clutch pedal becomes more and more lighter.
I got used to it very quickly and I absolutely love it now and actually find it smoother to use than a stock clutch. I also added a clutch stop and it's perfect.

If I ever need to replace a clutch on another M5, this is the route I'd go.