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

[Sockethead]

It looks great... Such a sexy, classic body style.
One of Kristen's friend's husband owns BMW shop and offered his shop and help to do the clutch. That will be a big help!

[Newjack]

Car looks great man, the e39 M5 is my favorite M5.

How heavy is the clutch in comparison to the ZHP clutch? I've always wondered what it would be like to daily an e39 M5.

[Vas]

Paint looks fresh for how old it is

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[Sreten]

It looks great... Such a sexy, classic body style.
One of Kristen's friend's husband owns BMW shop and offered his shop and help to do the clutch. That will be a big help!

Thanks! I'm appreciating the body style and lines of E39M more and more.

That's awesome! Especially if you can participate. If you don't have access to a lift, this job can be very difficult.

Car looks great man, the e39 M5 is my favorite M5.

How heavy is the clutch in comparison to the ZHP clutch? I've always wondered what it would be like to daily an e39 M5.

Thank you! Not heavy at all. E39 M5 is one of the easiest M cars to drive, almost impossible to stall. It used to be stiff with the old clutch, but the clutch pedal is very soft now.
Compared to the ZHP and terms of stiffness, I would say about the same. The only thing that comes to mind is that the clutch pedal travel is little longer with the ZHP. A lot of people daily drive e39 M5 and you can take your pick over there unlike Europe.

Paint looks fresh for how old it is

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Thanks! It does. Low mileage and the fact that it spent most of its time in a garage will do that. There's hardly any rock chips at the front as well.

[Sreten]

Few more updates that I managed to knock out before I went home for the holidays.

Did an early oil change because I wanted to switch to Liqui Moly and send a sample to Blackstone for analysis.



Some difference that I immediately noticed is that the oil comes up to the temperature slower compared to BMW's Shell and engine definitely works smoother and quieter on idle with LM. Cold starts stayed the same without any startup rattle.

At the end of the day, both are great oils and it's just the matter of preference. I personally love LM products and have been using them in all of my bimmers and plan to use it in the M5 as well.

Hood struts were getting weaker so I refreshed them with a new pair from Stabilus. Lifting up the hood feels much better and sturdier now.



I had a tear in driver's door rubber seal which wasn't pretty to look at. I bought a new one from the dealer when I got the car and finally got around installing it.



Took me 3 tries to line up the new rubber perfectly.



Then came the turn to replace the interior trim, something that I wanted to do since I first laid my eyes on the car.

Bruyere Club wood trim just wasn't working for me and I think it made the interior look old.
I got a set of technical graphite trim which was in very nice shape. Just had to clean them, buff out the surface scratches and throw some protection before putting them into the car.







To complete the swap, I had to replace the handbrake lever too. I scored a used leather handbrake lever for $20 that looks practically brand new.









I received the entire handbrake assembly, but I really didn't want to replace the whole thing. The leather lever was glued in place and after some twisting and pulling, it came off relatively easy.



However, the one in the M5 put up a fight and just wouldn't come off.
So I lost my cool and like a neanderthal grabbed a pair of pliers and destroyed the damn thing.
I then realized why it wouldn't come off, it was held in place with a pop rivet. Could've probably removed it without destroying it if I just tried to pry out the wood piece (learn from my stupidity), but didn't really care since I don't plan to ever reuse it. The leather lever is so much nicer.





Now, fitting the trim. It's normally a straightforward job but I run into a few bumps mainly with the center console part.

The central console piece that came with technical graphite trim had one broken plastic tab (circled red on the picture) and I thought no biggie, it's just one plastic tab, how important can it be.
But after fitting everything into the car, turns out that tab is very important because by fastening down that part puts pressure on the lower part of the armrest that holds the magnet. Thus not having enough pressure there made the opening and closing of the armrest feel very sloppy.

I then decided to use my old center piece. Bruyere wood trim was held in place with a few screws and was easy to remove. Technical graphite was glued in place so I had to separate it by cutting the glue and then transferred the trim to my original center piece. I also used glue which I left overnight to dry after putting some pressure on it.



The second problem that I had is a very common for e39. There are 2 screw locations in front of the gear knob that fastens down the center console trim and the front storage tray. The plastic hole where the screw goes in disintegrated as soon as I touched it and after googling for ideas on how to fix it, I came up with a simple but effective solution.

I fabricated a C bracket from thick metal, slipped a C clip nut on one end and run a self tapping screw through the carpet. It worked out great!



A normal person would probably never notice these 2 small things and just left it alone, but I hate when something feels loose in the cabin and I wanted to do this right. I also got a new ZHP shift knob and leather boot. Here's the finished product. Pictures really don't do it justice, it looks much better in person.











Few more photos of a small gathering of the M Flight members in Kaiserslautern. Car club that I recently joined, mostly military guys stationed in Germany with some really cool toys that they get to rip on the Autobahn and eventually take them back to the US.

It's funny seeing how much E39M doesn't fit in styling-wise with its younger siblings.















Have a great New Year fellas!

[ZHPizza]

Awesome awesome awesome update. Great work on the beast!

[BMWCurves]

Nice work! Is the technical graphite almost blue?

[Sockethead]

That looks SO much better!

[John in VA]

Nice update! I have the same interior trim to put into my Titanium silver / black E39 to replace the wood, but need to figure out the CD changer cover portion - no NAV in mine. Just need to wait until we get some warmer weather (April, May?)!

[Sreten]

Awesome awesome awesome update. Great work on the beast!

Thanks, dude! There's always something to be done.

Nice work! Is the technical graphite almost blue?

Thanks! Yeah, it's definitely on the blue side. The weather has been so dreary that my camera phone couldn't capture it in true colors.

That looks SO much better!

Thanks, Robert! I totally agree. It hit the spot in the interior wonderfully.

Nice update! I have the same interior trim to put into my Titanium silver / black E39 to replace the wood, but need to figure out the CD changer cover portion - no NAV in mine. Just need to wait until we get some warmer weather (April, May?)!

Thanks, John! Well, you're in luck. I'll have to double check the box, but I'm pretty sure I received the CD cover trim with this set. I have no need for it so I can just send it to you.