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

[danewilson77]

So jealous. Thanks for sharing.

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[Vas]

Killing it will the maintenance

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[holyc0w]

Bellissima

[johnrando]

Great story!

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[Sreten]

So jealous. Thanks for sharing.

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Thanks for reading, Dane!

Killing it will the maintenance

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I'm just getting started, the car needs it.

Bellissima

Grazie.

Great story!

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Thank you, John!

Then I'm also dealing with a very annoying electrical issue where the radio just cuts off every time I start the car.

This turned out to be a problem with the amp. The famous Becker BM24 amp, I tried to fix mine by resoldering few dry joints which didn't help.
Couldn't waste any more time on it so I bought a used one which resolved the issue.

Over the weekend I replaced PS lines, reservoir and completely flushed the system.

Leaky PS lines and reservoir were making a mess in otherwise oil free engine bay.









Used a lot of brake cleaner and got everything nice and clean. Installed new lines that I got from the dealer and new reservoir that's actually from e90 series, but identical to the one for M5, just cheaper.

for the PS fluid, I've yet to actually do a flush on a BMW; what's your procedure?

Now I plan to detach and replace lines that go to the PS pump and PS cooler, and hopefully I will replace most of it that way. If it still ends up looking like coffee, I'll repeat the process.

That didn't really work out. Once I detached the lines, the amount of fluid that came out was minimal and there was still a lot of old fluid stuck in the system. When I put back everything together, refilled the reservoir and started the car, old fluid from the steering box was pushed and it still very much looked like coffee and had that burnt smell.

I had to get all of that crap out so I did something simple but very effective.

I disconnected the return hose from the reservoir (on the M5, that's the smaller one of the two) and put the plug on the reservoir.



I then put the return hose into empty bottle, tapped it secure, refilled the reservoir to the brim with ATF and cranked the car for a couple seconds.
I repeated this procedure for a total of 4 times until the fluid started coming out clean and nice red color.
PS fluid capacity on the M5 is 1.9 L and I exchanged about 2 L this way.
Albeit, starting the car like that isn't very good for the engine, so I had it warmed up before I started doing this.



Then I refilled it for the last time and bled the system. I used Liqui Moly 1100 ATF fluid.



I could immediately feel improvement. The steering response is better and the PS pump stopped whining.

In the spirit of preventive maintenance, I used Sunday afternoon to knock out Vanos solenoids from the list.

Removed both boards from the car.





Another sign of the low mileage is the that the little net on the mesh filter was still present and was just starting to degrade and would end up in solenoids and clog them up, so I was just in time. On the blue M5 with 100k miles the mesh filter was completely gone.



Then I thoroughly cleaned them with brake cleaner, resoldered the contact points and test them with a 9V battery. Slapped new O-rings and installed them back on the car along with the new Vanos gasket.





Servicing Vanos solenoids is a good way to get back that lost lower end power, car now feels more alive in lower rpms.
I got the same effect when I did this on my old blue M5. Very happy with the outcome!

[slater]

That didn't really work out. Once I detached the lines, the amount of fluid that came out was minimal and there was still a lot of old fluid stuck in the system. When I put back everything together, refilled the reservoir and started the car, old fluid from the steering box was pushed and it still very much looked like coffee and had that burnt smell.

I had to get all of that crap out so I did something simple but very effective.

I disconnected the return hose from the reservoir (on the M5, that's the smaller one of the two) and put the plug on the reservoir.

I then put the return hose into empty bottle, tapped it secure, refilled the reservoir to the brim with ATF and cranked the car for a couple seconds.
I repeated this procedure for a total of 4 times until the fluid started coming out clean and nice red color.
PS fluid capacity on the M5 is 1.9 L and I exchanged about 2 L this way.
Albeit, starting the car like that isn't very good for the engine, so I had it warmed up before I started doing this.

very cool - i have done it this way on audis before. i think i'll do the same method you used, it seems easy enough and minimal fluid loss. thanks very much for the details and the pics! i feel a lot more confident about it now.

[Sreten]

very cool - i have done it this way on audis before. i think i'll do the same method you used, it seems easy enough and minimal fluid loss. thanks very much for the details and the pics! i feel a lot more confident about it now.

You're welcome.
I was skeptical about doing this at first because I was afraid I would make a mess or starve the PS pump from fluid, but it's actually pretty straightforward.
Just when you do this, either get a 2nd person to start the car for you so you can watch over the fluid level or if you're doing it alone like I did, don't run the car for more than 1-2 seconds. It sucks the entire reservoir pretty quick.

[Sreten]

Been busy yesterday.

It was occasionally throwing a CEL light for pre-cat O2 sensors. That was sorted out easily and quickly.
I used OEM Bosch sensor. Very easy job, I didn't even have to remove any undercarriage protection.







Next was the very fiddly job of replacing the thermostat.

The winters in Germany are relatively cold and whenever I found myself on the open road, the needle for the temperature would take a big drop.
We all know that it's not good for the engine to work constantly cold and I wanted to remedy that asap.

The thermostat housing on the M5 is located on the top of the water pump and there are few things that need to be removed in order to get to it. Mostly vanos lines.



This is with everything removed and ready to pull out the thermostat housing which has 3 pipes connected to the engine.



It was a royal pain to get it out. The pipes were really stuck on there and only after I sprayed a dab of WD-40 on the O-rings I was able to pull it out from the engine.

These are the 3 pipes I'm talking about and that are seated in the engine.





Old tstat removed, surface cleaned and installed the new one. I went with good old Behr tstat.



I replaced all of the while in there items, O-rings on the connecting pipes, temp sensor, aux fan switch, upper radiator hose, radiator drain plug, vanos crush washers...

I wanted to replace the lower radiator hose as well, but for the life of me I couldn't disconnect it from the radiator, so I left it alone.
I'm coming back for that sucker later with some bigass plumber pliers.





Now the hardest part of this job is to assemble everything correctly. It's very easy to tear the O-rings and end up with leaks.
I really didn't want to do this job again so I got everything clean and then lubed up the O-rings and seating positions with technische vaseline. I also put a dab of gasket maker on the mating surface of the tstat and water pump to be extra safe and gingerly assembled everything.



Green coolant was present in the system, so I flushed the radiator and the block few times, and refilled with proper blue BMW coolant.



Nice thing about the M5 is that the system is essentially self-bleeding. There is no bleed screw, just turn on the ignition, set the temp to max and blower to low setting. Start filling up and that's it.

I let everything settle down and went to the Christmas market for some Bratwurst and Glühwein.



It was nice chilly 3 °C degrees so perfect time for a late night test drive.

Went to the Autobahn and got some nice readings. The temp needle stayed right in the middle and there are no apparent leaks. Success!

[BMWCurves]

Nice work! That thermostat does not look like much fun to do, especially compared with the ease of the M54 thermostat. I am envious of the self-bleed system...where does the excess air escape to?

[Sreten]

Thanks!

It's certainly much more involved. I do miss the simplicity of the M54.

I followed TIS bleeding procedure that I described and there's no additional info on that. Just that the air finds its way out through the expansion tank.