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Read the WELCOME ALL BMWFANATICS post.
E39 540i Manual project
- Thread starter Benji
- Start date
Benji
Well-known member
A big (but little to you reading this) update. Some eagle eyed readers may have noticed some glitter in my oil in one of the earlier posts. I did notice this at the time but didnt think too much of it. Anyway, checked again after an oil change and noticed a bit more glitter, changed the oil again and still there was some glitter. This was no good, so parked the car in August, said my prayers, spoke to the bank manager and the minister of home affairs. Time for a timing chain job and at 200k on the clocks, I was ignorant and misguided thinking I could get away without it. Thank you to Peter (AEW) and Dave for your advice and giving me the confidence (and tools) to tackle this job myself. Thank you to Deago for making this remotely affordable and for his patience when I ordered some TU parts 
This is definitely the deepest in a motor Ive been, was nowhere near as daunting as I thought it would be and I had quite a lot of fun. Even the "Jesus bolt" didnt put up too much of a fight.
Before:
After:
My guides showed some small signs of wear, but nothing near as bad as I was expecting and definitely no signs of any metal-metal interactions. The only culprit I could find for the metal shavings was the excessive wear on the cam gears. Not sure how or why, but I had these replaced with good used ones.
All belts and idler pulleys where changed (the AC belt was still the original BMW belt from 1998!) and the motor sounds butter smooth now and goes as well as it ever has have not yet worked up the courage to check the oil again
My hot-start issue is also resolved, it seems to have been the crank position sensor which I replaced with a good used one - BMW wants about 3k for the bloody thing!
I missed this car so much. It really is the perfect combination of beauty, luxury, fun, sportiness, refinement, speed and dare I say, fuel consumption. I sourced an OEM set of Hella front clears with OEM Xenons, makes a noticeable difference in night time driving. Now I really need to get my front spoiler painted and mounted! But first, I need to say my prayers, speak to the bank manager and the minister of home affairs so I can do a complete suspension refresh
For your viewing pleasure...
I must say I am so happy I went with the Style 32s instead of the Style 65s. It really rounds the car off beautifully
This is definitely the deepest in a motor Ive been, was nowhere near as daunting as I thought it would be and I had quite a lot of fun. Even the "Jesus bolt" didnt put up too much of a fight.Before:
After:
My guides showed some small signs of wear, but nothing near as bad as I was expecting and definitely no signs of any metal-metal interactions. The only culprit I could find for the metal shavings was the excessive wear on the cam gears. Not sure how or why, but I had these replaced with good used ones.
All belts and idler pulleys where changed (the AC belt was still the original BMW belt from 1998!) and the motor sounds butter smooth now and goes as well as it ever has
have not yet worked up the courage to check the oil again My hot-start issue is also resolved, it seems to have been the crank position sensor which I replaced with a good used one - BMW wants about 3k for the bloody thing!
I missed this car so much. It really is the perfect combination of beauty, luxury, fun, sportiness, refinement, speed and dare I say, fuel consumption. I sourced an OEM set of Hella front clears with OEM Xenons, makes a noticeable difference in night time driving. Now I really need to get my front spoiler painted and mounted! But first, I need to say my prayers, speak to the bank manager and the minister of home affairs so I can do a complete suspension refresh
For your viewing pleasure...
I must say I am so happy I went with the Style 32s instead of the Style 65s. It really rounds the car off beautifully
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Tino335
New member
32's looks way better. Agreed. The Style 65 does not work with the non-M bumpers imho
Benji
Well-known member
Was tough to find, bit of luck and haggling on Marketplace
Benji
Well-known member
So the 540i has been performing roadtrip duties and hogging the lift as usual - 4 wheels in the air seems to be its favorite position. I cant seem to get my consumption much below 10L/100km on the open road, not sure if the issue is with my foot or with my car 🧐
I refreshed the gear linkages, did a gearbox oil change and installed the short shift kit from the E60 545i. I'm loving the short shift, but somehow my gearchanges are still really poor, specifically getting into third gear when cold. Seems like this is a common fault on the pre-2000 gearboxes when BMW updated the arrestor pins. So that is another item to add to the list when I pull gearbox as I have a very slight oil leak from the bellhousing and gearbox selector shaft seal.
Nasty "lifetime" gearbox oil:
I "temporarily" wired up my OEM subwoofers (from DSP specced car) with some old amp I had lying around running off the headunit's subwoofer RCA-out. It actually sounds so good, Im probably going to leave it as is, pretty happy with the bang vs buck of this upgrade, it cost me R500 and sounds pretty acceptable. OEM subwoofer is ported into the cabin and the car came pre-cut, so the longest part of this job was running the RCA cable.
Engine and gearbox mounts arrived after the summer break, got those replaced. I knew the engine mounts were bad, didn't realize they were this far gone! This being an old BMW, it has developed a new oil leak, seems to be from the power steering system, but will need to investigate further before opening the wallet again.
Yes, I have said this before, but this car is just epic on the open road Especially now that I have working aircon 🥳
I refreshed the gear linkages, did a gearbox oil change and installed the short shift kit from the E60 545i. I'm loving the short shift, but somehow my gearchanges are still really poor, specifically getting into third gear when cold. Seems like this is a common fault on the pre-2000 gearboxes when BMW updated the arrestor pins. So that is another item to add to the list when I pull gearbox as I have a very slight oil leak from the bellhousing and gearbox selector shaft seal.
Nasty "lifetime" gearbox oil:
I "temporarily" wired up my OEM subwoofers (from DSP specced car) with some old amp I had lying around running off the headunit's subwoofer RCA-out. It actually sounds so good, Im probably going to leave it as is, pretty happy with the bang vs buck of this upgrade, it cost me R500 and sounds pretty acceptable. OEM subwoofer is ported into the cabin and the car came pre-cut, so the longest part of this job was running the RCA cable.
Engine and gearbox mounts arrived after the summer break, got those replaced. I knew the engine mounts were bad, didn't realize they were this far gone! This being an old BMW, it has developed a new oil leak, seems to be from the power steering system, but will need to investigate further before opening the wallet again.
Yes, I have said this before, but this car is just epic on the open road
Especially now that I have working aircon 🥳
Benji
Well-known member
Not been much happening with this car since I haven't been driving it much, so nothing has had the opportunity to break Performed PDR on the multitude of dents, still saving up for a suspension rebuild, but have in the meanwhile been distracted...
I found this cheap, poorly advertised 525i auto non-runner...
I just had to buy it because of this:
Spent R500 on a crank position sensor and the car started right up. Win! However the auto box is stuck in third. Car is for sale as is, or I will carry out a manual swap and then sell it.
Next was to don my priest hat to perform an unholy matrimony between the sport and comfort seats to create a sport-comfort which can be called a tribute seat to the contours that were found in the E38. I have reached deep levels of seat-nerd, but the results are so worth it. These seats look amazing, are super comfortable and provide all the right kinds of support with the adjustable thigh support and adjustable bolsters/back support of the comforts. A side-benefit of this is that there are no more blanking plates for unused buttons on the seats
Base, Sport, Comfort, Sport-Comfort:
Performed PDR on the multitude of dents, still saving up for a suspension rebuild, but have in the meanwhile been distracted...I found this cheap, poorly advertised 525i auto non-runner...
I just had to buy it because of this:
Spent R500 on a crank position sensor and the car started right up. Win! However the auto box is stuck in third. Car is for sale as is, or I will carry out a manual swap and then sell it.
Next was to don my priest hat to perform an unholy matrimony between the sport and comfort seats to create a sport-comfort which can be called a tribute seat to the contours that were found in the E38. I have reached deep levels of seat-nerd, but the results are so worth it. These seats look amazing, are super comfortable and provide all the right kinds of support with the adjustable thigh support and adjustable bolsters/back support of the comforts. A side-benefit of this is that there are no more blanking plates for unused buttons on the seats
Base, Sport, Comfort, Sport-Comfort:
Benji
Well-known member
Its a bit ridiculous, but I have not seen a reasonable condition beige sport seat for almost 2 years of searching, so figured if I could get this car running cheaply, I might actually pick up the seats for "free"you bought a car for the front seats....you sir are a G
LOL
High grade Amarok level at least I didnt just talk about it, I actually did it 
Well, well, well.. @ChefDJ how was the hiatus?
evnmopwr
Well-known member
Not Ridiculous at all.
After you sell the car for parts or get it running and then sold, you see the project pays for itself with extra money for a coke and a smile.
. lolAsk me how i know....
Benji
Well-known member
Not much of an update, I sold the seats "parts car" and actually turned like R1000 profit and scored a free set of sports seats and some odds and ends I "stole" off the car. That is a win in my books. Good riddance:
After some trial and tribulations which shall not be discussed on this forum, I discovered that a Z3/E36 M3 steering wheel is 10mm smaller than the stock bus wheel that comes in these cars and is a plug and play affair. Now 10mm might not sound like a lot, but you know what they say about short grass making the tree seem taller...Definitely noticeable and lends itself to a better experience.
And in case there were doubts about my OCD, I finally replaced the irksome fried egg side repeater globe for one of those chrome globe jobbies. I sleep better at night now.
After some trial and tribulations which shall not be discussed on this forum, I discovered that a Z3/E36 M3 steering wheel is 10mm smaller than the stock bus wheel that comes in these cars and is a plug and play affair. Now 10mm might not sound like a lot, but you know what they say about short grass making the tree seem taller...Definitely noticeable and lends itself to a better experience.
And in case there were doubts about my OCD, I finally replaced the irksome fried egg side repeater globe for one of those chrome globe jobbies. I sleep better at night now.
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