Mid-South BMW e39 build thread

[yungmasri]

Hi everyone, I've lurked for a while without any intro as I've been without a project car for a couple years. I currently drive an automatic 2000 BMW 528i. My last project car was a CD5 Accord, which I loved, but was modified on a budget haha.




NOTE: I apologize in advance for the vertical photos haha

Atlanta's Craigslist proved to be the best place to find the right E39 for me. I specifically wanted a black on black one, and couldn't find anything clean here in Memphis. Here are pictures from when I picked her up.











Some info on the car's condition and maintenance:

The car's EML light and Check Engine lights were both on when I picked it up. The issue caused the car to go into 'limp-home' mode and basically wouldn't drive faster than 5mph. To fix this, both the throttle body and the engine's wiring harness needed to be replaced. Nobody local was asking for anything less than $400 for labor alone so I bought the parts and did it myself.

Other than that, here are some basic things I've gotten replaced since buying it:

-Front upper and lower control arms
-Front sway bar end links
-Tie rod assemblies and steering rack boots
-Camshaft position sensor
-Replaced all power steering pressure lines and hoses
-Replaced motor mounts
-Rear ball joints
-Megan Racing muffler (the car was missing the stock muffler when purchased)

The car currently has 201k miles on the clock. I still need to tackle an oil leak from the oil pan gasket, an elusive vacuum leak, and replace all PCV lines and crankcase vent valve. I'm anxious to get her caught up on everything under the hood so I can invest in a couple performance upgrades later on

[yungmasri]

Modifications:

Not a lot has been done to the car, modification wise.

I kept my stock headlights and just updated the look of them by replacing the lenses with a facelift-style UHP angel eye setup. Just an inexpensive upgrade to improve aesthetics until I can afford picking up a set of Umnitza headlights.

I also replaced the grill with an all-chrome grill as the old set I had was broken (along with my right fog light) in a little off-road mishap

I also picked up an Android head unit from Easy Rising (Erising). I honestly love it. If anyone is interested in a demo video of the head unit, I'm happy to post one. It was a little over $500 shipped which I thought was a steal compared to Dynavin.

Oh and I got an inexpensive E39 cupholder solution from eBay. A very rewarding upgrade--stock e39 cup holders really suck.

[yungmasri]

Sorry for the awkward setup of this build thread haha, I'm composing this as I'm at work.

As for now, the car is sitting on a set of Broadway Static coilovers. I ordered a set with 16k/f 14k/r spring rates. They ride pretty great. This is how the car is sitting now.





I purchased a set of Weds Kranze LXZs used, and had them rebuilt to the following specs: 18x11 & 18x12 // 4.5" lips front, 5.5" lips rear.

I'm not going to have a fun time getting them to fit, I'm hoping with some local help I can get them to fit without having to do anything crazy. We'll see I guess! Here are photos of the wheels finished. They shipped out yesterday so I haven't even gotten them yet.



Excited to hear opinions, suggestions, whatever! Cheers.

[rightfullrudder]

This is going to be good. Love Japanese wheels on German cars, especially something as sinister as your E39.

[FunfGang]

Holy frick.

110% in after that wheel picture.

[yungmasri]

This is going to be good. Love Japanese wheels on German cars, especially something as sinister as your E39.

Thanks man! 'Sinister' was used to describe my last build on Hondasociety actually haha so I'm glad the general theme seems to have not changed

Holy frick.

110% in after that wheel picture.

I know right, before the wheel picture the build is mediocre at best

I hope to upgrade the tails to actual Hella LED ones before the year is over--the lookalikes were on it when I bought the car and I haven't bothered to change them yet. Hopefully maybe sport seats before the year is over too

Here are a couple more recent photos for now. I'll update this once I get the wheels + adapters and test fit. I'm using 15mm adapters so I anticipate a good bit of trouble with getting them to fit--hopefully by the beginning of the summer they'll be on and good to go though.









I can't wait to see these in person when they get here

[keith2]

Yeah you definitely wont have fun making those fit haha. Looking forward to seeing how you go about it.

[Robitussin]

LXZs on an e39?

YES

YES

YES

YES

I think all i can say is yes

[yungmasri]

Wheels are here

Hi everyone, Happy Tuesday.

The LXZs arrived today

I'm happy with them, however they do have some considerable oxidation on three of the four faces. I knew about this when purchasing them but skipped out on having them refinished for financial reasons. I'm almost sure i'll be sending them off to a reputable company to have them refinished sometime in the future.

I'm using 15mm adapters to adapt the bolt pattern and hub size to the wheels.

Sorry for the crap photos, will upload better ones on the next test fit.








I didn't snap a photo of the poke in the front. The fronts poke about an inch or more from the fender but otherwise they look fine and I'm not worried about them fitting.

As you can see, the rears are retarded with 5.5" lips. At this point my game plan is to basically acquire all the rear camber adjustment hardware I can find, figure out my tire sizes and get tires mounted, and get the fenders rolled and pulled to hell. If that proves to not be enough, I may just pick up 4.5" lips for the rears and call it a day. I would definitely prefer if I can get them to fit without doing that though lol.

Short update, and I still have plenty of maintenance to do on the car before I even bother with the wheel stuff, so this will undoubtedly be slow progress. Oh well

[yungmasri]

Quick dumb update

Hello everyone. Just felt like posting an update since a few things have happened with the car recently


First off, the car is leaking oil pretty heavily. It's leaking in a couple places however the majority of the leak is coming from the oil pan gasket.

I would have replaced the oil pan gasket sooner except one thing has been holding me back, and that is that my passenger side engine bracket is completely broken in half. The engine is pretty much only mounted on the driver's side...



Unfortunately, one of the bolts that mount the bracket to the engine is completely broken off inside the engine block. The broken bolt will need to get tapped out before I can bolt on the new bracket. This will take some jerry rigging since I don't plan on dropping the entire engine to do this. Once that's done I can replace the oil pan gasket (oil pan is pretty much resting on the subframe).

I plan to have all of this done before school starts in August.


Some more bad luck:

Yesterday I had an unfortunate run in with a tire in the middle of the lane on the highway. I didn't see it quick enough to be able to safely evade it, so I had to pretty much take it on, front and center.

• Lost the bottom half of my bumper
• power steering pully shattered so my water pump, alternator and power steering currently aren't running
• lost my lower radiator hose and underbay shield

Could have been worse I guess. I'm expecting to have all this fixed before the end of August.





On the flip side, I recently found out that my LXZs actually are 19" and not 18's like I had thought. It's kind of silly it took me this long to realize. When I first inquired about the wheels I could have sworn they were listed as 18". Oh well the surprise is welcomed.

I was able to test fit my friend's rear wheels which are conveniently the same size as my rears (19x12 with 5.5" lips)

After seeing what the poke looks like with a tire on, I'm no longer too worried about whether I'll be able to get the rears to fit. From what I could tell, it looks like a healthy fender roll/pull and some negative camber should (hopefully) be able to get the job done.


This is what 5.5" lips look like on the rear (also using a 15mm adapter).







Random interior picture because I've been digging my auto zone floormats




That's all for now. I'll update this once the bumper is on and painted.

Also: I'd really like to moderately refinish my style 5's soon since I'm probably going to be rolling on them for the majority of the rest of the year. Maybe I'll get to it eventually