Manual e39 540i touring
Discussion
This is my current daily that I've had since earlier this year. I'd been after one for a while and this came up just after my very cheap 528I touring died from rusty sills, I bought it unseen from ebay which may have been a mistake as i think I over paid a bit for it. Oh well! Being reasonably young and having just bought a house, my maximum bid was my bank balance at the time and it sold for about £100 less than that... Just enough to travel up and bring it back! Luckily I had enough food to last me the few days until i got paid. 
Its a bit tatty unfortunately but hopefully i'll be working on that soon, and the previous owner said he had an "incident" with a roof mounted bike rack which means there is very small dent on the roof and no rear wiper.
It's got quite a few options which is nice (build sheet below for those interested) and seems to have some sort of pre-production code on it as well so not sure what happened in its early life as it was built mid 2001 and is on a 52 plate!
Prod. Date 2001-05-03
Type 540I TOURING (EUR)
Series E39 (5 Series)
Body Type TOUR
Steering RL
Engine M62TU
Displacement 4.40
Power 210kw / 286hp
Drive HECK
Transmission Manual
Colour BLACK SAPPHIRE METALLIC (475)
Upholstery STANDARDLEDERGRAU (N6TT)
Options
S216A Hydro Steering servotronic
S261A Side Airbags For Rear Passengers
S265A Tyre Pressure Control TPC
S302A Alarm System
S354A Green Windscreen Green Shade Band
S386A Roof Railing
S401A Lift up and slide back Sunroof Electric
S417A Roller Sun Vizor Rear Door
S428A Warning Triangle And First Aid Kit
S430A Interior outside Mirror With Auto Dip
S441A Smoker Package
S459A Seat Adjuster Electric With Memory
S464A Ski Bag
S481A Sports Seat
S494A Seat Heating Driver passenger
S500A Headlight Wipewash Intensive Cleaning
S508A Park Distance Control PDC
S521A Rain Sensor
S522A Xenon Light
S609A Navigation System Professional
S632A Preparation BMW Handy Motorola
S676A HiFi Speaker System
S694A Provisions For BMW 6 CD Changer
S773A Fine Wood Trim
S775A Headlining Anthracite
S785A White Direction Indicator Lights
L812A National Version England Ireland
S850A DummySALAPA
S863A Retailer Directory Europe
S877A Delete Crosspattern Operation
S880A Onboard Vehicle Literature English
S916A DummySALAPA
S991A Preproduction Management
Standard Equipment
S210A Dynamic Stability Control
S220A Selflevelling Suspension
S249A Multifunction F Steering Wheel
S361A BMW LA Wheel Parallel Spoke 82
S470A IsofixSystem
S520A Fog Lights
S534A Automatic Air Conditioning
S555A Onboard Computer V With Remote Control
S853A Language Version English
Individual
- Code Description Interface Description EPC S431A INNENSPIEGELAUTOMATISCH ABBLENDEND Interior Mirror With Automaticdip S473A ARMAUFLAGE VORN Armrest Front S602A BORDMONIT
- S431A
- S473A
- S602A
And some photos:
When i picked it up:
Then in some better weather this year:
Being used properly:
Unfortunately it has not been completely trouble free so far, but nothing major. Another post to follow!
Its a bit tatty unfortunately but hopefully i'll be working on that soon, and the previous owner said he had an "incident" with a roof mounted bike rack which means there is very small dent on the roof and no rear wiper.
It's got quite a few options which is nice (build sheet below for those interested) and seems to have some sort of pre-production code on it as well so not sure what happened in its early life as it was built mid 2001 and is on a 52 plate!
Prod. Date 2001-05-03
Type 540I TOURING (EUR)
Series E39 (5 Series)
Body Type TOUR
Steering RL
Engine M62TU
Displacement 4.40
Power 210kw / 286hp
Drive HECK
Transmission Manual
Colour BLACK SAPPHIRE METALLIC (475)
Upholstery STANDARDLEDERGRAU (N6TT)
Options
S216A Hydro Steering servotronic
S261A Side Airbags For Rear Passengers
S265A Tyre Pressure Control TPC
S302A Alarm System
S354A Green Windscreen Green Shade Band
S386A Roof Railing
S401A Lift up and slide back Sunroof Electric
S417A Roller Sun Vizor Rear Door
S428A Warning Triangle And First Aid Kit
S430A Interior outside Mirror With Auto Dip
S441A Smoker Package
S459A Seat Adjuster Electric With Memory
S464A Ski Bag
S481A Sports Seat
S494A Seat Heating Driver passenger
S500A Headlight Wipewash Intensive Cleaning
S508A Park Distance Control PDC
S521A Rain Sensor
S522A Xenon Light
S609A Navigation System Professional
S632A Preparation BMW Handy Motorola
S676A HiFi Speaker System
S694A Provisions For BMW 6 CD Changer
S773A Fine Wood Trim
S775A Headlining Anthracite
S785A White Direction Indicator Lights
L812A National Version England Ireland
S850A DummySALAPA
S863A Retailer Directory Europe
S877A Delete Crosspattern Operation
S880A Onboard Vehicle Literature English
S916A DummySALAPA
S991A Preproduction Management
Standard Equipment
S210A Dynamic Stability Control
S220A Selflevelling Suspension
S249A Multifunction F Steering Wheel
S361A BMW LA Wheel Parallel Spoke 82
S470A IsofixSystem
S520A Fog Lights
S534A Automatic Air Conditioning
S555A Onboard Computer V With Remote Control
S853A Language Version English
Individual
- Code Description Interface Description EPC S431A INNENSPIEGELAUTOMATISCH ABBLENDEND Interior Mirror With Automaticdip S473A ARMAUFLAGE VORN Armrest Front S602A BORDMONIT
- S431A
- S473A
- S602A
And some photos:
When i picked it up:
Then in some better weather this year:
Being used properly:
Unfortunately it has not been completely trouble free so far, but nothing major. Another post to follow!
Ok, so the first thing - When I was driving it home it wasn't running quite right then it got up to temperature - It was ok when cold then suddenly it would feel a bit down on power once it warmed up.
Quick scan revealed the cause
One of the cam sensors looked like it had been replaced already so i replaced the other one with an OEM one from the dealer. At the same time i also fitted a new bosch MAF just to be safe. It then drove perfectly!
Then a few weeks later I came out to the rear end being sat on the floor - these have self levelling air suspension at the back. It pumped its self back up again so the compressor was ok but you could hear one of the air springs leaking.
Thankfully I still had the 528i i mentioned earlier sitting about for spares which had recently had new air bags - so i "borrowed" them and fitted to the 540.
Fixed!
Then all was well for a until December where it failed it's MOT - One of the lower control arms had play in a ball joint and a sticky front caliper. The front discs were an advisory and the tension arm on the other side was on its way out as well. It looked like all the front suspension was original so at 16 years old and 109k miles I decided to replace both lower control arms, both tension arms, rebuild the front calipers and new discs and pads.
Arms were all Lemforder, I rebuilt the calipers with bits from Bigg red and pagid were used for the brake bits.
Outside of the front disc:
Inside:
Not sure why the inside of the discs looked like that, not seen anything like that before!
Old caliper pistons - Guess which one was sticking!
Stripped, cleaned and painted the calipers - then fitted new seals & pistons - came out pretty well!
All the old arms removed
Despite technically owning 5 cars - this was the only one that is close to being road legal and obviously it wasn't at the time! So i cycled over to my local click and collect point to get the suspension arms thinking they'd fit in my backpack easily - These were the boxes they came in, each one packaged individually!
Made a bit of a scene while I unpackaged everything in the shop and had to give them the boxes back
Got everything fitted eventually (its the first time i've replaced suspension arms and stuff - I've done brakes and things before) and It's all good now! Drives loads better too so I might have to look at sorting a few other bits soon too.
Quick scan revealed the cause
One of the cam sensors looked like it had been replaced already so i replaced the other one with an OEM one from the dealer. At the same time i also fitted a new bosch MAF just to be safe. It then drove perfectly!
Then a few weeks later I came out to the rear end being sat on the floor - these have self levelling air suspension at the back. It pumped its self back up again so the compressor was ok but you could hear one of the air springs leaking.
Thankfully I still had the 528i i mentioned earlier sitting about for spares which had recently had new air bags - so i "borrowed" them and fitted to the 540.
Fixed!
Then all was well for a until December where it failed it's MOT - One of the lower control arms had play in a ball joint and a sticky front caliper. The front discs were an advisory and the tension arm on the other side was on its way out as well. It looked like all the front suspension was original so at 16 years old and 109k miles I decided to replace both lower control arms, both tension arms, rebuild the front calipers and new discs and pads.
Arms were all Lemforder, I rebuilt the calipers with bits from Bigg red and pagid were used for the brake bits.
Outside of the front disc:
Inside:
Not sure why the inside of the discs looked like that, not seen anything like that before!
Old caliper pistons - Guess which one was sticking!
Stripped, cleaned and painted the calipers - then fitted new seals & pistons - came out pretty well!
All the old arms removed
Despite technically owning 5 cars - this was the only one that is close to being road legal and obviously it wasn't at the time! So i cycled over to my local click and collect point to get the suspension arms thinking they'd fit in my backpack easily - These were the boxes they came in, each one packaged individually!
Made a bit of a scene while I unpackaged everything in the shop and had to give them the boxes back
Got everything fitted eventually (its the first time i've replaced suspension arms and stuff - I've done brakes and things before) and It's all good now! Drives loads better too so I might have to look at sorting a few other bits soon too.
Nice! A 540 with a big boot and a manual gearbox!
Did you have any trouble stripping the old suspension parts off as some of those ball joints can be VERY difficult to split? Oh and regarding your brake discs, my front discs are currently on their last legs and have also worn unevenly on the inner face too for some reason.
Did you have any trouble stripping the old suspension parts off as some of those ball joints can be VERY difficult to split? Oh and regarding your brake discs, my front discs are currently on their last legs and have also worn unevenly on the inner face too for some reason.
Yeah I'd love to have one in velvet blue/techno violet/mora metallic, maybe one day! 
The cooling system seems ok for now, but I'll have to keep a close eye on it then! Don't want to be cooking it accidentally.
Yeah I did struggle with the ball joints but I think that was a combination of me and not having the right tools.
The hubs are aluminium so the female part of the taper is an insert in the hub. I actually removed this from the hub rather than splitting the ball joint on one of the arms. Luckily I was able to borrow a bearing puller which removed it from the arm easily, then the insert went in the freezer overnight and i heated the hub the next day and pressed it back in ok!
It seems fine now but I'm sure that's not what is meant to happen! I only had a crap ball joint tool that didn't really fit properly though. This is the insert on the arm - it didn't grip the lip on the bottom so the whole lot came out rather than splitting the taper.
The cooling system seems ok for now, but I'll have to keep a close eye on it then! Don't want to be cooking it accidentally.
Yeah I did struggle with the ball joints but I think that was a combination of me and not having the right tools.
The hubs are aluminium so the female part of the taper is an insert in the hub. I actually removed this from the hub rather than splitting the ball joint on one of the arms. Luckily I was able to borrow a bearing puller which removed it from the arm easily, then the insert went in the freezer overnight and i heated the hub the next day and pressed it back in ok!
It seems fine now but I'm sure that's not what is meant to happen! I only had a crap ball joint tool that didn't really fit properly though. This is the insert on the arm - it didn't grip the lip on the bottom so the whole lot came out rather than splitting the taper.
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