E60 530d Daily Hack. *Refusing to buy a newer car*

[markirl]

Thanks for link, they look like a win - cheaper and tidier than HID kits!

Any canbus errors?

[bullawayo]

No, none mate.

I'm genuinely very impressed by them. As stated, I needed to modify the bulb holders to get them to fit.

[markirl]

Thanks for that. Is 360w correct? Would have expected much lower wattage than that!

[LandyManSam]

I'd imagine that's equivalent light output of 360W of Halogen light, or something along those lines. Actual power consumption should be a lot less than the originals.

[bullawayo]

So after smashing some more miles I gave the old girl a clean tonight. Annoying that the rear bumper ding is so easy to spot when its clean..shall be going soon though for a replacement!





Y Bar looking better than anticipated!



And new led headlights



I fitted aux and coded it recently. Also added a sport button (meant to improve throttle response but I don't think it does anything really!!



And my average mpg over the last few thousand miles (60/40 motorway b roads)

[bullawayo]

Did my glow plugs and controller this weekend. Luckily went ok and I didn't snap any plugs.

prep work involved having the inlet manifold off on Friday, plus gassing' all the glowplugs, putting it back together.
Then saturday morning I ran the car up to get it hot, stripped it down again and for a second time plusgassed. Left it to soak for 30 mins then started (delicately) removing the glowplugs.

They are set to 20nm from factory so I set my torque wrench at 25nm when removing. Luckily it all went ok!
Some photos...









Shiny bosch units



Old ones (phew)




Next up was to replace the controller. What an absolute pain in the a**e!! Access is hideous. With a few bendy sockets I managed to get it free and replace. These historically fail after around circa 100k, so it was time to replace (my Carly app was showing 4 glow plugs failed before I removed them, after checking ohms only one had failed so the controller was definitely duff!)



And back together....



This instantly sorted my smoke on startup, and it seems to be running a lot better too. Good stuff!

Next up is cracked exhaust manifold replacement. I just purchased an injector pulling tool for m57 engines. I did try and get a couple out whilst I had the intake manifold off, but they put up a bit of a fight. Annoyingly to access properly on the 30d' BMW engines you have to remove all the injectors...sigh

[bullawayo]

ok so had a pretty major day on this Sunday. Left my home in Basingstoke at 6am to get up to Nottingham. One of my friends (a fellow E60 owners club admin) is a BMW tech so helped me begin working through a few things...



Lovely day for it!

E60 land...



Bmw bits everywhere!





Up on the ramp



Stripdown,,



Old propshaft "donut" bush..mine was ruined! sounded like a marraka



New clutch and fly...(my original one actually had quite a bit of meat left..but the torque has taken its toll!)



Then all back together, onto my manifold. I knew it was blowing...I didn't realise the weld had completely given way!





New one...cast single piece





Engine looked well inside which is reassuring after 130k. Turbo has no play aswell, which I wasn't expecting.

It all went back together, also did the following:

- Air Filter
- Vacuum hoses
- Drivebelt

Drives a lot better now.

Next up - Gearbox/Dill oil (was meant to do on Sunday but run out of time). And both thermostats...

[Jaybmw]

Tell me more about the prosports you've got on there. I'm looking at bc for mine but there fairly saucy price wise. I ran my e36 and e46 on jom blueline coilovers and I liked them alot.. changed both my stats recently. The first rad one was easy the 2nd one was not so easy

[bullawayo]

Jaybmw said:

Tell me more about the prosports you've got on there. I'm looking at bc for mine but there fairly saucy price wise. I ran my e36 and e46 on jom blueline coilovers and I liked them alot.. changed both my stats recently. The first rad one was easy the 2nd one was not so easy

Prosports are great. I’ve ran so many sets of coilovers over the years, varying from low to high end and for the money these take some beating. Should I ever upgrade I would go to BCs also as I ran them on my Impreza and they were great.

To be honest though these are performing so well I can’t ever see it happening. Rides firm but not crashy and they’ve massively helped handling. I bought the blue version as , if I remember correctly, there were 2 versions and these were slightly more expensive. Worth it though!!

[Jaybmw]

Cool I'll look into these so.. knocks I'm more afraid of. Any links to where you got them?

[bullawayo]

Got them on ebay mate. Think it was about 300 quid.

[CornedBeef]

Any updates on this mate?

[LosingGrip]

CornedBeef said:

Any updates on this mate?

Hopefully not crashed by using their phone whilst driving...