BMW E39 M5 Touring build

[BSSBMW]

Superhoop said:

Just don't forget the bikes are on the roof.. We went to walk the dog at the local country park a few weeks ago and on arrival we were met with a very heavily damaged "max height" barrier, a very badly damaged child's bike still attached to the bike carrier, then a few metres further on, a BMW with one roof bar ripped off and badly damaged..

This was being looked over by a clearly very angry with himself dad and a very very upset child, who clearly wasn't going to be riding round the country park on his bike as planned...

Stunning conversion though and as others have said, the attention to detail is amazing..

Thanks!

I did dawn on me pretty quickly to be height aware just pulling out of my drive as we clipped a few low hanging branches!

I was more apprehensive as to what it would be like up to speed. Apparently its fine for 80 mph but I didn't pass 75 and it was solid.

[bolidemichael]

BSSBMW said:

Superhoop said:

Just don't forget the bikes are on the roof.. We went to walk the dog at the local country park a few weeks ago and on arrival we were met with a very heavily damaged "max height" barrier, a very badly damaged child's bike still attached to the bike carrier, then a few metres further on, a BMW with one roof bar ripped off and badly damaged..

This was being looked over by a clearly very angry with himself dad and a very very upset child, who clearly wasn't going to be riding round the country park on his bike as planned...

Stunning conversion though and as others have said, the attention to detail is amazing..

Thanks!

I did dawn on me pretty quickly to be height aware just pulling out of my drive as we clipped a few low hanging branches!

I was more apprehensive as to what it would be like up to speed. Apparently its fine for 80 mph but I didn't pass 75 and it was solid.

I've done up to 130mph with ze official MB racks.

[Volvolover]

BSSBMW said:

Superhoop said:

Just don't forget the bikes are on the roof.. We went to walk the dog at the local country park a few weeks ago and on arrival we were met with a very heavily damaged "max height" barrier, a very badly damaged child's bike still attached to the bike carrier, then a few metres further on, a BMW with one roof bar ripped off and badly damaged..

This was being looked over by a clearly very angry with himself dad and a very very upset child, who clearly wasn't going to be riding round the country park on his bike as planned...

Stunning conversion though and as others have said, the attention to detail is amazing..

Thanks!

I did dawn on me pretty quickly to be height aware just pulling out of my drive as we clipped a few low hanging branches!

I was more apprehensive as to what it would be like up to speed. Apparently its fine for 80 mph but I didn't pass 75 and it was solid.

You’ll soon gain confidence in the speed Lolol

Well over a ton with my Thule stuff regularly and that looks just as robust (if not rebadged thule anyway)

[BSSBMW]

Volvolover said:

You’ll soon gain confidence in the speed Lolol

Well over a ton with my Thule stuff regularly and that looks just as robust (if not rebadged thule anyway)

That's good to hear although i don't think i'll be attempting the cars limited top speed of 155mph (or delimited 180mph!) when holidaying in Germany!

Yes I suspect the BMW rails and racks are made by Thule.

[Court_S]

Cool to see it getting used, possibly one of the coolest bike buses ever!

I was paranoid the first time I strapped my bike on the roof, now it’s just the done thing.

[d_a_n1979]

BSSBMW said:

Volvolover said:

You’ll soon gain confidence in the speed Lolol

Well over a ton with my Thule stuff regularly and that looks just as robust (if not rebadged thule anyway)

That's good to hear although i don't think i'll be attempting the cars limited top speed of 155mph (or delimited 180mph!) when holidaying in Germany!

Yes I suspect the BMW rails and racks are made by Thule.

They are Thule bars.

I've got the OEM square bars and footpack for the E39 and they're Thule

I'm researching now if I can use aero bars or if I need to get an all new footpack too

[BSSBMW]

With the dead line to get the car on the road in time for the E39 M5 meet there were a few a few things that I left to address later that wouldn't stop me using the car but needed sorting. To get the engine up and running I used the donor M5's EWS immobiliser module, ignition barrel and key to work with the M5 DME (engine ECU) which allowed it to fire up straight away. Obviously this isn't ideal having two different keys and using the M5 EWS with its VIN and VO (Vehicle order, list of options fitted to the car) stored when its a 540i..... more on that in future.



Using the excellent binary modification tool from www.ecuworx.co.uk meant I could switch off the EWS input on the M5's DME so I could switch back to the 540i's EWS, ignition barrel meaning all working off the original 540i key.

While using the tool I also removed the 155mph speed limiter, switched off the post cat O2 sensors for now (as mine has no cats) and switched off the Secondary Air Pump meaning quieter cold starts.

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The modified BIN file being flashed onto the DME using MSS flasher.

All working off one key now, no post cat O2 sensor faults and hopefully less annoyed neighbours when setting off for early Sunday morning hoons.

[bolidemichael]

Early morning hoon... where do you find the energy?

[BSSBMW]

Going back to a previous picture I posted of the M5 cluster, it was not happy! Lots of dead pixels meant the mileage and check control messaged were unreadable, the fuel and temp gauges under read, the rev counter was inaccurate plus the ABS/DSC lights didn't work. Something was seriously amiss inside that cluster.





After recommendation by a few people on one of the E39 FB pages and a chat with the man himself, I sent the cluster to Keith at AK speedo to see what was up with it and upon taking it apart it was clear what the issue was. Various parts of the circuit board and motors had corrosion, some of the worst he had seen. Who knows how this cluster ended up like this but needless to say it was not saveable.
With it being an early black face M5 cluster instead of the later grey face one it would be a shame to bin it as they are hard to find now and quite sought after. Keith came up with a solution and it meant finding a donor cluster with a suitable SW and HW number so a call to a BMW breaker I know turned up a cluster from a 2003 530d which met the requirements so that was sent up to Keith to cannibalise for the relevant parts to make up a fully working black face M5 cluster.



With the cluster now fully functional with no dead pixels the next thing to do was program it with the 540i VIN number and milage so everything tallied up with the cars physical VIN number rather than have mismatched VIN's in the cars control units and the incorrect mileage for the car (not the engine) stored.



Fitted back into the car and coded up with the cars VO matched to the EWS's VO so everything is now matched and working correctly with no tamper dot, mismatched VIN's, VO's or milages.

[ChocolateFrog]

The cluster looks factory fresh now, makes a massive difference.

[RichardM5]

There can't be many fully functional black faced M5 speedos left. Many were swapped out under warranty when the pixels failed. Excellent job in saving it, it's rarity fits well with the car.

[stevemcs]

That is stunning.

[Stick Legs]

Volvolover said:

BSSBMW said:

Superhoop said:

Just don't forget the bikes are on the roof.. We went to walk the dog at the local country park a few weeks ago and on arrival we were met with a very heavily damaged "max height" barrier, a very badly damaged child's bike still attached to the bike carrier, then a few metres further on, a BMW with one roof bar ripped off and badly damaged..

This was being looked over by a clearly very angry with himself dad and a very very upset child, who clearly wasn't going to be riding round the country park on his bike as planned...

Stunning conversion though and as others have said, the attention to detail is amazing..

Thanks!

I did dawn on me pretty quickly to be height aware just pulling out of my drive as we clipped a few low hanging branches!

I was more apprehensive as to what it would be like up to speed. Apparently its fine for 80 mph but I didn't pass 75 and it was solid.

You’ll soon gain confidence in the speed Lolol

Well over a ton with my Thule stuff regularly and that looks just as robust (if not rebadged thule anyway)

Roof bars should be fine at those speeds, hell I sat at a steady ton all the way to the Pyrenees with a SeaSucker on my 530d, no issues.

[Stick Legs]

The black faced clocks make it look even more stock. Really nice.

[MarkwG]

Stick Legs said:

Volvolover said:

BSSBMW said:

Superhoop said:

Just don't forget the bikes are on the roof.. We went to walk the dog at the local country park a few weeks ago and on arrival we were met with a very heavily damaged "max height" barrier, a very badly damaged child's bike still attached to the bike carrier, then a few metres further on, a BMW with one roof bar ripped off and badly damaged..

This was being looked over by a clearly very angry with himself dad and a very very upset child, who clearly wasn't going to be riding round the country park on his bike as planned...

Stunning conversion though and as others have said, the attention to detail is amazing..

Thanks!

I did dawn on me pretty quickly to be height aware just pulling out of my drive as we clipped a few low hanging branches!

I was more apprehensive as to what it would be like up to speed. Apparently its fine for 80 mph but I didn't pass 75 and it was solid.

You’ll soon gain confidence in the speed Lolol

Well over a ton with my Thule stuff regularly and that looks just as robust (if not rebadged thule anyway)

Roof bars should be fine at those speeds, hell I sat at a steady ton all the way to the Pyrenees with a SeaSucker on my 530d, no issues.

FWIW - https://support.thule.com/hc/en-gb/articles/213639... & https://www.seasucker.com/pages/faqs

[Dr G]

I'd not dropped in on this thread in a while, but continue to be impressed by the "do it right" approach to all works. Very satisfying to see.

[rob0r]

Nothing to add but to say what an epic build!!

[BSSBMW]

Time to update this now as the last part of the four part feature in straight six magazine is now out.

Back in mid September I managed to source a replacement Getrag 420g gearbox to sort out the 3rd gear synchro issue. The box came from a lowish mileage E46 M3 SMG so after swapping over the bell housing from my M5 420g gearbox it was swiftly swapped over the evening before the final shoot.

An early start on a Sunday morning to make the most of the empty Sussex roads, I met up with Steve Carter who would be driving the M5 and writing the final part of the feature for the BMWCC magazine and Dean Grossmith who would be the photographer, both of them who make up #turnandclipit.





















I have never had any of my cars on the front cover of a magazine so when the copy landed I was chuffed to see they editorial had decided to go with it! Dean managed to get some fantastic shots of the car despite the slightly challenging weather conditions on the day.

In the lead up to the feature I had been in talks with a few of people about the possible sale of the car and by the time the photoshoot was done a sale was agreed and a deposit paid which surprised quite a few people that I had decided to sell the car so soon but people who know me well know what I'm like so cars don't usually hang around that long and a big part of the enjoyment for me is the build so now it is basically complete, it was time to move onto something else.

This project was something I had wanted to do for a long time which I thoroughly enjoyed and it will most likely be another one of those cars that I regret selling!

The car has been sold to someone with a nice BMW collection and they have put it straight into use with a road trip to Scotland and back.

Would I build another? Yes if someone pays me to this time lol!

Would I do anything differently next time? Other than buying a ULEZ compliant touring with a sunroof, no.

[Court_S]

Congratulations on the sale. I imagine a lot of people would have lived to have taken this off your hands. Those pictures from the magazine were fab, the car looked awesome

[ChrisCh86]

A beautiful build, you must be chuffed with the results!

At least it's gone to a good home - hopefully to be cherished and enjoyed for years to come