The 'Oh crap, I won it' E39 530i

[swampy442]

I often browse cars on eBay, just to keep an eye on things, see how the market is. Well I've liked E39s since my brother had an M5 a few years back, so always have a couple in my watch list.
This one popped up, 99p no reserve, a sure indicator of a car's true value (providing Mr and Mrs Shill dont put in an appearance)
It was the right spec, colour and interior for me so I put a bid in, not thinking I'd win. Well bugger me if I did!
So off to Dorset I pooped to pic this up

[swampy442]

Thanks for all the bearding, beards

Yes it's a 530i, M54 engine, paid just shy of 1900 squids for its as revealed by the Pistonheads stalker network haha.

193k miles but the engine is superb, the gearbox is great, self levelling suspension works fine, its very clean underneath with only a few small rust scabs on the sills, the interior is nice, just needs a damn good clean.

The faults as follows in order of importance - Front track control arm bushes are totally shot leading to random and sometimes heavy steering shakes, the ABS lights are on full time throwing a code for pressure switch, it could probably do with new shocks all round, the drivers door speakers dont work, the MiD display is blank so a cluster repair.
And today the nearside front brake seized on leaving a rather blue looking disc, no big deal but will need a new calliper at some point.

[swampy442]

On the whole, happy with it, its a good base which, with little work will make a nice, comfortable workhorse

[swampy442]

Given the age and miles on the old girl, hooning round corners isnt my biggest target haha but Ill bear that in mind.
Ive read the refurb ABS module thing so it could be, the sensor is reading a pressure...

M Sport spec with Shadowline trim is the spec

[swampy442]

tobinen said:

An excellent purchase sir. I too have recently joined the 530i touring 'club'.

I know, yours is a bit better than mine though

[swampy442]

Gearbox mounts on order, track control arms on order, then we'll see how we go

This weekend amongst other projects, sort the door speakers out.

[swampy442]

d_a_n1979 said:

Summit_Detailing said:

carinaman said:

Good looking car. I think that's a good price.

Does it have Xenons?

I'd say not, given the headlamp levelling slider in the last interior pic

^^^ This

Unless xenons have been retrofitted (very easy to do; just xenon ballasts, D2S to H7 adapters and then D2S bulbs of your choice); they're halogens

It doesn't have have Xenons I can report, just standard bulbs

[swampy442]

d_a_n1979 said:

Are the headlights ok; ie do they level out when you switch the engine on?

If unsure; wobble the bulb holder on the back of them, if they move, a lot, the adjusters are fubar unfortunately

But I'm sure you already know this

Yep, self levelling work fine, in fact the only electrickery thing that doesn't work is the key lock/unlock function

[swampy442]

Thanks everyone for all the kind comments

g3org3y said:

Congrats OP, great car, Sport kit really suits these.

Decent engine (watch the oil consumption). Always nice to see a matching set of 5x OEM alloys.

How the bodywork?

The oil consumption isnt helped by the fact a lot of it is leaking out Bodywork is very good, only rust is some minor patches in front of the rear wheels on the sills, which I plan to tackle soon, but other than that standard 200k mile wear and tear

[swampy442]

EWS?

[swampy442]

99t said:

Looks a cracking buy, always fancied an e39, never happened for various reasons.

I have to say though, having never been underneath one, that front sub-frame...

Honestly looks looks like something I knocked together out of bits of old scrap, in a hurry, on a bad day!! I guess it appears pretty clean at least!

Look forward to following though

Thats what I thought, looks like something off a kit car

[swampy442]

As posted in the BM forumz, the car has a slight rumble, revs dependant not road speed, so as a quick kill I’d change the gearbox mounts. Cheap, easy.

Awful, soft misshapen nastiness out, freshness in







And I thought I’d found the exhaust rattle, the bracket had sheared, turns out that’s not it. Oh well

[swampy442]

And a mystery popped yesterday morning when the lower section of the dash, which I assumed was dead, sprung to life!



I have the stalk similar to below but the BC button doesn’t do anything, any ideas?

[swampy442]

pits said:

Usually there are two little wires in the button itself that breaks, new stalk usually fixes it, if you had said 2 weeks ago you both could have had one but I lobbed them all in the skip, along with loads of other E39/8 parts, even an E38 petrol tank which didn't leak but no one wanted to come pick it up.

Ah cool, new stalk's aren't a lot so I'll look into that, thanks I know on the whole it doesn't make a lot of difference but I'd rather it's working if its fitted.

Im working away this week so in the mean time my track control arms and heater valves have turned up, thats this weekend sorted out

[swampy442]

Prohibiting said:

Awesome.

I’ve bidded on 2 cars, unseen and ended up winning them both.

One of them was an E39 540i touring which I regret selling last year. Sold it for double the amount I paid though with a good advert and nice photos after a proper clean!

I really fancied the 540, but the rarity and occasionally problematic engines put me off, I stuck with the bullet proof 3 litre. Buying sight unseen is exciting and also scary because you rely entirely on the description. But if youre handy with a spanner its not really too bad

[swampy442]

I turned down a 540i manual at 2.5k last year, mate of mine used it for a 'Ring tool lol

[swampy442]

pits said:

swampy442 said:

pits said:

Usually there are two little wires in the button itself that breaks, new stalk usually fixes it, if you had said 2 weeks ago you both could have had one but I lobbed them all in the skip, along with loads of other E39/8 parts, even an E38 petrol tank which didn't leak but no one wanted to come pick it up.

Ah cool, new stalk's aren't a lot so I'll look into that, thanks I know on the whole it doesn't make a lot of difference but I'd rather it's working if its fitted.

Im working away this week so in the mean time my track control arms and heater valves have turned up, thats this weekend sorted out

I'll have a look, I may have a few kicking about somewhere you can try.

Thank you very much

[swampy442]

Weekend job - heater valve. Painless, too 10 minutes, no need for an in depth how to. Obvious why the old one wasn't working.

On a side note everything Ive touched so far looks to be original, so Im assuming I'll be changing a lot of bits soon lol.

Looks like the troublesome intake pipe was replaced recently though




New valve vs old valve






Also had a look into the drivers door speaker not working, looks like there's no power getting to it so more invest required on that front

[swampy442]

The ABS snag, the error code was to do with the pressure switch circuit, I found this cable pulled out of the plug, and it goes to the pressure switch. Bingo. However the switch appears to be reading pressure? Unless its the wrong pressure

[swampy442]

Just a generic Ebay one, seems to work fine

New arms ready, thought I'd do them today but theres slightly more work involved than anticipated, but here's a look at the horrors that await







Also the rear inner lights are beyond recovery, but turns out that facelift wagon inner rear lights are pretty expensive!