2003 BMW M5

[95naSTA]

Looks like some fantastic adventures.. I don't envy you being up fro 36 hours, as I've been there, but the road trips that come from that kind of thing are always memorable.

Amazing to see all the little fixes most people would let go. This is how I've been treating all of the cars under my care as well. Especially if it is usually just a question of time and effort. Always feels good to fix little stuff that makes the overall car appear far cleaner... Good hit of dopamine!

Seeing that butyl GIF gives me PTSD. Lol! One of my least favorite substances in cars. Although it does work well when it is fresh.

I wholeheartedly agree on every point. I was actually thinking about your road trips when I was planning mine.

The two tricks I've found for removing butyl that work that depend on the type are pulling it away fast/hard and also using a blob of it like that GIF to quickly tab at remainders of it. Either way it sucks though.


Well, fixing this was fun.

I finally narrowed down the head unit screen flickering issue to the PCB in the screen assembly.

I purchased an ebay head unit that was 'tested and working 100%' and replaced the LCD with the aftermarket one I installed previously. Ultimately this works with some headache and time wasted as detailed below.

First I plugged in and powered on the ebay unit to see what I was working with. The faceplate and overall appearance was good but it unfortunately had some dead pixels. Next I swapped the entire screen assembly from my original unit onto the ebay unit to see if the original problem had anything to do with the body of the head unit. There was no change so I knew 100% the issue was in the screen assembly. Next I swapped the screen PCBs only, installing the ebay PCB into the original assembly (that has a new LCD) with this assembly onto the original body. And it worked! Well.. not exactly. The display was upside down.. Next I decided to swap everything around so that I essentially had the ebay unit with the new LCD. The problem with this was the bracket that holds the faceplate controls and screen did not line up with the new screen screw holes.. So I wasted time here swapping the brackets. I put it all together and it's still upside down. I took it apart, clean and retighten, same thing.

I took a break and started looking at the pictures I took during this process only to realize the screens have the same screw pattern. The difference was in the bracket.. It turns out sometime between Feb 2001 and Sept 2002 (my original) they changed the bracket and PCB to run the screen upside-down. I also noticed that the older screen assembly only worked with a wiring extension and a longer ribbon cable. So, I swapped those cables over to the new screen, mounted it to the ebay screen assembly bracket to use with the ebay PCB. What I'm going to assume is the backlight power wires, orange and black, were too short to run to the plug on the PCB so I unhooked them from the center wiring stay for more slack and taped the black wire into place. There was no binding/pinching. With that sorted I mounted the ebay screen assembly to the ebay body and tested it out. Finally I was in business. The screen seems like it's maybe a mm shifted to the right but from my vantage point it's hard to tell. I'm sure this will be an easy fix but that's a project for future me.

So in summary, the entire screen assemblies will swap right over. The PCBs are specific to the screen mounting orientation.


Complete ebay unit



Swapping PCBs only



Ugh



20 year old electronics party



Screen bracket differences



LCD wiring differences (older up top)



Wires swapped



More slack



Orange and Black wires are tight but reach



Success

[Sirius]

Where do you find time to do all this stuff? I haven't seen any trail bike pics lately, so maybe that's suffering from your routine.

[95naSTA]

Lol.

Well the head unit thing was after the baby went to bed the other night until midnight.

The previous post was a push to do whatever I can on a day 'off' with baby in daycare. I've had zero bike time since I've gotten back to PA but I'm hoping I can get a couple rides in next month. I'll ride in the cold though.

My downtime is watching my son, taking him to the park etc. or sleeping. My wife and I take him out a bit too. Any other time to myself I always use to get into something.

[95naSTA]

One more issue creeped up a few weeks ago. I had intermittent check rear xxx light on the cluster that alternated between turn/brake/reverse and would disappear for a week or so at a time. It got to where I lost the brake and turn signal consistently, so it was time. I feared it was the light control module but it ended up being 2nd in line for probably least desirable cause. Water got into the connector at some point and thoroughly corroded the pins. I attempted to clean up the pins on the tail light but the center was so corroded that it snapped in half. On the tail light side, there was no way I was going to remove 100% of the corrosion without ruining the plastic housing. On the harness side, I took it apart to also try and clean the terminals but didn't really put a dent in it. With it all back together including dielectric grease it was the same or worse as before. It took some strategic wiggling to get it most to work and that wasn't going to work. Mashing all the terminal ends so they would bite the pins worked for everything but the reverse lights.

The cleanest way to permanently fix this definitely involved replacing the tail light. I went with a new Hella unit since I couldn't justify the going rate of used in comparison to new. Likely the best option for the harness side would have been to get new terminals and crimp them on since there's likely enough slack. I decided to splice and solder in a good/used pigtail with epoxy lined shrink tubing. Both tail light connectors were also packed with dielectric grease.

[95naSTA]

At 120k, I figured it was time to replace the original engine and trans mounts. It was definitely time.

[95naSTA]

A while back I got a code (no SEL) for the passenger side tank level sender. I've seen an example where cleaning didn't help and this issue lead to a no start. Of course the passenger side sender is the more expensive of the two but I decided to replace it to avoid any future issue. I tested the pot on the old sender but couldn't find a dead spot. Either way it's one less thing to worry about.





One day I'll remember to get hose clamp pliers before I mess with a fuel pump assembly but until then this wiper removal tool works.


I also tried getting a ///M decal on ebay but it wasn't close enough to just slap on.

[Sirius]

Bummer on the decal, that would be worth ~3% HP increase had it fit properly.

[95naSTA]

Haha. I ended up ordering a new emblem.. I also decided to pick up an OEM waterpump since they're going up in price the cost isn't much different compared to a good aftermarket part. BMW exponentially raises prices when supply goes down and I wanted to avoid that.. This has been on my mind since I had fun sourcing an alternator. The waterpump was the only other engine related thing I could think of that I may have a NLA/price hike issue with in the near future.

[Sirius]

...may have a NLA/price hike issue with in the near future.

Yeah, that's a problem we have to deal with when we have older/unique/discontinued cars. I haven't had to source any parts for my GXP, but I know there are things that are no longer available for it. Same with the 03 SSEi (thank God we have Andrew around!). There are even some things on my 03 Silverado I can no longer get. The 57 Chevy, on the other hand, I can pretty much get everything for that...but, ca-Ching, it can be pricey.

[95naSTA]

Yep, it's definitely an uphill battle. I've searched variations of 'oem 1995 bonneville' and 'nos 1995 bonneville' on ebay for a long while now and every year there's less and less. I was able to stockpile a fair amount of spare parts over the years though.
For the M5 body, excluding the bumpers and mirrors, I should have quite a while before I run into any used part finding issues. The E39 total production number is almost 1,500,000 worldwide. However getting an engine just got very hard in the past few years and you can't just rebuild them due to being Alusil.. I do plan on doing rod bearings around 130k as a preventative measure and possibly timing chain guides since they're the only things that have proven to wear before 200k.

I want to send this thing on another road trip this summer but I'm not sure which direction yet.

[95naSTA]

It ain't much but it was an itch I had to scratch.



I tried the sticker route a few posts back and was not impressed so I picked up a new emblem.

[Sirius]

I know I'll sleep better tonight.

[95naSTA]

Haha. There is no way you can be surprised by this point.

[95naSTA]

I've been going back and forth for years about springing for a square setup (9.5"/275mm wide all around) all while watching the price of Style 65 wheels rears go up. I decided I didn't want to wait for the price/availability to get worse and picked up a pair from i1Parts.com. One of my major concerns with refurbished wheels is how close they're able to get the shadow chrome to factory. I've seen plenty of attempts that get close and very few that are a match. Another M5board member has a thread with a not so ideal experience from i1parts but said the color match was spot on. I was hoping after a couple more years the color would still be perfect and any issues would be resolved. The color is definitely dead on in my opinion and overall I'm happy. I might run a DA over the mounting face on one or both but that's pretty minor to me. They had good comms, double confirmed my order and they shipped fast.

Now I just have to wait till April until my tires come off backorder.. and order some spacers+bolts. Rears up front require a 3mm spacer and most space the rears out 10mm.

[Sirius]

So in stock config the fronts are narrower than the back?

[95naSTA]

Yep, 8.5"/245mm up front stock.

[95naSTA]

A little update.

First is a quick fix to the headlight trim which had a broken clip. I just drilled a hole for a screw and added some epoxy lined shrink tubing so there wasn't metal on metal inside the fender.




I went to mount the new rear wheels in the back with H&R 10mm spacers but the hub-centric spacer bore made contact with the hub just before they seated against the rotor. I could maybe slide a couple sheets of paper between the spacer and the rotor. I'm not sure if the hat on the floating rotors I have is thinner or if people just torque it down without noticing but I wasn't comfortable with it. The point of contact was the corner of the hub radius hitting the inner chamfer of the spacer. I just took a grinding disc and added about 1mm of chamfer to the hub lip all the way around and got it to sit flush. From there, no issues mounting everything up.

I mounted the old rear wheels on the front with 3mm spacers as recommended to clear the struts and that worked but man is it close.. The nubs of the tire are high five-ing the strut. It may just be this particular tire design in the area just above where the bead seats. I hope the wheel bearings give me a heads up when they start to go. Some 'testing' didn't yield any rubbing so I guess we'll see how things go over time.

Passenger

Driver


While the front was in the air I did an oil change and decided to try and tighten the steering box slightly. That front end shimmy around 60 that I had last year seemed to either come back, or maybe I noticed it more or a combo of both. I've read that, although risky, this adjustment has helped people in the past. What I did was mark the set screw and locking nut, break the locking nut loose with a crows foot, tighten the set screw until I felt drag on the steering wheel then backed off the set screw to half way between there and stock. This ended up being maybe 30-45*.



The result is the shimmy is completely gone. A 120k stock suspension (with exception of 2 bushings) has no business being as tight or smooth as it is. I honestly think it was more in the wheel/tire replacement than the steering box adjustment but who knows. I did both at the same time because I had a road trip coming up and wanted to just try and get it resolved. The plan is to do a full suspension link/bushing refresh next year.




Now for that road trip. My wife son and I rented a house in Avon in the Outer Banks with some friends. None of us have ever been and I don't think anyone would have changed anything about the trip. The house was just over the dunes from the beach and within walking distance to whatever we needed. The water was much more clear than we're used to and we had a huge sand bar to mess around on. The sandbar went from about 5' to ankle height in just a few feet.




We decided to take the M5 on a ferry ride to Ocracoke Island, just south of Hatteras. This was the first time I've taken a car on a ferry and surprisingly it was actually free. The ride as cool and Ocracoke was definitely different from Hatteras. The beach was more flat, water was warmer and there was even less people.


Buddy putting out the vibe.


My son driving on the return ferry ride


On the way out of the Outer Banks we stopped at the Elizabethan Gardens, Fort Raleigh and the Lost Colony site on Roanoke Island.


We also stopped at the Wright Brothers National Memorial. We were able to use the same National Park pass we used for the 2k mile Cali road trip last year.


I was able to scoop up a work trip in VA on the way back and my wife son and I stayed in VA Beach. Nothing too eventful happened there but we got some more beach time in together in the evenings.

Overall the trip was great and I was happy to get some more family miles in the M5.

[Sirius]

Looks like a cool trip. While that tire clearance is probably fine, it would give me the heebeegeebees.

[95naSTA]

Thanks.

Yeah.. I'm not super pumped on it but at least it's near the thickest part of the sidewall.

For what it's worth my G35 was so low I was tapping upper control arms and rubbing tire, the i30 rubbed sidewall for years and I definitely rubbed through the front plastic wheel wells on the Bonneville.

[95naSTA]

There as been some recent traffic on m5board suggesting early ABS unit electronic failures are do to heat. Heat shields are available to purchase but some go the DIY route. I decided to take a stab at it. The material is 24x12" Design Engineering heat shield, p/n 11013. I wanted to allow for some air flow and also have it look decent aesthetically. I'm not sure the run going aft which covers 2 rubber brake lines will do much statically but it may help more dynamically while moving. At least the ABS electronics are pretty well blocked off. I think I have about 3 hours into it.









And yep my oil cap is seeping and I need to do VC gaskets.