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What did you do to your E39 today?


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A recent development has been lose of speedo combined with DSC and ABS lights coming on; the online wisdom is that this is caused primarily by a failing rear nearside (left) wheel speed sensor failing. Pricey little buggers from BMW but I have fitted it just now and off on the school run for a test drive. Hopefully all will be well.

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On 01/03/2023 at 12:13, Starbuck88 said:

Gave it a wipe over inside and used a disinfecting citrus odour bomb just to freshen everything up. They are just such a well sorted vehicle.

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Got to say, as an E61 lurker...that does look tidy. I miss my old E39 sometimes! :)

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Finally did the rear discs and pads, they had nothing on them at all once I got them off.

 

I also pulled the inner liners off and they were full of crud just sat on top of the sills, found a tiny patch of bubbling so stripped it back, treated it and painted it for future proofing! Get your wheel arch liners off and clean behind them, really poor design how they let wet mud sit there and it doesn't drain

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First oil & filter change in 2 years for the B10, mileage done since the last one is only 5,500 miles - says more about how little I drive the car I suppose! 

The engine is totally dry behind the drip tray which is nice, with the oil cooler fitted the oil filter housing no longer drains so I had to syphon the oil out of there.

7.5l of Castrol Edge 5/30 added which isn’t far short of the 8l it’s meant to hold.

 

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On 23/03/2023 at 16:13, Sharkfan said:

A recent development has been lose of speedo combined with DSC and ABS lights coming on; the online wisdom is that this is caused primarily by a failing rear nearside (left) wheel speed sensor failing. Pricey little buggers from BMW but I have fitted it just now and off on the school run for a test drive. Hopefully all will be well.

This didn't work and the further symptoms and warning codes meant it was the ABS control unit on the back of the block. 

Over £1400 new and that's if they're available so off to Tim Pollock who whizzed me down a second hand replacement today in time for me to swap it in then drive over to my Indy, Lee Shannon, who squeezed me in and coded and set it up. 

Drove back home in torrential rain but the E39 was sure-footed and efficient through it all and no warning lights at all.

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Installed a new piece of living room furniture today.... Actually had to remove this to fix the seat twist, what a fiddly job...

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But thankfully all sorted and re installed, I also restored the leather whilst it was out!

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MOT today, car is on 137k, I have covered 35k in the 11 years I’ve owned it.
 

The car always sails through the MOT but over the years the rear brake pipe over the fuel tank sometimes gets mentioned so one day I’ll have to bite the bullet and get it replaced. A few years ago I got in there with a dremel to clean it up and have used BH Hydrate 80 & Electrox on it so tbh I don’t see it as a big problem.

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Rear wiper had reached the point of staggering across the screen so a strip down to remove the wiper spindle from the bearings. Didn't look like there's ever been grease in there, the 'top' of the spindle was full of accumulated crud. All cleaned up with some fine  Emery paper wrapped around screwdriver, copper greased and reassembled. Back to a nice smooth action.. Next, investigation as to why the hatch glass won't open.20230406_160457.thumb.jpg.76408c2d9c2d2fa53d980d551dd2e512.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Chasing an E3/E4 fault code.

Recent smoke test revealed nothing obvious, so as part of preventative maintenance replaced all coils ( Bosch ), upstream Lambdas ( Bosch ) and the MAF (VDO).

Deleted the codes, but yet to see if this has been effective.

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1 hour ago, Hippy said:

Chasing an E3/E4 fault code.

Recent smoke test revealed nothing obvious, so as part of preventative maintenance replaced all coils ( Bosch ), upstream Lambdas ( Bosch ) and the MAF (VDO).

Deleted the codes, but yet to see if this has been effective.

Worth checking the vacuum line going to the fuel filter - smoke coming out of these isn't really visible from the engine bay

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Little clean, we have a hosepipe ban still where I am and didn't know we were actually allowed to use jetwashers at home as they use less water than directly out the hose, so thankfully I can get back to keeping her looking like someone owns it!

However a good wash after so long has highlighted some bodywork issues which I'll have to attack once we get more stable warm weather.

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Hoping next month to be able to get the alloys sorted back to silver. Previous owner had these painted and I've never been keen. I hope to get this back to OEM+ as possible.

Headlights I polish every 6 months so need to do them again and I am hoping to have the chap on here do EVO xenon replacements and new lenses but funds are looking too tight at the moment.

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On 24/03/2023 at 17:36, chris93 said:

I also pulled the inner liners off and they were full of crud just sat on top of the sills, found a tiny patch of bubbling so stripped it back, treated it and painted it for future proofing! Get your wheel arch liners off and clean behind them, really poor design how they let wet mud sit there and it doesn't drain

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I've just noticed a few small bubble in the same place on mine. Very minor surface only, had a good look around. Loathe to pay a body shop god knows how much for this small job so I want to tackle it myself as well. Did you use a grinder or just wire brush attachment on a drill to strip it back?

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17 hours ago, PZero said:

I've just noticed a few small bubble in the same place on mine. Very minor surface only, had a good look around. Loathe to pay a body shop god knows how much for this small job so I want to tackle it myself as well. Did you use a grinder or just wire brush attachment on a drill to strip it back?

For bits on mine I used a wire brush on a drill. Less aggrives than a grinder and gets it all off. Then some rust converter over the top. As mine is black, I then used POR15 in some places over the top and it's not come back or spread in 2 years now.

However other places have started to go, so this summer I'm going to make an effort to attack every bit I can find, then do my best with a bit of filler and a colour matched rattle can.

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  • 1 month later...
4 hours ago, duncan-uk said:

Yesterday re-sealed the rear door membrane, did the drivers rear a while ago but seems the passenger was leaking too.

Need to sort the coding and cill and consider its future...

Consider it's future, well, it won't depreciate, unlike your F11.

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As opening the bonnet was getting hard I decided to get it fixed.

If you ever have to do this either roll your sleeves up and get ready for a messy nightmare where everything that can go wrong probably will, or dig deep and pay some other poor sod to do it.

For those who don’t know, there are are three cables; one from the cabin to the inner wing under the bonnet, one from there to the nearest catch and then another from the near catch to the far catch.

Quite a lot has to come off to get to the catches to replace the cables…

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On the way I discovered plenty of rusted screws and fasteners, as well as broken lower headlight brackets and eventually the cables…

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(they really shouldn’t look like that).

While I wait upon new fasteners and headlight brackets I decided to sort out the UV faded headlight lenses so I got baking…

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They are aftermarket covers so were a real PITA to get to fit but hopefully they are watertight. As I replaced the plastic adjusters 11 years ago with aluminium I hope I never have to bake E39 headlights ever again.

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Recently had a recurring EML recently and codes complaining about banks 1 and 2 fuel trim range exceeded, so here we go again... Yup, split intake at the resonator. Replacement ordered, hopefully nothing further required. 

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Had my rear arch/sill rust sorted by a bodyshop, just don't have the time to sort it myself.

Whilst at said bodyshop, in conversation I mentioned that I was on the look out for a 'solid' tailgate due to rust in both bottom corners of glass aperture (like I've got a chance of finding a good one anyway!), and he asked for a look. Said that they could cut those sections out and replace, which had not occurred to me as never heard of anyone dealing with this by any means other than replacing the tailgate. Anyone else had any experience of such work?

Would require pulling the wiring out to avoid it being damaged, which in turn is likely to damage iot anyway as we all know how these things go, and then me having to redo the wiring as well. 50/50 about it as a result, but as they've quoted a price around the cost of a decent replacement gate (from schmiedmann for example, as found nowt in better condition over here in UK), not ruled it out.
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On 29/03/2023 at 20:45, Sharkfan said:

This didn't work and the further symptoms and warning codes meant it was the ABS control unit on the back of the block. 

Over £1400 new and that's if they're available so off to Tim Pollock who whizzed me down a second hand replacement today in time for me to swap it in then drive over to my Indy, Lee Shannon, who squeezed me in and coded and set it up. 

Drove back home in torrential rain but the E39 was sure-footed and efficient through it all and no warning lights at all.

Who did the coding? I need same doing. 

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