Hey all,
Just thought I'd share a story with you guys.
It started about a week ago when my 2000 540i wagon started having some odd transmission issues— for some reason, once in a while when it's cold the transmission temperature sensor malfunctions and throws the transmission into an overheat mode. I looked into fixing it, which involved a $130 transmission harness + a bunch of fluid because I'd have to drop the transmission oil pan. So I figured instead I would just fix the problem permanently, with a manual swap.
I hopped on Craigslist, as I am apt to do, and found a few promising donor cars locally. Unfortunately, none of them were available by the time I called— cheap manual 540i's seem to sell really quickly in Phoenix. So I broadened my search to California and saw a listing in San Diego that caught my eye. It had no pictures but it was a 2000 540i/6 for $1500. The ad was short— it said that the car had 140k miles and that the clutch fan blew up and took out the cooling system. I got in touch with the seller and got some more information, along with the following three pictures:
It looked to be in decent shape, had a 6-speed manual, and a black interior. So of course I told the seller I was interested, and prepared to head out on Saturday to pick it up. I had just sold the Mustang GT a week prior, so I had a bunch of cash burning a hole in my pocket. I enlisted the help of my friend Graham to accompany me on this potentially sketchy adventure, and on Saturday morning we headed out to San Diego at 8am. I brought a bunch of cooling system components from various parts cars, along with a bunch of tools.
Halfway to San Diego I realized I left the cash at home, whoops! I called my girlfriend and she deposited the cash at a bank so I could withdraw it in San Diego. Crisis averted, phew! With that taken care of, we pressed on to San Diego. It was a pretty easy drive, and we arrived in San Diego around 1pm. We met the seller around Pacific Beach and took our first look at the car. The car had some tasteful mods like a strut tower brace, coilovers, and a muffler delete, and seemed to be well-maintained, with regular oil changes, new tires, and new spark plugs that were installed recently. Cosmetically it wasn't great because it had been sitting dirty outside for the longest time, but for the price I didn't really care. I paid the $1500, got the title, and got to work with Graham on fixing the cooling system.
When the clutch fan blew up, it caused quite a bit of damage to the cooling system— it left large holes in the hood, tore up the hood insulation, destroyed the fan shroud, shredded the expansion tank, and cut both radiator hoses. Moral of the story— replace your BMW's fan clutch if it's still original! Graham and I moved quickly, removing all of the destroyed components within 30 minutes and tossing the busted parts into somebody's household trash can, since were literally working on the street.
Here are the new speed holes that the old clutch fan created:
With the new (used) clutch fan installed:
The scene on the street:
We did try to use as many old parts as possible to keep costs down, but we didn't have any good radiators so I had to buy some knockoff Onix brand one for like $100. Seems to fit decently.
After installing most of the new parts, we realized that the expansion tank I brought was no good— it was missing the overflow hose nipple. A quick run to O'Reilly's solved that, with a brand new Dorman brand expansion tank for $79. We also bought 3 gallons of pre-mixed Zerex G05 coolant. With the cooling system fully reassembled, we filled it via the upper radiator hose, which took care of a lot of the air that would be present in a new radiator. Bleeding went pretty quickly— we didn't even make a huge mess!
Now that the cooling system was mostly sorted, we started up the car for the first time. It started right up but ran pretty rough and threw a check engine light immediately. The cluster display had a lot of missing pixels, but there were enough pixels left that I could monitor the coolant temperature in cluster test #7. I also plugged in my code reader to check on the engine codes. There were 7 codes, all related to various misfires. I cleared the codes and then we limped the car across the street to put some gas in it since the tank was almost completely empty. With some fresh Shell gas (RIP my wallet) it seemed to run a bit better, but the CEL kept flashing repeatedly which was mildly concerning. We drove the car back to the previous street and continued to work on it there.
Graham kept bleeding the cooling system as the car was reaching operating temperature, while I kept the code reader plugged in to see why the engine was running so poorly. Eventually we narrowed it down to cylinder #5 misbehaving. I had the idea of swapping the coils around to see if the code moved, and sure enough, the code moved to a misfire on cylinder #6. Unfortunately I had forgotten to bring extra coils with me, as I've never really had one fully fail before (I guess I'm lucky?). After making some calls, I found an Autozone that had an ignition coil in stock, so we parked the 540i/6, piled into the wagon and drove across town. The first Autozone we went to had the completely wrong coil, but we eventually found an Autozone with the correct ignition coil— it was a Duralast coil and it was $59. Not the worst thing ever, especially considering the lack of choices on a Saturday afternoon. Honestly, I'm impressed at the fact that I was able to find two fairly E39-specific parts at these "normal" parts stores.
As an aside, there was a guy who parked next to the touring in an Individual Imola Red F10 528i. I've never seen an F10 in Imola Red so that was pretty cool. You can easily see how much brighter Japan Rot is, kinda interesting.
After crawling back across town through traffic (traffic at 5pm on a Saturday? Why not, it's California!) we installed the new ignition coil, and the 540i/6 suddenly ran buttery smooth. No more shaking, no more CEL, and the coolant temperature seemed to stay steady at 103º - 105ºC. Now that I was certain it wasn't going to overheat (at least not immediately) I turned on the AC, which worked surprisingly well.
With this triumphant victory in mind, Graham and I headed to the nearest In N Out for a well-deserved meal (we hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was 6pm at that point). After a tasty break, we hit the road, heading back to Phoenix. Graham drove my 540it, and I drove my new-to-me 540i/6. We drove for a bit and the 540i/6 had no issues. It drove nicely and everything worked fine, with my only real complaint being the alignment. Still though, a running/driving 540i/6 with 140k and a clean title for $1500? Score!
We stopped at a gas station on the outskirts of San Diego to top up for the long drive home. If you think filling up one E39 with Shell Premium in California hurts, try filling up two! Ouch. I also took it as an opportunity to grab a few more pics of the car:
The paint definitely isn't in great shape, but for the price it doesn't matter too much. I find it funny how this is my third Anthracite Gray E39, having owned an M5 and another 540i/6 in this color before. This one has a black interior though, unlike the previous two that had a caramel interior and a gray interior, respectively.
The ride home was pleasantly uneventful, with both cars running excellent. The 540i/6 never got hotter than 105ºC, even when going up the mountains outside of San Diego at like 85mph. We both did 85-90mph most of the way home, since the roads were blissfully empty. Even though the 540i/6 is on some low-end coilovers, it actually rode pretty nicely. It also did way better than the wagon in terms of fuel economy— by the time we got home, the wagon had the gas light on, whereas the 540i/6 still had about a quarter of a tank left. I'm sure part of that extra efficiency is the decreased drivetrain loss of a manual, and the other part is the 540i/6 being lighter and having the standard 2.81 diff versus the wagon's upgraded 3.15 diff.
This was a nice view on the ride home:
It's crazy to think that we pulled this off so well; there are so many things that could have gone wrong. It's a fun adventure to buy a car sight-unseen, fix it, and then road trip it home. It's like my very own episode of Roadkill. Again, a big thanks to Graham for coming along for the ride, he was a big help in fixing the 540i/6 and was a good sport about it all.
So what are my plans for this 540i/6? A manual swap for my 540i wagon is the eventual goal. But this 540i/6 drives so well that I might just enjoy it for a bit (at least until something breaks). Gutting a perfectly running car is hard, even if it is a little beat-up. I've been daily driving it to work for a few days, it's nice to drive a BMW manual again.
