ZOOMX5 wrote: That poor wagon! For sure the owner couldn't keep up with the maintenance costs. You have to pay to play with these. It looks like an easy save if you can pick it up, seems clean. Here is my pride and joy, looked for her for years! 2000 540iT M Sport with a few bits from the later E39's added, like NAV and HID headlights.
That is fantastic!
I've been shopping e39s for a while now. Another terrifying e39 V8 thing is cam chain guides and tensioners. Evidently getting to them is about equal to mounting an assault on Mount Karakoram.
I'm looking for a 530i wagon now. I understand the I6s.
motomoron wrote: I've been shopping e39s for a while now. Another terrifying e39 V8 thing is cam chain guides and tensioners. Evidently getting to them is about equal to mounting an assault on Mount Karakoram. I'm looking for a 530i wagon now. I understand the I6s.
You'll be looking for a long time; there's no such thing as a 530i Touring. 528i until MY2000, 525i MY2001 to MY2003, and 540i across the whole production range (auto only in the U.S.).
What are the cliff notes on the manual conversion for a 540i with a blown tranny?
^ if i had to take a guess the first step would be: "Remove $3-4k from wallet." 
I think it's cheaper than that - you can get 6-speed transmissions for under 1k these days as more 540i's end up in the yard. I expect a full swap could be done for a fair bit under 2k.
I would have sold you a comPlete 5spd swap for 1400 with everything needed.-
There are others out there for that price.
What vintage of the 540's V8 ate cylinder liners in the cold weather? Boston gets kinda cold, doesn't it?
That was 94s & a year of so older(& perhaps newer).
IIRC the 3 liters had worse problems thatn the 4 liters. It was a Nikasil vs. Alusil block issue. I don't remember which was the bad one but my '94 530i had the bad one.
Fortunately for me BMW extended engine warrenty on these cars to 100 K or 7 years from in-service date. I took mine to the dealer around 6 years & 11 months from in-service date & picked it up a month later on the 7th anniversary of in-service date with a fresh block & about $1000 worth of "while you're in there" stuff done.
I'd think that any BMW v-8 from back then has had short block replaced by now & if it hasn't & hasn't failed by now, it's not going to.
njansenv wrote: I think it's cheaper than that - you can get 6-speed transmissions for under 1k these days as more 540i's end up in the yard. I expect a full swap could be done for a fair bit under 2k.
I've been told that e39s are new enough that an auto-to-manual swap isn't that easy...the electronics need a bunch of modifications as well.
If you remove the dead hookers from the cargo area, it will return to proper ride height. 
You'll need to log in to post.
