BMW E61 Turbo Replacement - Pulling the N54, and Stripping the Engine

Once all the electrical and plumbing was out of the way, and the exhaust, heat shields, driveshafts and drive axles removed, it was time to pull the engine. I initially planned to leave the transmission in the car, but a leaking rear transaxle seal made me decide to pull it out with the motor. We hooked up the engine hoist to a load balancing beam so that we could easily change the lift point with respect to the center of gravity. This ended up working very well, and was essential when pulling the transmission with the engine. 

Starting the lift - this is as far as you can go without lowering the steering gear and engine support crossmember

One we started lifting, we quickly realized that the X-Drive front differential would not clear the steering box of the steering gear with the lower crossmember in the car. As soon as we dropped the crossmember - the engine and transmission popped forward without much effort.

Engine and transmission out of the car - complete with front differential and transaxle. Heavy combination.

Next step was to separate the engine from the transmission. We were having difficulty with this - and thought that we had left a bolt in - which ended up being the case. We actually snapped one of the aluminum bolts clean in the engine - the head was hidden behind a gusset on the side of the transmission - we didn't see it with the transmission resting close to the floor. This ended up not being an issue - as all these bolts need to be replaced anyway, and the broken bolt backed easily out of the hole - no problem extracting.

Transmission on a dolly with castors, steering rack and crossmember on the ground.

Beer time.

First order of business before putting the engine on the engine stand was to remove the rear crankshaft oil seal. I thought this had been leaking, but it turns out it was still sealing well at 185,000 km. I bought the new seal and will replace the seal anyway. You can see oil coming down from the top right of the head through the gap between the engine and the bellhousing - this oil was coming from the area of the rear turbo.  

This seal pops out easily with the assistance of a couple of screws drilled into the seal. 

Claw hammer to remove the seal using the screws

Old oil seal - oil grooves are still in reasonable condition. Will replace anyway.

Since all the fasteners on the block are going into aluminum, and my torque wrenches are about 25 years old - I decided to check and calibrate the torque wrenches before I took down my engine crane. I just clamped a small vice to the arm of the crane, and held the socket of the torque wrench in the vise. I then loaded the torque wrench using a 5 gallon bucket of water and steel weight - adding water until the torque wrench would click. I would then measure the weight of the bucket, and apply the factor of length to come up with the actual torque. My 1/2 torque wrench recalibrated nicely with a small adjustment, and I'm within about 2% of torque. My small 3/8 torque wrench seems to have lost it's linearity across the internal spring - I could not get it to 5% across the measurement range and discarded the wrench. Quick order to Amazon to get the Tekton 3/8 clicker torque wrench to get me through the job. 

 This morning I got onto removing the turbos from the block. This went pretty quickly without much hassle. One thing that I've noted with this whole process however - is that it's really handy to have a few different sets of torx and e-torx bits - because sometimes you need a long bit, sometimes you need a small short bit, just to fit into the limited spaces where you're working.

Short 1/4" drive torx bits to get into tight spaces. 

Long torx to get at the manifold bolts. 

 It took about 2 hours to strip everything off the right hand side of the engine, including the bearing support for the front right drive axle, and the differential from the other side.

 Two of the exhaust manifold studs stuck in the block with the E-Torx head broken off - needed to jam 2 nuts together to get these last two out.

Jamming 2 nuts together to remove last two exhaust studs.

 Oil stain on the front differential was coming from the top vent. I'll be replacing the vent along with the seals - already have the vent on order.

 Removing the pan was fairly quick - had to remove the power steering pump first.

Turbos, oil and cooling lines, differential and oil pan removed. 

 New problem encountered - looks like my head gasket is leaking oil from the front right corner of the motor. The area below the head gasket is wet, and I don't think it's come from anywhere else. With everything off the engine, especially the turbos, now is the time to do this.

More to follow. I'll start with replacing the front and rear main oil seals, the oil pan gasket, and do the intake valve walnut blast. I'm researching what's involved in doing the head gasket now.....

Sources and Links

I hope you found this post useful. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below. I answer all questions. If you're interested, you can help support this site by using the following links to Amazon.com in the United States. Turbo parts were supplied by Turner Motorsports. Other parts were supplied by Pelican, BMW Park Avenue in Brossard, and eEuroparts.

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BMW 535xiT Turbo Replacement Project - Prep for Pulling the Engine

I've gone past the point of no return now - will be pulling the engine to do the turbos, oil pan gasket, rear main seal, and as we'll see, maybe the front main seal as well. The past week I've pulled the bumper cover, radiator, air conditioning condensor, and all the coolers in front of the engine. Here's some photos showing what I've found.

Starting with the intercooler - this part is really easy to drop from underneath the radiator - you can do this with the bumper cover still in place. I estimate that the fins were about 30% blocked by a greasy slime of road grit and bugs.

Intercooler - removed from car before cleaning

 With the front bumper cover removed, you have acccss to the headlights and reinforcement bar. Removing the bumper cover isn't too difficult on LCI cars - 2 screws in each wheel well, 2 screws behind the inner fender up underneath the side of each headlight, 4 screws along the front above the fog lights, and about 5 screws along the front top underneath a plastic trim / seal panel.

Bumper cover removed

 Note the corrosion on the mounting sleeves of the SRS impact sensors, to the right of the headlight washers.

Headlight washer and SRS impact sensors

 SRS impact sensor corrosion.....

SRS impact sensor corrosion

These will need to be replaced, and I'll replace the hardware for good measure. 

 With the front reinforcement bar removed, I removed the AC condensor, radiator, transmission cooler, and power steering cooler. Note the crud along the bottom of the radiator.

Radiator - bottom 2" blocked with oily bug sludge

 As I'm proceeding with removing all the plastic trim parts, covers and hoses, I'm washing all the grit and grime off the parts so that when it comes time to put the car back together - everything can go smoothly. Nice thing about the wagon is that there is lots of space for all the plastic bits.

Parts removed from the car - cleaned and prepared for replacement.

 The transmission cooler won't be salvageable - the fins are completely blocked with road grit which didn't dislodge during cleaning. Since I won't be spending a few hours with a toothpick trying to clean each fin, I'll be replacing this part.

Tranmission cooler - completely blocked with road grit.

 With all the coolers removed, we can see the front of the engine nicely. I have a few more hoses left to remove, then I'll transfer my attention to removing the exhaust and getting ready to drop the transmission to access the bolts that fix the engine to the transmission.

Reinforement bar, headlights, radiator and coolers removed. Almost ready to pull the engine from up front

Looks like the front crank seal is weeping oil - hard to tell. Will see when I get the balancer off. 

 Organizing all the fasteners - I have some Plano tackle boxes which I've numbered the compartments. Every step of the way I'm noting my progress in the green notebook, and noting the hardware removed at each step. This should make reassembly easier.

Plano organizers for hardware

 There is about 15 to 20% of the steel hardware which is corroded and will need to be replaced. I'll look up all the fasteners on RealOEM and put in an order through my dealer for these.

Hardware removed from the car. 

 I have a pretty good view of the intake side of the front turbocharger - note the crud below the inlet - this has been leaking oil for a while. Will be interesting to see what this looks like when the engine is out of the car.

Front turbo - inlet side. 

More to follow - I'll do a post every few days as I proceed through this.

Sources and Links

I hope you found this post useful. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below. I answer all questions. If you're interested, you can help support this site by using the following links to Amazon.com in the United States. Turbo parts were supplied by Turner Motorsports. Other parts were supplied by Pelican, BMW Park Avenue in Brossard, and eEuroparts.

 

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BMW E61 535xiT Wagon - Turbo Replacement, Cooling and VANOS Repairs

My 5 Series wagon just hit 185,000 km (115,000 miles), and I've had an engine light (low boost error) for the past 4,000 km. A trip to the dealer confirmed that I had a worn waste gate bushing. corroborated by the unmistakable waste gate rattle sound on acceleration. I was returning from a camping trip with the kids and I got on the phone with Turner Motorsports and discussed the turbo replacement options.

N54 Front Turbo Oil Leak

I decided to replace the turbos with new Mitsubishi OEM units - identical to the BMW part but at half the price.I thought about what work I would do while having the front end apart, and I added the following to the work order:

1. Walnut blast the intake valves;
2. Replace the radiator, expansion tank, thermostat and upper / lower coolant hoses (due to the damage to the radiator fins behind the grille and age). I've already replaced the coolant pump about 2 years ago;
3. Replace the VANOS (variable valve timing system) solenoids;
4. Replace all the drive train fluids - engine, transmission, transaxles
5. Ignition - plugs and coils
6. Do a good inspection and replace any leaking drive train seals.

I'll have to keep the car for another 5 years to justify the investment, no worries considering the later 5 series wagons are no longer imported to North America, and the E63 AMG wagon is a bit out of my snack bracket... I figured this project would justify the purchase of some new tools, so number one on the list was a Quickjack car lift system. I went with the BL-5000 EXT - which I measured to fit just long enough to hit the lift points on the 5 series wagon.

Setting up the Quickjack lift took about an hour - you have to add the quick connect fittings to the ends of the the hydraulic hoses and pumps, fill the reservoir with hydraulic fluid or transmission oil, and test the system. Everything went together smoothly, with no leaks from any of the hose connections.

Quickjack BL-5000 EXT unboxed and ready for assembly

Ready for the first lift with the Quickjack

With the lift tested - and with the engine and transmission still warm - I proceeded with a compression test of all cylinders before dropping the engine and transmission oil.

Engine covers, air filter housing and intake duct work removed to access the plugs, coils and throttle valve.

I removed the covers and intake in order to remove the coils and plugs, and access the throttle valve to be able to jam it open with a plastic pry tool. I also removed the fuel pump fuse - #72 on this car, so that I wouldn't be injecting fuel while doing the compression test. Everything went smoothly - starting with removal of the cabin air filter housings, the cowl cover, the engine cover and finally the air filter housing.

Three of the coils had been replaced last year along with a leaking valve cover. I'll be replacing all coils as a set, along with new plugs. 

My 10 year old daughter held my iPhone and took videos of the compression gauge during each test - so that I could see the results after cranking the engine. Results of the compression test are as follows, from cylinder 1 to 6:

170, 170, 165, 175, 170, 175 psi.

All in all - not bad variation - in spec for this vehicle. I wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting my time and money replacing the turbos...

With the compression test done, I drained the engine oil and transmission oil - and sampled both to send out for oil analysis. I'm interested to see the condition of the oil, particularly the lifetime transmission fluid, and to get some indication if there is any abnormal wear.

Oil bottles with samples ready to ship to the lab.

One thing I did find was lots of oil in the main intake pipe at the throttle body. This could be an indication of oil leaking from the bearings in the turbochargers - another indication that the turbos are ready to be replaced.

Lots of motor oil in the intake piping. 

I'll probably be at this project for a week or two - so I'll be doing regular updates as the work progresses.

Sources and Links

I hope you found this post useful. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below. I answer all questions. If you're interested, you can help support this site by using the following links to Amazon.com in the United States. Turbo parts were supplied by Turner Motorsports. Other parts were supplied by Pelican, BMW Park Avenue in Brossard, and eEuroparts. Oil analysis by Blackstone Labs.

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Adding Trailer Light Harness to the BMW 5 Series E60 E61 Touring

I've had my 1 1/2" trailer hitch installed for three years now, I use it regularly with my receiver mount bike rack, but everytime I needed to tow - I needed to use the Subaru Outback because I never got around to installing the wiring. So - camping trip with the kids planned for this summer, so I was forced to get on the lighting controller installation.

Vehicle connections are on the left side - black - 12V, green - right turn, red - stop, yellow - left turn, brown - tail, white - ground.

Curt Powered, Circuit Protected Taillight Converter, Trailer connections right side, vehicle connections left side.

I thought I'd post a few tips to help anyone out with selecting tapping points for the lighting controller.

Green lead on the Curt adapter - right turn - I found the blue / brown wire to the right signal light right at the connector to the right side signal light connector, just above the trunk battery. 

Stop light (red wire) connected to White / Brown and Running Lights (Brown Wire) connected to Black / Brown at the right rear signal light connector

Ensuring a good ground - scuffing the paint around the ground lead connection to bare metal

Reverse lights (not needed for the Curt adapter, but used in the 7 pin plug connection) in the wiring harness above the battery, right rear of the trunk, white / yellow wire. This is also useful for tying in a reverse light camera. 

Use a bit of aluminum foil to deflect heat from the heat gun when shrinking the butt crimp connectors, to protect trim and other wiring. 

Following installation - neaten up the installation with some black PVC wire wrap. 

And that's all there is to it. Once installed, make sure you test to make sure all is working correctly. You can purchase these inexpensive testing plugs online, this one is made by Curt as well.

Light testing adapter. Running lights / stop and turn signal combination lights. 

2 Year Update

Still working perfectly. Did a cross country tent trailer camping trip with the kids - everything worked great. Good quality parts. 

Sources and Links

I hope you found this post useful. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below. I answer all questions. If you're interested, you can help support this site by using the following links to Amazon.com in the United States.

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Installing the Tekonsha P3 Brake Controller in the 5 Series BMW E60 E61 Touring

Let's get the first question out of the way... Why? I've had my 2010 BMW 535xiT for almost 5 years now, and there is no sign that BMW will be importing the next generation 5 series wagon to North America - so I've decided to keep the BMW and run it into the ground. I purchased it at 78,000km, I'm at 175,000km now - averaging about 20,000km per year, so I figure I'll take it to at least 300,000km and really get my money's worth out of it. So - I already had the 1 1/2" receiver hitch installed and get routine service out of it with the bike rack, and I decided to properly set up the car for towing. There's going to be the guys out there that will say you should go out and get yourself an F150 or the like - and I've thought about this quite a bit. The 535xiT weighs 4100 pounds, has 300HP, and most importantly, 300 torques all the way from 1500 to 5000 rpm. Plenty for towing up to 3000lbs with the correct hitch. Oh - and the 535 touring is also equipped with airbag rear suspension, on board air compressor and self levelling suspension control.

The completed Tekonsha P3 Brake Controller Installation, Console Mounted, Passenger side of the Shifter

So - on we go.

Locating the controller - you want the controller within sight and reach of the driver, to be able to actuate the manual brake lever on the bottom of the unit for testing and calibration. One limitation of this controller is that it has to be aligned with the travelling direction of the vehicle (display perpendicular to the direction of travel) so that the inertial sensors work properly. The unit can be rotated up or down a full 360 degrees as long as the unit is aligned along the travelling axis. I originally thought I would install the unit under the drivers side dashboard (below the steering wheel) and there were a few nice options to do so - however - there is almost no clearance below the wheel between the drivers legs. You could easily avoid the unit installed under the steering wheel, but if you ever got in an accident, the placement of the control unit under the steering wheel could really mess up your knees - so - I looked for a better alternative.

I did a quick search on cell phone mounts for the E60 / E61 and found a nice placement to the right (passenger side) of the shifter - so I decided to fabricate a bracket out of aluminum sheet.

First step in bracket fabrication - hook over the leather border on the console, fit into the gap between the wood trim and the console edge. 

Final shape of the bracket, with a small hook to fit under the carpet trim on passenger side of the cabin. 

I glued a baseplate to the top of my bracket to take the screws from the Tekonsha mounting bracket, using isocyanate glue

You can see where the second Neodymium magnet will be fastened to the bracket - make sure you mark the rotation of the magnet with the correct field orientation - so when you mound the magnet on the back side of the bracket, it will engage with the hidden magnet with full force (N to S, S to N). 

 Now - onto wiring. The brake controller needs a battery connect, a ground connection, a brake signal from the brake light switch, and a switched line back to the back of the car, the brake connection on the trailer connector. I first tackled the brake light signal. This took a whole lot longer than what I expected, because the brake pedal switch on the BMW E60 / E61 is not connected directly to the brake lights. It's a double pole switch which switches to ground on one pole, and switches a signal between two control boxes - comfort access and lighting control module. So - I decided against tapping into the brake light switch wiring and tap into the brake light wiring instead.

There are four brake light bulbs on the 5 series BMW, and a single high mount brake light. Since the BMW has a light bulb failure detection feature, each individual light bulb has it's own feeder wire. That means that five separate brake light wires go from the lighting control module located up front to the left of the brake pedal, all the way to the back of the car. I decided to tap into the larger of the two brake light wires feeding the left rear brake light bulbs, this wire is 0.75mm diameter, gray wire with green stripe. I found this wire on the way out of the lighting control module.

Gray wire, green stripe, leaving connector to lighting control module. I've cut the wire and tapping the signal wire which will run to the Tekonsha P3 stop signal (red wire). 

By the way - there are two gray wires with green stripes in this section of harness, one is larger than the other, you need to tap into the thicker wire (0.75mm diameter). Don't ask me how I found this out.

Heat shrink butt crimp connectors - I use two layers of aluminum foil to protect the rest of the wires in the harness from overheating. 

 Now - I needed 20A feed, and a good ground. Just to the right of the center console, on the passenger side of the car, there is a conventional 12V power outlet up underneath the dashboard. Instead of tapping a new fuse on the fuse box behind the glove box, I simply crimped two space connectors on the Tekonsha harness and tapped into the connector for the 12V power outlet. Brown wire on the car harness is ground - connect to the white wire of the Tekonsha harness, and the other wire is the battery feed (12V) to the black wire on the Tekonsha harness. SIMPLE AND QUICK!!

12V power and ground - I just removed the connector from the passenger side 12V power outlet, and tapped into the connector using standard crimp on spade connectors. 

 Next - you have to run a minimum 14gauge wire back to the trailer connector. I ran this wire along the passenger side of the car. Pelican parts has some nice tutorials on how to remove the door sill trim - really useful - just google them - and I ran the wire along underneath all the door sill trim.

Use a coat hanger to help run the wires through B pillar trim without removing the trim piece

Tape the wire you're pulling to a section of coat hanger wire - to help feed the wire under the luggage compartment side wall trim.

Installation of the 7 pin connector underneath the car, to the right of the hitch receiver. I decided to trim the bracket to make the installation a bit easier. 

The completed 7 pin connector installation - bracketed to the underbody cover which hides the battery box and air suspension air compressor. 

 So - with all the wiring completed, back to the final bracket installation. I decided to have the aluminum bracket held in place using two neodymium magnets, one underneath the console side carpet trim, one underneath the Tekonsha mounting bracket.

I used my mythbusters / Adam Savage trick of mixing baking soda with Isocyanate glue to thicken the glue, and provide gusseting for the magnet. This is the backside of the thin carpet trim piece which runs along the passenger side footwell. 

Conclusion

With the brake controller installed and powered up, here's what it looks like in the 5 series. 

Powered up and tested, brake controller head unit conveniently located to the right of the shifter.

The Tekonsha P3 has a nice voltage troubleshooting screen under the help menu - will tell you your battery voltage, and stop light voltage. 

I also installed a Curt lighting adapter to provide the turn signals to the trailer adapter, I'll write a separate post on that installation, and one on the operation of the brake controller.

Sources and Links

I hope you found this post useful. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section below. I answer all questions. If you're interested, you can help support this site by using the following links to Amazon.com in the United States.

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