BMW E39 M5 touring build #2

[Court_S]

BSSBMW said:

Erm....... here we go again!

Ace.

The touring had been through a hell of a transformation already to be fair.

[McGee_22]

In for the watch - amazed you're going to try do this again - will there be many major additional issues going from a I6 to S62 rather than the previous M62 to S62?

[BSSBMW]

Thanks everyone for the comments!

Ebay is a dangerous place to spend time on! I was trawling looking for E39 parts for another V8 E39 I recently bought when I stumbled across the carbon black M5 pictured with the grey touring. It is by far the rustiest E39 I've seen in person but I guess thats the result of spending a large chunk of its life in Scotland and on the Kent coast so it was not worth saving despite being mechanically very good, well maintained with a very good service history.

Ideal donor car then!

McGee_22 said:

In for the watch - amazed you're going to try do this again - will there be many major additional issues going from a I6 to S62 rather than the previous M62 to S62?

Not particularly. There are some additional wiring alterations in the engine bay and the lower steering column spindle is different but other than that its no different from the same process and combination of parts used on converting the 540i i did last time.

It is easier to get an S62 in and running in a V8 E39 than a six cylinder one if you are happy to use 535i or 540i gearbox, prop and diff but if you want it all M5 then it all has to come out so no difference really.

The crucial thing is to start with a post 9/98 built petrol E39 with DSC not ASC to minimise the amount of wiring alterations required and ideally a post 4/99 E39 as that will have a diamond key and allow the use of a facelift round airbag steering wheel.

Last time both the M5 and the 540iA were '99 built cars which had the 20 pin diag connector under the bonnet, this time round the M5 is a '00 built car and the touring a '02 built car, both of which do without the 20 pin connector under the bonnet.

[BSSBMW]

After life getting in the way through December I've finally managed to kick start the M5 touring build by starting off pulling the donor M5 apart.



This September 2000 built M5 is an early facelift car so has the later S62 engine with its revisions to piston rings and VANOS as well as doing away with the under bonnet 20 pin diagnostic connector and having the later grey dial instrument cluster, ideal as the touring is an April 2002 built car.


S249A Multifunction f steering wheel
S302A Alarm system
S423A Floor mats velours
S430A Interior/outside mirror with auto dip
S459A Seat adjustment, electric, with memory
S488A Lumbar support, driver and passenger
S494A Seat heating driver/passenger
S500A Headl.washer system/intensive cleaning
S520A Fog lights
S522A Xenon Light
S534A Automatic air conditioning
S555A On-board computer V with remote control
S710A M Sports steering wheel, multifunction
S775A Headlining anthracite
S785A White direction indicator lights
S853A Language version, English
S265A Tyre pressure control (TPC)
S358A Climate comfort windscreen
S403A Glass roof, electrical
S416A Roller sun visor, rear lateral
S428A Warning triangle and first aid kit
S441A Smoker package
S508A Park Distance Control (PDC)
S609A Navigation system Professional
S620A Voice control
S629A Car telephone (GSM) w card reader, front
S672A CD changer for 6 CDs
S677A HiFi system Professional DSP
S690A Cassette holder
L812A National version Great Britain
S863A Dealer List Europe
S877A Omission of non-combined operation
S880A On-board literature, English
S995A Dummy-SALAPA

A pretty well specced M5 with black heritage leather and the M5 specific Bruyere wood trim. Good history with every single service invoice from new, clutch replacement just before it was taken off the road a couple of years ago but its body has not fared well............









Out of its twenty odd years, its spent roughly half of those spilt between Aberdeen and Margate so plenty of salty moist air to help it fester! By far the most rustiest E39 I've seen in person, so bad it had to be lifted on the floor pans at the rear rather than the jacking points. A stark contrast to the tourings body condition.



Interior gutted so the complete body loom could be removed so the relevant wires can be extracted from their plugs to be transferred to the touring body loom like last time.



The S62 extracted from below.





As per the last build, the M5's boot floor has been cut out to be grafted into the touring in a factory finish.

[CB 987]

Great to see this underway, how rusty was the donor boot floor this time? I remember on the last build it seemed to require a lot of additional fabrication.

Cheers.

[BSSBMW]

CB 987 said:

Great to see this underway, how rusty was the donor boot floor this time? I remember on the last build it seemed to require a lot of additional fabrication.

Cheers.

About as bad as the last one. I have bought some new individual panels this time, as many as I could.

[Deano_BMW]

love the previous touring, I'm sure this one will be just as amazing.

I was very lucky to own an Oxford Green 6 Speed manual 540i touring. Should never have sold it. I know i have rose tinted glasses as I've owned a few but I still love the things, proper proper cars the E39's

[Ruskie]

Love these types of builds!

[Seek]

Subscribed... looking forward to following this project! :-)

RelentlessForwardProgress said:

Quite a transformation, Barry, and sterling grey looks really smart on it. There was a B10 V8 in sterling grey that was either stolen and damaged or needed an engine and complete reupholster… can only remember that it looked fantastic, yours is too after all of that work. The wheels really make it.

I believe your're thinking of these 2 cars...

https://www.alpina-archive.com/?p=3642&nmt=B10...

https://www.alpina-archive.com/?p=3376&nmt=B10...

Edited by Seek on Wednesday 11th January 10:43

[Chunkychucky]

Glad work has commenced on this and it's to the same standard as last time!

Looking forward to the build progressing

[tvrfan007]

Looking forward to this progressing, I enjoy your threads and love the attention to detail it provides. You've got buyers queued up already! How come you're doing it again though, is this one for you?

Edited by tvrfan007 on Wednesday 11th January 13:04

[MiniOneSam]

I’m really pleased to see this - I believe I was the last person to own X641 DPN and drive it.

I had the absolute pleasure of daily driving my dream car for 2 years. When the car was facing huge bills to get it structurally through an MOT, I just couldn’t afford it at the time, and I ended up swapping it with my friend Rob for (get ready for it) a 2007 Mini Cooper S - a fair trade at the time, given the M5’s condition.

I shuddered as the values rose, but I’m sure we’ve all been there.

Rob wanted to get it back on the road, as someone who’s fairly handy, but I think even for him this was a project too big.

He said the car was sold to someone in Northampton, and I’m not sure if this is you?

I now drive my E91 320D Touring with it’s number plate W444 GON.

I truly couldn’t be happier to see the car being used for, ultimately, something I dreamed of doing.

Funnily enough, I was talking to my Dad about one day having something worthy of putting the plate on just 15 minutes ago. At exactly the same time, the previous owner of the M5 WhatsApp’d me out of the blue with a link to this thread.

Life works in funny little ways, and it certainly seems like this was meant to be.

I wish you all the luck with the project, and would love the chance to see it when it’s done

Edited by MiniOneSam on Wednesday 11th January 14:33

[Quags]

Fantastic couple of threads, the level of your work is amazing!

Looking forward to seeing this one.

One comment, the placement of the M5 badge on the rear of the last one looked wrong to me for some reason, but what do I know!

Bravo good sir.

[six port]

Loving your work!

I have a zero rust Le Mans blue touring I’d love to give this treatment, fancy doing another one after ha ha

[BSSBMW]

Deano_BMW said:

love the previous touring, I'm sure this one will be just as amazing.

I was very lucky to own an Oxford Green 6 Speed manual 540i touring. Should never have sold it. I know i have rose tinted glasses as I've owned a few but I still love the things, proper proper cars the E39's

Thanks!
An Oxford green six speed 540i touring would have been a rare E39! The E39 is such a complete car which despite the design coming up for 27 years old, can make for reliable daily car and not feel really old. I guess that's why other than an E92 Alpina B3 and an F82 M4 ive not really moved on from this era of BMW for my daily drive.

Ruskie said:

Love these types of builds!

Seek said:

Subscribed... looking forward to following this project! :-)

Thanks!

Chunkychucky said:

Glad work has commenced on this and it's to the same standard as last time!

Looking forward to the build progressing

I didn't honestly think I would do another but the starts have aligned and here we are!

tvrfan007 said:

Looking forward to this progressing, I enjoy your threads and love the attention to detail it provides. You've got buyers queued up already! How come you're doing it again though, is this one for you?

Thanks! I've had a few people contact off the back of a single Facebook post showing interest if I decide to sell but I want to try and keep this one!

Quags said:

Fantastic couple of threads, the level of your work is amazing!

Looking forward to seeing this one.

One comment, the placement of the M5 badge on the rear of the last one looked wrong to me for some reason, but what do I know!

Bravo good sir.

Thanks! RE the rear M5 badge placement, it can be tricky to judge where something like that should sit when it was something that never way so I took measurements of where other models of E39 touring are badged and used the top of the inner lamp and the inside of the outer lamp as datum points as that is generally where other BMW's take their measurements from ie the outside of the car.

six port said:

Loving your work!

I have a zero rust Le Mans blue touring I’d love to give this treatment, fancy doing another one after ha ha

Thanks! I saw your thread, Le Mans is rare for a touring and an ideal base for an M5T build as Le Mans was an M5 colour.

[BSSBMW]

MiniOneSam said:

I’m really pleased to see this - I believe I was the last person to own X641 DPN and drive it.

I had the absolute pleasure of daily driving my dream car for 2 years. When the car was facing huge bills to get it structurally through an MOT, I just couldn’t afford it at the time, and I ended up swapping it with my friend Rob for (get ready for it) a 2007 Mini Cooper S - a fair trade at the time, given the M5’s condition.

I shuddered as the values rose, but I’m sure we’ve all been there.

Rob wanted to get it back on the road, as someone who’s fairly handy, but I think even for him this was a project too big.

He said the car was sold to someone in Northampton, and I’m not sure if this is you?

I now drive my E91 320D Touring with it’s number plate W444 GON.

I truly couldn’t be happier to see the car being used for, ultimately, something I dreamed of doing.

Funnily enough, I was talking to my Dad about one day having something worthy of putting the plate on just 15 minutes ago. At exactly the same time, the previous owner of the M5 WhatsApp’d me out of the blue with a link to this thread.

Life works in funny little ways, and it certainly seems like this was meant to be.

I wish you all the luck with the project, and would love the chance to see it when it’s done

Edited by MiniOneSam on Wednesday 11th January 14:33

When I posted pics with the reg visible I did wonder if any of the previous owners would be on here and spot it so it is a delight to that someone has! Thanks for reaching out and not chastising me for chopping up what was once somebodies pride a joy.

I'm based in West Sussex but I bought the car almost blind from Rushden Northamptonshire from someone called Jason. He had owned the car a year or so but never got round to doing anything with it so decided to move it on.

[BSSBMW]

Yesterday was the end of the road for X641DPN.

[MDifficult]

Very much in for this. Loved the last one, can’t wait for this one

[MiniOneSam]

BSSBMW said:

When I posted pics with the reg visible I did wonder if any of the previous owners would be on here and spot it so it is a delight to that someone has! Thanks for reaching out and not chastising me for chopping up what was once somebodies pride a joy.

I'm based in West Sussex but I bought the car almost blind from Rushden Northamptonshire from someone called Jason. He had owned the car a year or so but never got round to doing anything with it so decided to move it on.

Ahh it sounds like you bought the car from the guy my friend sold it to - I guess it was too big of a project for him too.

Absolutely! Leo (who owned the car before me) found this thread and sent it to me - I know he still misses the car as well.

When I bought it, I think it was on 170,000ish miles? It was the cheapest in the UK and was far from a show car. But I knew I’d be daily driving it.

Once the structure was knackered, I knew it was terminal and that it would take either a lot of money, or a lot of time to fix, and that the car would either likely die or become a donor - and so I’m glad it’s lived on.

Although, I must admit, my heart hurt a little when I saw the picture of its shell being hoisted to its death But, I knew it was coming

I think I can safely say there are more people eager to see this thing complete than there will be people who are enraged by the process.

I’ll be following with great interest!

[BSSBMW]

With the M5 bound for China, it was strip out time for the Touring this weekend....



Load stripped out for the spare wheel well and battery tray to be cut out and replaced with M5 panels.



Everything from the gearbox back has been removed so exhaust, propshaft, brake and fuel lines, heat shields and and the rear axle.






One of the E39's Rust Achilles heels, the rear jacking points on the sills both in very good condition with only slight delamination of the outer and inner sill skins. No doubt there will be some corrosion inside the jacking points but they are both solid.



Rear axle loosely bolted back in for transportation purposes as it heads off to the bodyshop.