Barn Find BMW

#1
I drug this thing home a couple of months ago for $1,000. Its been a fun little project but I have definitely neglected the Jeep. Its a 2001 X5, 4.4i. It was parked and forgotten about 10 years ago for unknown reasons. Mileage was unknown as the cluster pixels had failed. The inside was completely covered in mold and there was a huge rats nest under the hood. Thankfully the rats nest was made out of old furniture that was in the carport and not parts from the car.
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The first thing I did was obviously clean it up best I could and replace the battery. I had a friend who owns a shop clean the fuel tank out for me and we found the pickup had disintegrated so it got a new fuel pump and surprisingly it started right up. All four tires were cut so I ordered a set of Continentals for it, changed the oil, changed transmission filter/fluid/pan gasket, flushed the brakes, installed a timing chain tensioner and removed incorrectly wired sat radio.
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The mold surprisingly came right off.
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#3
I sent the cluster to a company called bavtek to have it rebuilt for $150.
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Turns out the car has 189K miles however it drives fantastic. It's a really fun car to drive and fast as hell. I have had to battle through some check engine codes here and there but all in all everything has been going very well. Fingers crossed. The range selector for the transmission doesn't want to work when cold and puts the car in trans safe mode sometimes but seems to be doing it less and less the more I drive it. If it keeps up I will order a new selector switch.
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I've compunded it, polished it, waxed lol. The vanos solenoids are making a little chatter so I will be rebuilding those this winter. I hope everything holds up, I'm too deep in it now to turn back.
 
#5
older BMWs always give me the spooks. My ex bought a used 2013 X3 with 40k miles on it, and she had more problems out of it than I knew could happen. Electrical gremlins abound. This one looks sweet though nick! nice find for $1000!
 
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