Annual Service & Top-Speed Run - V8 BMW E39 M5: The Autobahn Mile-Muncher

coming up we drive fast that's we're gonna call it 300. and there's a dead animal in my taillight there's laughter and of course strawberries i love strawberries welcome to what is a very clean and beautiful bmw e39 m5 and today we are going to do an annual service on it i've had this beauty for nearly three years now it's my 30-39 m5 and my favorite car ever i initially did a ton of work on it that was before i started youtubing mainly prevented the maintenance and it's been very happy 30 000 kilometers ever since let's get it inside and i'll talk you through what we're going to do beep beep there are several things that i do every year or after certain number of kilometers in all of my cars as part of the service schedule engine oil on this particular car i do it every six thousand kilometers just because of the way i use it and that is foot to the floor most of the time on the autobahn otherwise on your normal angles like an e46 or e32 max 10 000 kilometers or once a year whatever comes first engine air filters and cabin air filters once a year coolant every two years brake fluid depending on what type of fluid you're running once a year or max two years we're also going to upgrade the brake master cylinder today transmission and differential oil every 50 000 kilometers okay i do it every 30 on this car and we're going to replace them today power steering fluid every 50 000 kilometers and that's i think all of the fluids so let's get oily and i'll show you underneath the car once we're done exchanging bodily fluids and then of course we'll go fly down the autobahn later sounds like a plan gonna start with the oil change since the engine is nice and hot i just draw it on the autobahn and we are gonna first remove the oil filter so whatever oil is in the oil filter housing can drain into the pan anything interesting in here no put the cap back and get the car up in the air remove the plastic protection so you can have easier look around 13 was it so on every oil change i collect an old sample and send into blackstone labs in the us and they do the analysis and tell me the health of the engine and if there's like a lot of metal or something like that so far i've done like four or five of these i think and all of them were like super clean oh no drop the drain plug let's catch here whoop perfect all right that's enough refit the plug make it good and tight nothing more nothing less and let's go up top and replenish it with oil the engine oil prescribed all from the factory for this car is 10w60 and that's what this engine saw ever since it was new but i'm going to try something else now 1060 is great oil but it's really thick for cold starts and especially if you live in colder climates like i do in germany in winter 10 w60 it's like honey literally and recently i put 5w50 in the e60 m5 and i immediately noticed three things one the cold start is much smoother much quieter two it gets up to operating temperature a lot quicker and three the engine is just revving a lot easier and a lot quicker than before when you give a throttle it just goes a lot smoother which comes with thinner oil the oil spec is very similar to 10w60 of course it's a bit lower but it should be fine in the long run at one point bmw actually prescribed 5w30 for this engine in the u.s so some engines actually saw that oil as well but i just i wouldn't go thinner than 5w50 and i'm not trying to force anyone's opinion or give recommendation just i don't care use whatever you want this is my car and i just want to experiment a little bit if i like it i'm going to keep using that oil if i don't i'm going to switch back to 1060 and external change simple as that and when it comes to you all just keep up with the oil changes that's the most important thing here fresh oil and regular oil changes will keep your engine happy no legos in the old oil filter it's clean lube up the o-ring now get the oil and start filling the oil filter housing all the way to the top and slowly insert the new filter it's more fun without the funnel the oil capacity for this engine is 6.5 liters i've put around five and a half so now i'm gonna start it let it idle then shut it off with one minute and then you pull the dipstick out and take the reading perfect oil level should be between minimum and max so right on the half that's how you take the reading on the s62 engine sounds about the same as before but i had no change in sound when i put it in e60 so i'm not expecting anything there next up cabin air filters and engine air filters a little bit dirty pay attention to the airflow let's do the engine air filters again a little bit dirty you might say i'm crazy for replacing this but that's my maintenance schedule [Music] there you go finito now i'm gonna go for a test drive and then tomorrow we're gonna do rest of the fluids it's the following day and i just wanted to quickly reflect on the oil change i experienced the same things as i did on the e60 cold start much quieter much smoother the engine is getting up to temperature a lot quicker before with 10 w60 when i drove from my home to here to the garage it would never get up to temp with 5w50 it did i also draw it on the autobahn and the engine feels more alive it's it feels like it's revving quicker like it's tiny bit faster i mean different oil is not gonna make your car go any faster but it just feels more alive and i like all of those things when it comes to the sound on the idle of the engine sounds exactly the same as before and uh well i like all of those benefits let's call them that and i'm going to keep at it i'm going to do another oil change with 5050 i'm going to send oil for analysis see what the results are and if i like it i'm going to keep using that just edit that out and i want to talk about gearbox in e30 and m5 and gearbox oil if you own one of these cars or you've driven one you're probably familiar with the second crunchy gear when the car is cold every time you start the car cold you have to arnold schwarzenegger into the second gear and i own three of these cars i test show many of them and it's always the same story one of them was a really low mileage car and just when the car is cold it's just really difficult to shift into the second gear as soon as it gets a bit warmer it's shifting fine and over the years i've tried a bunch of different fluids to see it will help i tried the original bmw fluid i tried castrol 75w i tried motul dctf which is in the car right now and all of them are fine in the beginning for like first hundred kilometers or so and then as the time passes and you drive the car more and more you're back to the same thing it's just really difficult to shift into the second gear and i hate that so this is liqui molly's 75 w there's bmw part number mtf lt3 approved so you can go into this gearbox and gearbox oil additive mos2 which is a friction additive and i put this in my e46 before the winter and i started that car at minus 10 degrees celsius and it was shifting fine from the first like shift it would shift smoothly into the second gear that being said e46 the tiny gearbox in the 325i is completely different than the gearbox in the e395 but i'm gonna try this sauce and see how i like it hopefully it's a bit better especially this thing is really good for friction or whatever so we're gonna give it a go and then as the time pass i'm gonna let you know how it goes and if i feel any improvements otherwise there's nothing that can be done i guess i know some guys in the u.s run royal purple but i heard the same thing it's really good in the beginning but as the time passes you're back to square one so if you have any suggestions as well let me know and i'll ignore them anyway let's go as always crack open the fill plug first get eye protection because this is going to be one big splash brace yourself yep what did i tell you it's pretty clean i let it drip away refit the plug and i used some thread sealer pay attention i didn't say locker thread sealer so it doesn't leak through the threads of the plug first add the additive squeeze it in there now replenish with oil i love liquid moly bottles because they have this thing makes it easy to refill pump and we are pumping until the fluid comes out well yep we are there let it drip out and then refit the plug all right that's enough give it some torque that's enough and then just clean it and now the diff oil if you remember when i made a video on this car last time it was a long time ago the diff was wet he was leaking from the seal here and now it's dry i didn't clean this so you got all of its self-healing powers anyway let's replace the fluid yep nice and full and then a spanner will that work it did and now the fluid 1.2 liter is the capacity that fit yep yep full close it good now the coolant it's been about two years since i flushed the coolant so it's right on time and it didn't use any since then it's not leaking so that's good you can unscrew the cap lay it like that and then drain it from the bottom the coolant is drained on three places radiator drain plug of course and then there are two plugs on the block gonna start with this one get ready to get coolant everywhere that hurts bastard no there we are and now we need to dream from the block that's the plug here on the passenger side that's on the driver's side and that one is a little bit tricky to get to you need to be a magician or made of rubber or something to get to it and this one makes a mess it really does it goes everywhere yeah great need a bigger pen but don't have it oh yeah it's going everywhere so that went according to the plan really did i have a bigger pen but just now i realized it has a gaping hole over there so i need to buy a new one it's garbage okay so that's fixed plug with a new gasket ring going in and that's torqued now this one is a little bit trickier but with long extensions it's doable oh my oh that was firm so a lot less is going to come out here here comes the waterfall that's it now new dream plug always try to use the new one because there's an o-ring on it and you don't want this to leak here's the new one there it is the vested look at that and now let's spray brake cleaner everywhere and that's all more or less clean now we're going to go up top read the coolant start the car and then come back and verify there are no leaks this is the coolant from liquid moly and it's blue like bmwa and coolant and it's mixed 5050 with vasa adding the coolant to s65 engine is the easiest thing in the world ignition on set to temperature to max and fan on the lowest setting that way heater core valves are open and we can start adding coolant the system is self-bleeding so you don't have to do any special bleeding procedure only that thing that i did in the cabin once you top it off to maximum start it let it cool off later and recheck the coolant out if necessary and that's it the level is good now you can start it let it run for a little bit and recheck coolant later now to verify your excellence radiator drip plug not leaking block not leaking and good here as well that is a job well done power steering fluid you just use your typical atf a really good way to flush the entire system on this car is to remove the power steering reservoir then get a big bucket fill it up with four or five liters of fresh atf connect the hose to the bottom of the bucket you're gonna need a valve of some sort then connect that line to the feed line and then return line to an empty bucket start the car for 30 to 60 seconds and it's gonna flush the entire system i think three liters should be more than enough the whole system is one one and a half liters i don't have space or such contraption to do that operation now but i will in future because it's a really good way to make sure you flush the entire system now i'm just gonna do the old suck out put the fresh fluid in turn the car on turn it off and we're gonna do that five to ten times depending on the mood and you wanna do that on an engine that's warm you don't want to start and stop an engine that's cold i have a ginormous syringe here it looks smaller in the pictures when i bought it one and a half liters i did replace this reservoir when i did all the maintenance on the car top it off with fresh atf that squeaking mickey mouse sound i don't know what that is it happened a couple of times in the past recently before i parked it for winter i think it's the starter but i'm gonna remove all of the belts now and just start spinning stuff to see if anything feels wrong we're done i got over one and a half liters of fluid out there's still some in the syringe as well and it looks pretty good still nice red color and i did this procedure two years ago and it just keeps the fluid fresh when you see coffee color of this fluid that's really bad but this is really good i did replace everything on the front of the engine when i bought the car so all of the belts pulleys tensioners rebuilt the alternator bearings in the regulator water pump so nothing should be a miss but let's see that squeaking sound i think it's the starter but let's verify so let's check the pulley that's fine the lower one is fine as well the alternator that i rebuilt sounds fine power steering pump yeah everything sounds fine this is a continental belt that i used no cracks anything installed brand new three years ago let's remove the ac belt that belt is like brand new as well pulley good easy compressor pulley good so everything is rotating fine everything is still great i had a friend start the car while i was underneath with a stethoscope listening to the starter and i think it's coming from over there because i can hear resemblance of that sound coming from it of course you wouldn't make that big screeching sound but i'm pretty sure it's coming from the starter did you know that every single e39 starting from the least powerful one i think 520 to the most powerful one the m5 share the exact same brake master cylinder even though 520 has pathetic little brakes and the m5 has the big brakes and big calipers and i owned an e39 530i that was my first bmw actually and instinctively remember how much better the brake pedal feel was on that car compared to the m5 it's just a lot shorter a lot firmer and it just feels overall a lot better and i did some research couple of years ago to see if i can find a bigger master cylinder to fit on this car that can help with the brake pedal feel because it's just really annoying especially when you drive an e46 for example and then i jump back into this car even though the brakes are 100 times better like braking wise the pedal is just not there so my research brought me to this this is the brake master cylinder from an e65 which is the seven series that came after an e38 and physically they are pretty much identical to the one in the e39 except this connection here it is m12 and on the e39 it's m10 so we need to use this adapter here to convert it i'll leave the part number for that but the reason i want to try this brake master cylinder is because it has slightly larger front diameter board than the one on the e39 and i don't know much on this topic but i do know that a lot of owners of e30s when they do big brake upgrade kit they use e32 master cylinders because they're bigger to help with the brake pedal feel so that's what i'm trying to do here hopefully this helps and makes the pedal a bit more firmer i posted this research a couple of years ago on m5 board and a few people already tried this mod and they're all pleased with it and as a bonus you're getting a brand new master cylinder and it's not that expensive it's like 60 euros something the only thing that needs to be done besides converting this line is this flange needs to be grinded off a little bit so that the reservoir can fit but other than that everything else is plug and play since all of the hardware is coming out i'm also going to replace the brake booster it's not that expensive and might as well put the new one in since that one is what 20 years old now anyway let's get cracking and see how this works the brake master cylinder and the brake booster live under the cabin air filter box so let's remove that the brake booster and brake master cylinder need to come out as one now i'm gonna pull up the reservoir i'm gonna try and not disconnect the clutch line yet because that is a separate reservoir and there's more fluid in there there we are oh there's more fluid coming out perfect bravo bravo felt it in my ears that's good sebastian can we just put this to the side and not remove it from the car that's the reservoir out of the way now you can disconnect the lines oh we need to remove this as well i forgot so you use a lot of brake cleaner brake fluid it's really bad for the paint but for now let's go into the cabin gotta remove this panel to access the linkage of the brake booster and detach it from the brake pedal smells nice in here oh the tree is in my way city style don't remember buying that let's put that somewhere i can step on it and break it brake pedal and this is where the brake booster attaches and we need to remove these pins or whatever clips all right so that's detached so now i'm going to detach the brake lines from the master cylinder under the seat you really need these spanners when working with brake lines this is a good one from hazard everything detached and ready to come out two nuts there and the brake booster can come out now chanel clean up the mess unbolt the old master cylinder oh there we are so the difference is quite clear with the flange it's much smaller than the e39 and much bigger than the e65 so we're just going to grind this off and then the reservoir can fit let's do some marking i guess something like that kind of don't want to grind stuff in here because i don't want metal shavings in my strawberry dessert so i'm going to see if i can do it in my neighbor's garage here it is got it down in the neighbor's garage and my dessert is safe just removed enough in order to clear the reservoir but now i'm going to test fit because maybe a little bit more here needs to come off let's see oh yeah fits fully here you can see it clears it nicely that's all it needs to be done we're going to install the adapter and use a bit of thread sealer on the threads because this does not need to come off ever again excellent now we can bolt it to the booster there's foam inside [Applause] now we can slap this back onto the car oh mustn't forget the gasket good so now we can go inside and do everything on that end and then come back and do everything on this end the booster is bolted up and the brake pedal connected that's all done magnificent collect the tools and get get out of here now i can start reconnecting the lines everything connected to the master cylinder and you can see that the adapter worked the treat over there now we're going to put back the reservoir push it home yes now the most hateful part bleeding the brakes and bleeding the brakes on a four-post lift on a car that's as low as the m5 it's like going to the bathroom without your phone it's just not fun but first the dessert for a job well done what's your favorite fruit i love strawberries this is the brake fluid it filled up the clutch section as well and we're gonna change that part of the fluid as well just not today because it's getting late and i need to be home for supper any immediate leaks it would appear not first i'm gonna bleed with the power bleeder all four corners then come back and at the same time i'm going to pump the brake pedal and then final step we'll be bleeding with the esta and cycling the abs pump so i'm just going to hit all corners three or four times just to make sure it's 100 bled 15 psi we're not gonna go more than that so i'm done bleeding all four corners with the power bleeder and i also pumped the brake pedal five times and now we're gonna bleed with ista plus activating the abs pump so whatever bubble is in there it can dislodge that dlc unit breaks this to ventilation so it tells you everything you need to do start bleeding continue brake bleeding is done i hit all corners three times and i bled about two liters of fluid now i'm gonna put the cap back start the car and just make sure the pedal is firm and it doesn't go to the floor nice and firm less travel than before but of course the real test will be when i drive the car later yes the engine bay is dirty no i don't care i use this car a lot and even when i clean it it gets dirty so whatever torque time dude that's done let's see oh yeah that's already much better i like it oh yes that's already a lot better definitely shorter pedal travel oh yes 100 another thing that i need to do is change stupid detail racing brake pads because i know they are responsible for the soft pedal as well but i'm super happy with this yeah definitely a lot better right time to go home for supper adios amigos i drove the car home last night and the brake pedal is definitely better than before it's firmer with less pedal travel which is exactly what i was going for so the e65 brake master cylinder and e39 thumbs up if you have a big brake kit like i do and you just want a little bit more firmness from the pedal this is the mod for you or if you're just servicing that system in general just go for the e65 brake master cylinder it's better anyway moving on to the rear of the car i want to do a couple of things here namely there's a dead animal in my taillight well a fly but potato tomato how did that stupid thing get in there in the first place i'm thinking remove the bulb and suck the poor bastard out oh yes boxes great open sesame which one is that the lowest one get the sucking device now watch it disappear that was nice and easy put the bulb back there we are animal free while i'm already in here i want to do another thing and that is install clear turn signal bulbs ooh look at that not good throw that away then don't touch the bulb with your hands take a cloth install it like that put it in yep verify that it works also gotta make exhaust tips shiny again wipe off the dirt first now break out some metal polish slightly used carbon fiber towel and give it some there you go one beautiful looking shiny super sprint muffler tip don't forget to hit the bottom as well for the exhaust tips that are 18 years old these look phenomenal the seat belt is retracting slowly very slowly indeed simple fix for this pull it all the way out wise grip it like that take carpet cleaner this stuff spray both sides of the belt and start cleaning look at that and this is the dirt that came off the seat belt now leave it to dry then you come back and spray some silicone spray onto your carbon fiber cloth rub it all over the belt and it's going to shoot right back in back under the seat still no signs of a little mermaid this is the silicone spray spray it on and rub it in also be sure to clean the seat belt first don't just rub in silicone spray that way you're just rubbing in dirt remove the vice grip would you look at that what do you think of that huh don't just slap everywhere scratch my car see that is a nice and simple fix because there's nothing more annoying than you want to get out of the car and the seat belt doesn't want to retract but now perfect let's make a little tour de france underneath bmw with no oil leaks i know what you're thinking what kind of saucer is this it's medical marvel boys it's called maintenance does not have any current active leaks and i've done ton of work underneath this car when i bought it for example complete suspension is brand new every single ball joint bushing shocks i'm sporting corny yellow sharks with stock springs the ride is sublime the only thing that i don't like about them is that they are adjustable i don't need adjustability and the front ones are really easy to adjust but the rear ones you have to take them out completely and then adjust them which sucks so i just left them on a softer setting engine mounts power steering hose all the belts pulleys all of that is new oil lever sensor and this is the starter and i'm probably going to replace it because the rebuilt bosch unit is only 60 euro and i think that's the cause of my screeching mickey mouse noise occasionally it doesn't happen always so it's really difficult to pinpoint where it's coming from but i'm pretty sure it's that transmission typically stays dry remain seal bone dry the one thing that i would very much like to change on this car is the headers i would love to get super spin headers but i can't because germany these headers if you don't know actually exactly the same headers that you can find on e34 530i the v8 version the m60 engine and that's just ridiculous because these headers they're really restrictive so when you put different headers on the car you tune it you can get a lot more ponies out of this engine and not to mention the better sound but in germany it's kind of really difficult to do that moving down the line diff self healed got all of that not leaking anymore super spring x-pipe and super sprint mufflers that have been on the car since 2003 and they still look in excellent shape and they sound amazing their suspension holds everything brand new stainless steel brake lines all around and this is an italian car i bought it in rome what is it three years ago which means it is absolutely rust free there is not rust anywhere on this car it's completely rust free and i want it to stay that way which is why i stopped driving it in winter it's not going to see any more salt anymore in my ownership that's about it really clean from underneath and this is how i keep track of my maintenance simple excel spreadsheet and every single nut and bolt that i replace on it goes in here with kilometers in date it is a pretty long spreadsheet [Music] [Music] [Music] um [Music] [Music] [Applause] here we go deutsche autobahn did i mention that i removed the limiter because i did so no way not long enough i can't do 300 in a corner so i'm out for my third attempt to max out the m5 and the problem is there's only one stretch of the autobahn that's long enough near frankfurt where you can achieve the top speed of the m5 and that road it's always packed with traffic especially during the day so now it's sunday nearly 10 o'clock in the evening hopefully it's a bit better with traffic and we can do it another thing to keep in mind is the autobahns around frankfurt they're really not that great they're really bumpy and comfortable so when you're driving really fast your car is just jumping all over the place and that's not something you want to see or feel when you're driving 250 kilometers plus so when it comes to it i'm not going to push my like i don't want to risk my safety or anyone's else so if we can do it we can do it if not so be it here we go fifth if that guy moves he'll be nice move and no i'm not gonna switch to the right lane it's too risky 280 doing id that's we're gonna call it 300 i'm gonna ease off what a rush and now i'm doing 240 and it feels like i'm doing 60. god i love this car this was for you sabine rest in peace you legend i'm in this car 20 years old and i was just doing 300 kilometers per hour and it's like a tank it's just going straight no drama nothing it just pulls and goes man i love this car i really do i need another one so i can entirely refresh it on the channel by the way the liquid molly magic potion that i put into this gearbox so far feels the best of them all it's shifting super smooth from the cold start i need to put more miles on it but it's a lot smoother than anything else that i tried so far i said in the previous episode that we can't do anything fun and useful in germany i'll take that back right away because we have the best thing in the world the autobahn and toof even though it doesn't make sense for some things i actually really like it i said that before because stuff means german tooth inspection means that there are no crappy cars on the road i mean you gotta love how this car falls i'm in the six now you just press the battle and it just goes switch the lanes feel stable another pool why not go my beauty go and please don't ask me if i want to sell this car i get enough of that on traffic lights and gas stations i'll never sell this car i hope you enjoyed that and we're going to wrap it up here in other news the new merchandise is here the new design that is t-shirts hoodies and whatever else the link is in the description so i would appreciate if you go and check them out as always thank you very much for watching and please consider subscribing if you liked the video until next one

Channel: M539 Restorations

Views: 609,634

Rating: 4.9755683 out of 5

Keywords: e31, bmw, 850i, 850ci, restoration, revival, barn find, e39, e38, m5, 740i, 840i, 840ci, 850csi, csi, 8er, 8 series, classic cars, bimmer, 540i, v12, 535i, 750il, 750, e46, m3, m70, road trip, m73, 6 speed, save the manuals, budget, cheap, first start, germany, car project, b7, b8, alpina, restore it, e34, e32, e24, hoovie's garage, hoovie, tavarish, doug demuro, vin wiki, vice grip garage, car throttle, samcrac, e60, s85, v10, challenge, m54, 3er, 325i, chrisfix, detailing, disaster interior, detailing geek, top gear

Id: R47XW7jFAT4

Length: 40min 18sec (2418 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 23 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/MDA123]

Anyone not subscribed to M539 is missing out. Seriously great footage of maintenance and restoration work, produced well and presented joyfully. It's like Vice Grip Garage, but with German machinery and stoic Eastern European humor instead of rural Upper Midwest American humor.

I only discovered it here on /r/cars maybe a month or two ago and I'm hooked.

[u/P-Cletus]

I watch his channel on YouTube and he’s a solid contributor on the M5 Forum as well for folks with an E39 and now an E60 since he has a V10 6speed he imported from North Carolina.

[u/TangoOscarIndia]

Imagine what this man could accomplish with a proper workshop. The fact that he does all his restorations in a tiny garage is impressive.

[u/powpowchow]

sheesh wish I had something like that

[u/munchmunch69]

Bro this reminds me of when I was pimping my cars in nfs payback

[u/Milcc7]

SHEssss