E61 / E60 530xi AWD Water Pump and Thermostat Replacement
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- čas přidán 24. 08. 2024
- A video showing how to swap out the electric water pump and thermostat on the AWD (xi) version of the E60/61 - in this case, a 2006 530xi Touring
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Just finishing up on this on my 2009 528xi. This is the second time that I have done this job, and I don't have a clue as to how I did it before. I have watched many car repair videos on youtube, and this one is by far the most helpful one that I have seen.
For those of you who have an xi variant and are thinking about doing this job, be honest with yourself as to your wrenching experience. This job will test your patience.
Lessons learned: 1) Install, and fully secure, the hose which connects the water pump to the thermostat prior to putting the units back in. 2) I did not find it necessary to snake around the second rubber (mickey mouse) hose connection to the thermostat. I was able to make that connection before the units were fully in their resting spot and tighten the clamp from above the engine bay. 3) Connecting the main feed hose to the water pump is actually quite simple. The tricky part is the hose clamp. Mine kept falling back down the hose, away from the water pump, as I made this connection. My solution to this problem was to initially position the clamp on the water pump, angled away from the male pump tube, then move the clamp into position. 4) Make sure that this hose clamp is facing you when positioned below the connection. 5) Before you torque down on the clamp, check to see how the water pump screw holes line up to their mounting points.
Thanks for the kind words, and glad it helped. FWIW, I did find it easier to pre-install the "mickey mouse hose" to the pump / thermostat before it's even in the car, and then just wriggle the hose into place (easier than trying to reach that difficult clamp, IMHO). But if your car gives you access to the clamp from above, that's a great option too (mine didn't seem to). One other thing to make these fiddly clamps a little easier is to use a socket (with a wobble extension) instead of a screwdriver. It makes it a lot easier to "stay on the screw" without pushing it out of the way. Congrats on a successful fix - you can rest easy knowing you saved a boatload of money, and that you did it correctly (not always going to be the case at your local indy or even stealership).
@@Mark_H_DIY I never use screwdrivers on clamps, only sockets. I am replacing all the hoses as well. I believe that I have disconnected all of the hoses, except the one that connects to the expansion tank. I could not get the hose off, and am worried that I stressed the tube on the tank. So, $100 for next day tank. The only hose that I didn't replace is the one that connects the block to the water pump. Didn't feel like getting out the Dremmel tool, although I bought one just for that purpose. I suppose I will after another 60k miles.
Some of those hoses were extremely hard to get off after 15 years.
The good news is that the extra $100 wouldn't have put a dent in the labor bill if you'd had this job done at a shop. And let's face it, these cars NEED new expansion reservoirs by the time they're this age (or will in the near future).
kudos for videoing while enduring this mother of a diy. As 3484 below says. this will test your patience. E60/61 xi diy right of passage.
2008 535Xi just completed pump/tstat swap. took me a "lazy" three days of tree shading on gravel driveway. movers rugs for "comfort"
small variations abound on these cars it seems.
following tips on bimmerfest and other threads on this adventure, i removed front right wheel and liner ... along with second splash panel and metal reinforcement panel .... to no avail.
no extra access was evident from either.
for me: all the hoses and connections in and out from the bottom front after removing the fan with integrated oil cooler, along with power steering rubber coupling, AND the bracket holding it (10mm nut out of sight on top - tstat once disconnected will push up to give access to this nut ... ratchet wrench will facilitate .... there is a register pin in the bracket, to left of the nut ... lift up, wiggle nut and bracket out) .... ALL THIS to give better access to the clamp nut on the U hose, at the back of the tstat. )
pay attention to hose clamp nut locations and where a better location might be ... for reinstalling access.
the power connection to my continental pump was in the rear, out of sight, between the U hose connections. Rhein pierburg replacement, same location. disconnect once sliding pump out, and as putting new on back in.
I dry fitted tstat and pump to the U hose for correct angles based on the old units coming out. took off the tstat. put the pump with U hose into place, with power clipped in, and connected pump to large hose to its left. beginner level of awkward.
inserted tstat into space and first pushed onto rear U hose connection .... once on, better access to low hanging clamp nut by pushing up on tstat, twisting ccw for straight socket driver access to nut while ensuring good hose connection maintained. easier said than done. but you can see what your trying to achieve. at least.
i have small hands and found better ability to push tstat onto U hose in place first and then threading the mickey mouse hose over the top left of the tstat and making the connection by feel - clamp nut facing upwards i could get a 6mm socket driver up into there amongst the jungle of stuff. barely. repositioning and pulling tstat to the right slightly, can get view of the hose connection in the back left.
Initially i'd tried with the mickey mouse hose already connected to the tstat and then pushing onto the U hose. Something wasn't giving. but this is all relative. try one thing. try another. come back to the first thing. whatever you can get to work, with a little more .... attitude.
top bolt on my pump had the head stripped off. remainder of bolt sitting there as a registering pin. i guess it worked for ten years. sway bar not in the way on mine.
Obviously, some difference to my normally aspirated (a fancy way of saying "slow") 530xi Touring. ;-) Thanks for the write-up on the adventures you had. I had no difficulty placing the pump / T-stat and Mickey Mouse hose pre-assembled, which (I believe) saved me a lot of work. Yeah, that doesn't mean it was easy (far, far from it) but any time I can avoid an awkward, blind connection of a hose or connection that can leave you stranded if it slips, I'll take it! Congrats on getting the job done, and I hope the new cooling system will outlast the car (errr, saying that I hope they both last a long time, of course). ;-)
Hey, really good video, I just stumbled across this a couple of weeks after replacing the water pump and thermostat on my girlfriends 528xi. There are some great additional tips in the comments...unfortunately I had to find these out the hard way. This is NOT a job for the faint of heart on the xi models.
Thanks. And yes, this isn't a particularly easy job. It's definitely a DIY-doable job for most home wrench-twisters, but it takes a fair amount of "touch" to get to those obscured clamp screws!
Thanks for BMW introduction, I would say, Mercedes design is much better for DIYer.
My Mercedes is used belt-driven water pump, plentry room for DIY from top. Thermostat is normally located at the top of engine, right before the upper hose to radiator.
BMW makes things complex and hard to maintence.
Yeah, you're preaching to the choir. Most folks coming from a 1970's VW bug would think the Mercedes X204 is horribly complicated, but compared to my BMW E61 (E60 if a sedan) it's a relative pleasure to work on. Oh, it DOES have its quirks - like taking 10+ hours to swap motor mounts (only 2 hours on a RWD version though), but it's clear that MB's engineers have at least heard the term "design for serviceability" while those at BMW don't seem to be familiar with the concept. ;-) That said, I did the water pump and thermostat on my 2003 BMW 330i (ZHP) right before I sold it, and it's similar to your car (belt driven, accessible and relatively cheap).
A job that is much harder than it looks.
And it doesn't look all that easy! ;-) There is no single part of the job that's super-difficult, but it's not one of those jobs that you want to do if you have problems with "fiddly things" like undoing hose clamps that are visible only through / around a myriad of hoses and fittings. I've read stories about people working on vehicles where the clamps were rotated where they couldn't get to the clamps, which could make the job a lot more difficult. But (as shown in the video) pre-installing the long hose connected to the back of the thermostat (the one that terminates in the "Mickey Mouse ears") will save you a lot of time and hassle - and FWIW, I think you could also just remove it with the old thermostat / water pump to save having to try to unscrew that (hardest to reach ) clamp, too.
Yes, it is. I think that it would be quicker the second time (especially since I know not to try to remove the long hose that goes to the "Mickey Mouse connection on the front of the engine, but leave it attached to the thermostat). I shouldn't have to spend all that time cleaning out the gap between the radiator and AC condenser, either (I've come across others who've had the same issue - something to check if your car is running hot or your AC performance isn't what it should be).
5:15 Your front sway/anti-roll bar is on backwards left to right. look how low it's hanging.
You might think so, if you don't have the xi (AWD) version of the vehicle. It's "upside down" compared to the typical RWD sway bar. It does seem like it could have been designed differently, but I guess there's just no other way to miss all the drivetrain bits that are in the way. FWIW, I've never hit anything with the sway bar / links... yet, anyway. ;-)
@@Mark_H_DIY no, I have an awd e61. Check real OEM (hint: "front axle") the sway bar goes up and over the rear LCA.
If that doesn't convince you, check the photos in the pelican parts "BMW E60 5-Series Front Drive Axle Replacement"
The sway bar was designed to go OVER the rearward LCA.
I don't know who got to your car before you, but you might want to have a word with them.
@@DnBBHox I guess it changed at some point in the production run of the E60/61. You can look up the '06 on realoem and see that mine is as designed. If someone had flipped the sway bar, the links would have been way too short (hard to imagine anyone would source longer links to avoid fixing an error). ;-)
www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showparts?id=NN73-USA-01-2006-E61-BMW-530xi&diagId=31_0731
@@Mark_H_DIY for what it’s worth, I’m not digging in so deep because I want to be right. I love my e61 and don’t want something to happen to you or your car because you had a part installed wrong and didn’t know.
Just wondering why do this in the dark!
It was done in my garage - it's not "dark" but not daylight either. This wasn't a job I wanted to start with the car in the (sloped) driveway.