I'm sure some may remember me from my 2 previous 4.4's and as I always had a soft spot for the E53 and had an itch for the 4.6is so I nabbed my self nice well looked after example.
It had a few modification already carried out on it one being a set of 22" wheels which look nice but I'm still thinking I'd like to find a set of stock 4.6is wheels to replace them and the other modification was a badly fitted set of ccfl rings into a set of terrible condition lensed factory Xenon lights.
Oh and it's had some stainless exhaust work carried out which I must say sounds great
Here are a couple of pictures of how it looked when I got it:
Anyway in the 2 weeks today that I've owned it I've been busy getting it up to scratch starting with an engine oil and filter change only to take a peek in the inspection panel to see if there's anything worrying going on in there and it was spotless so I then went on to drop the transmission oil and filter not a flush just a simple sump fluid change approx half the total fluid and was chuffed to see the fluid was clean and no burnt smell and the magnets showed nothing out the ordinary.
After the main fluids were changed I swapped out the air,pollen and fuel filters too then swapped a knocking drop link and at this point I was happy with it mechanically so I next had my paintless dent guy round to remove a total of 12 small dings so it's now ding free and the paint is already in good condition with no scratches so thats the body straight.
Dent guy working his magic:
I then started the fun stuff first being I bought a replacement key to remover the removable witter towbar and I bought a new replacement panel to cover the hole, I then replaced the when it rained self opening tailgate handle so I had to paint that up in the spray shop:
And when fitting I integrated a reversing camera into it and fitted the replacement 18 smd led number plate light units:
I then masked up the black plastics before giving the whole motor a going over with the machine polisher and G3 compound:
Another little job was to paint the front kidney grills centres satin black and the outers high gloss black:
Next was a bigger job and that was addressing the nasty headlights, here's how they looked:
Now because someone had already been in there and made a fair hash of the job if I'm honest I decided to start a fresh and grabbed my self a set of replacement Xenon units with the added bonus they had clean lenses so that saved me a job but they were post 2003 so like I've had to do in the past to one of my previous X5's I had to cut the lenses off to gain access to the insides here's a few pics:
A quick test of the new SMD rings before commencing:
Cut open and fitting up:
I'm also not a fan of the orange side reflector so while there open that gets a coat of black:
Back together and sealed up :
Also before refitting the lights I swapped out the factory Xenon bulbs for a set of 8000K bluer bulbs:
Something else I haven't taken any pictures of but carried out was to do a favourite modification of mine and that was to use a standard 5 pin relay and a couple of 1A diodes and tap into the wiring for the side lights (rings)at the LCM to first activate them when I remote unlock the car and also that activates them as DRL's so there always on when the ignition is on, I did a detailed write up as a how too a few years back if anyone else is interested.
Next job was a sudden loss of the drivers door handle it had been a pain to open but it suddenly stopped working altogether so whipped the carrier out and was surprised to find other than the rod that goes through the carrier had worked it's way out a bit but there was nothing broken and even with the rod pushed back in it still wasn't working properly:
so apart it came again and the only thing I could do was to adjust the fork that holds the outer cable that connects the handle to the catch and this has totally fixed it.
Here's a pic showing what I bent and the direction I moved it:
Final modification I've done was to swap out the rear lights for a set of crystal lensed rear lights with smoked clear sections:
So far thats all I've done oh and as the log book turned up I put my plate back on.
Here's some pictures as it stands:
A few jobs still to do is modify and fit a set of E70 front areo wiper arms and blades ( carried this out to my previous 2 and I think I was the first to ever carry out the front E70 conversion to the E53) as well as the easy rear E70 wiper swap.
Also I want to fit a set of 20-25mm hubcentric bolt on spacers and I think I might refurb the wheels in high gloss black but unsure???????
