I've been super busy lately, and unable to post, so here's an update. A few weeks ago, I brought the E55 into the shop, and put it up in the air for major work. Up first were remaining electrical issues. Rats had chewed 8 wires under the hood, all in different areas, but the worst were two wires in the engine wiring harness. They actually chewed a section out of each of these, and so they could not just be soldered back together. To make matters worse, the wire harness in this case disappears under the left side intake plenum, and under the front of the supercharger. I had to remove the plenum to get enough access to the harness to effect a repair. @QuadPrism changed the rear end fluid and the transmission fluid and filter. We discovered that the main plug to the transmission was disconnected, so that was put back in place. With a little more troubleshooting, it was discovered that the starter relay was bad, so that was replaced. With all of this done, the engine now starts with a key! Major step forward, and the cause of the original complaint the previous owner had.

Focus then shifted to a common E55 problem. This problem results in blown engines, and I didn't want to join those ranks. The issue is the oil pump pickup has an o-ring in it that gets old, hard and then breaks. When it does, the oil pump sucks up air, and not oil. Predictable results after that. Unlike our Crossfires, the W211 chassis uses a dual sump oil pan, with two drain plugs. The oil pump pumps oil from the rear sump to the front, and then pumps oil into the engine. The o-ring seals this elaborate pipe to the rear sump. Easy enough to change, right? Wrong!

To get to this, the lower oil pan must come off. Of course, it is big, and will not just drop nicely like the Crossfire will. No, no, no, no, no! First, lower the front subframe (yup!). Then unbolt the lower oil pan. It is stuck to the upper pan with glue. OK, RTV (glue). After prying forever, and swearing there is another bolt stuck somewhere, if finally comes off. Oil dumps in your face. Now, remove the windage tray (easy). Now remove the upper oil pan. Yeah. That lower pan? Total warm up for the final boss. Remove 300 screws, and then pry. And Pry. Pry some more. Finally pops off. Oil dipstick will prevent you from removing it. No joke, took another hour after getting the pan loose to get it separated from the dipstick. Get it out. Remove the oil pump. Have a bunch more oil in your face (keeps the skin soft, supple, youthful). Get the assembly on the bench, and you have this:


If you've ever seen the insides of your Crossfire's M112/M112K, you know your oil pump does not look like this. After disassembly of the E55 oil pump, this is what you have:

If you look, you'll see the new green o-ring on the oil pump pickup tube. In the middle is the hard-as-a-rock old o-ring, and then the oil check valve. This valve DOES exist in your Crossfire, and it prevents oil from back flowing into the pan at shutdown. This is held into the block with a rubber seal, which like the o-ring, was hard as a rock. Was it leaking? Probably not much, but both it and the o-ring are failures waiting to happen. I don't have a lift, and I only have two hands. This job took me over 9 hours to complete. Ton of work, but the knowledge that this engine will not fail because of a dried up O-ring is peace of mind that makes the work worth it.

Next up was the Airmatic. Airmatic seems like a brilliant system when it works. When it doesn't (which is the only mode I have so far experienced) the car sits on the ground. Getting this car up onto the trailer was a mess due to the suspension. I found most of the fittings to the air springs disconnected. After reconnecting them, I got three corners to go up, but not the front right. The fitting in the air strut was hopelessly stripped, and would not hold air.


The brass fitting was ok, it was the plastic threads in the strut that were stripped. Amazon.com to the rescue, and a new air strut arrived. Changed the strut out. Car is still on jack stands, so we'll find out if this fixes the system when the car comes down in a few days.

Moving on to the front of the car, the front bumper was destroyed, but the previous owner had found another one, and even had it painted. I spent a couple of hours swapping all of the little bits over to the 'new' bumper, and prepped it for install. Before installing the bumper, I wanted to test the intercooler pump. Logging into DAS, I activated the pump, and sure enough, it's bad. *sigh* Ordered one from FCP Euro, and will tend to that this weekend, then the bumper can go back on. I should be able to button all of that up, and put the car on the ground. Before I do that, though, there's one pesky and fun task waiting for me. There's a horrible dead animal smell emanating from the left side of the car. I have finally isolated it to the side skirt. Think there is a dead rat in there. I have to pull the side skirt and deal with that. Yay!

Also this weekend, I will be pulling the head liner, and the A, B, and C pillars to be redone. The pillars in these are wrapped in the same pseudo-suede material that the headliner is done in. That will help the interior cosmetics, and much better to do while the front seats are already out at the upholsterer.

Next week, I need to tackle one more mechanical problem. The supercharger bypass valve keeps throwing fault codes, and sure enough, it's not moving. I acquired a new one, and need to replace it. Unfortunately, that means removing the supercharger/intercooler assembly, and separating the two. I am awaiting gaskets and a few other goodies to tackle that one. I've had the supercharger off of my V8 Crossfire so many times that this should be a breeze. However, had I known I would be pulling this apart, the wiring I mentioned earlier would have been soooooo easy to fix at that point.

So, if you've stuck with me this long, I appreciate it! If all goes well, this should-have-been-a-parts-car E55 should be running and driving in about a week!