On the first day if the journey, I drove across Newfoundland ~600 miles, and took an overnight ~12 hour ferry which put me in Nova Scotia early the next AM.

And the next AM after spending a luxurious night sleeping in a chair

 

On day two, I made it to Waterville Maine for the night. It was shady there lol.

The truck was having some weird diesel issues, so I did some troubleshooting before getting the SHADIEST HOTEL EVER for the night.

The next AM, I pressed onwards and made it to Christiansburg, VA. MUCH MUCH nicer hotel lol.

 

The next day I drove like an absolute mad man and made it to League City Texas by ~ 2AM. It was a tough fourth day, and I was getting pretty burnt out from all the driving. This was my first long haul drive in my life really...

This was on a Thursday night (really Friday am). The next day was going to be a busy one.

I had to install some mud flaps on the truck in the am to prevent chipping the M5, buy a trailer at a local Houston trailer dealership, pick up the M5 from a TMJ Bimmers in Houston, and meet with a friend of my buddy's who had all the spare parts to the car which were in a local storage unit. ZZZZZZ

 

So as I said... mud flaps... I wanted to get something on the truck because I'd be using an open deck trailer to bring the M5 back home, and I didn't want to send debris straight at the front of the car. I picked up a big ol 24x24" semi mud flap and cut that son ho in two, and attached with some random ORiellys hardware.

TRAILER TIME!!!!

So I had never towed before at this point lol. TRIAL BY FIRE with the trailer place located on a 6 lane each direction freeway! It was nerve racking to say the least...

Here's the chariot, 18 foot with a 2 foot dovetail and 5 foot ramps.

 

And finally, what I was waiting for... The car!!!

Here it is loaded, prior to heading to the storage unit. It's missing the front bumper and all kinds of other parts which need to be attached before heading back to Canada.

And here we are at the storage unit. Fatigue was starting to set in at this point again, having very little sleep the night before and on the way down from Canada the four days previous.

Miraculously after a few hours at the storage unit, I had the rad support, hood releases, headlights and front bumper installed for towing. The rest of the parts I loaded in the truck.

Up too late again...

 

Big props to Joe and Neil in Houston who helped me out a bunch with a place to stay, help at the storage locker, etc. Great guys down in Houston.

Adventure back to Canada resumes next post.

 

Epic trip

 

Nice! Good luck on the way back.

 

Quite an adventure congrats!

 

I was going to post my FL to IL purchase trip… which you’ve easily made seem like a simple trip to the grocery store. Lol 12 hour ferry rides - man single handed won MVP. Congratulations on your new to you M5; have fun!

 

Thanks everyone! I guess I wasn't very clear originally, haha, but I'm back and the journey is complete, I just have so much stuff to sift through that I'm slow getting caught up to speed here in the thread. There's adventures on the way back home that are pretty juicy Stay tuned for the next steps!

I made it back home the night of September 12th. The trip started early September.

There's mechanical issues with the car and a whole story to get into with that as well, but I'm getting ahead of myself

I'll get all the stuff about the return trip posted up tomorrow, and then we'll get into the real fun (wrenching!!!)

 

Will you be starting a journal thread for maintenance as well? I’ve been forced to learn a lot about this specific M5 engine due to my vehicle also being (unbeknownst to me) a project vehicle. huge eye roll

 

Wow, what a trip!
As you've already seen this community is a great resource.
Andy

 

Awesome thread - thanks for posting. When I bought my E60 M5 I flew to Washington DC, picked up the car and had a 6 hour drive home. Not quite as long of a trip as you.

Good luck with the car.

 

This requires a lot of planning, pretty impressive story.

In my case, the M5 was about 2 hours away from home, in a little town in PA. It was a surprise buy, wanted to surprise my wife and kids with a new car. I took a one way rental, dropped car off, and drove the M5 back. My pre-purchase inspection involved walking around it once about two weekends back (all this was in 2017). It had no check engine light (seller had cleared it all off, and I didn't know). I brought the car back, and wife was very unhappy for a while with my spending habit; we had 3 cars already for 2 drivers.

My M5 came with muffler deletes, and I had the original mufflers in the trunk. My youngest one got into the passenger seat, and I started it. She instinctively reached for the radio volume knob and turned it down, and when it didn't work, she asked me "Can you reduce the volume please" lol. Next day, had the old mufflers back on at Mieneke.

 

MPassion.

 

WOW, I am deeply impressed, good job.

Same here with e90m and e60m 6spd, it is a dream to have both.

 

That's dedication, this platform needs owners like you. It will be a long road but rich with rewards. Best of luck to you and you are starting in the right place if you are on this forum.

 

Thanks for all the kind words again guys. It's great to see an active forum in 2022. Most are dead and gone at this point. For a 38 year old like myself, I grew up on message boards. It's an absolute treat to see how engaged and supportive this group is.

I'm well aware of the maintenance issues and the like with these, and I'll be getting into the mechanical repairs parts and overall restoration in the posts that follow. I'm pretty seasoned from the years of owning the E92 M3. I do all my own work and cars are definitely more than a hobby for me (is addiction too strong a word?)

This was definitely the craziest lengths I've ever gone to get a car though.

Ok enough words, BACK TO THE PICS!

 

Do you already have a plan of what you're wanting to achieve with this build? Are you going for just a proper functioning car or more track focused? I'm excited (my apologies) to see what you run into mechanically. I've been getting my teeth kicked in since I purchased mine. However this board has been fantastic and the saved DIY threads are amazing for assisting people who aren't exactly familiar with this engine.

 

Saturday morning, back on the road with my new M5 in tow, heavily inexperienced towing in gridlocked Houston traffic. Woo!

Tried out Raising Cane's in Louisiana. It was finger lickin' Notice how wet things are - that'll come back to haunt me later...

Crossing swamp land - Unsure if this is still in Louisiana, but this elevated roadway went on for miles and miles on end.

I made it to Mississippi and got a lovely sleep in my trusty truck. I'm 6'7" so fitting in here took dedication.

 

#savethemanuals

What a great journey!

 

Six am, still in Mississippi

Tennessee bound!

I figured I'd pop into Chattanooga to creep on some youtubers I watch online lol.

First stop - V-tuned garage

Then I swung by the Goonzquad garage

And finally the guys at 23rd garage/motorhead

 

Before leaving Chattanooga I grabbed some tasty Popeyes.

Some nice hills in Tennessee

AND the drama is about to start (some of it anyhow....foreshadowing lol)

Shortly after this picture was taken, I suffered a blowout on the right rear of the trailer. The hardware which bolted the fender to the trailer had come loose on that corner, and the fender must have made contact with the rear tire (the rake angle on the trailer was wrong too, and I fixed it later to have less negative rake and make the trailer more level).

I was VERY lucky that the tire didn't damage the car. Ouf. I was also lucky to have this happen very close to a freeway exit. Unfortunately, this was around 6 pm on the Sunday prior to Labor Day.

 

The tire blew out in Bristol, VA.

I ended up limping the truck and trailer off the freeway along this short route. Phew, it picked a good place to break!

I absolutely crawled the truck this 1.5 miles or so.

I tried Walmart, with no luck. No tire places were still open. Harbour Freight didn't have any tires the correct size.

I finally found a workable solution at Rural King. A local farm supply store. It was a big cluster f to deal with because they had no 5x4.75" lug 15" pre assembled wheels. They did have the correct size tire on a 5x4.5" bolt center wheel, and they had replacement hubs that matched this different bolt center.

Being that it was late, and with Labor Day the next day. I bought tire spoons, brake cleaner, a long wand lighter, and bead goop as option A, which was to change over the tire in the parking lot with spoons. Not easy... I also grabbed the replacement wheel hub not knowing if it would fit my trailer. Replacing a hub would be easier than hillbilly exploding tires onto rims in the parking lot with aerosol and a lighter. Probably safer too haha.

I didn't take too many pictures of the process because I was a zombie at this point, but by about midnight I had swapped the hub on the non brake axle of my trailer to accept the Rural King wheel and tire. I had to use the Ram jack as a make-shift shop press against the underside of the truck's receiver and the pavement, to press in bearings and seals to do the repair.

It was horrible, but it worked.

At this point, I was super tired, and most hotels were closed in the area for checkin.

I popped into this truck stop to sleep, but with it so full, I didn't want to risk pissing off the trucker guys by stealing one of their slots. I ended up driving a bit further and found another rest area.

Next AM in Verona VA

Virginia Hills

 

Unfortunately, my planning wasn't 100% on the export/import side of this whole process, and I realized the morning after the blowout that I couldn't pass the US border until 72 business hours after notifying Customs and Border Protection that I'd be exporting the M5. I did this with 72 hours to spare, but missed the business hours part

As a result, I had to kill 2-3 days in Winchester, VA. Beautiful city.

When I finally had a chance to stop and hang out and collect myself in Winchester, the life drained out of me when I realized I had driven in the rain for DAYS without the whole cowl assembly installed in the car.

The DME was inside my truck with me, but the DME box which is below the windshield was open to the elements and allowed a BUNCH of water to come into the cabin below the passenger side BCM. Luckily none of the wiring in the car got wet, but my goodness did this make work for me later as far as clean up and drying of everything....

I dried all the DME wiring that had gotten wet for a day or two with 99% isopropyl and stabilant 22a. I popped the drain plugs in the passenger floor pan to let any standing water drain out.

Luckily the water didn't do much damage other than soaking my carpets, but OUF I felt like such a dummy. I sealed up the DME cover, installed the shrouds, and continued on my way after a couple of days killing time and drying my poor soggy M5.

Doesn't everyone keep their DME and DME coolers on the HVAC unit in their hotel rooms?

 

can you either dm me or explain a bit more about how did the water got from "the windshield" into the cabin? if i follow this and try to draw parallels with my issue of finding water inside, my cowl rubber seal is awful- lets say its so bad that its none-existent... and i found water in the drivers side floor as well ... that's the similarity. help me understand how those two are connected? how does the water travel inside? Thank you! --- at least this will give me an idea of where to look for it. Thank you and Happy new Year!

 

Finally after a couple of days chilling in VA, and way too much food at the adjacent Taco Bell, I resumed my journey.

I purchased the car with a known broken valve spring. I knew there was a good chance the valve was bent, and there could be additional damage to the valve guide or lifter bore on the head, so I searched for a replacement LH cylinder head on the route back home.

I came up on a place called Prussian Motors in Norristown, PA. Great guys there. They ended up having two LH S85 heads I could choose from. They made a machinists straight edge and feeler gauges available to me so I could make a decision on which one to go with. I ended up with one from a 2010 M5 with about 100k miles on it. It looks in great shape.

After I left Prussian Motors, I headed towards NY to continue the drive. Picked up some awesome Panda Express on the way.

Waze took me DIRECTLY thought NYC rush hour traffic on a week day at 5:00, so that was interesting. The drivers are so so crazy...

After getting out of NY, I got an early nights rest after a stressful day of driving in Massachusetts

Sleeping on the front seat was more difficult, as I now had an S85 cylinder head sharing the front bench seat with me lol.