Possible Happy Ending!!!!

[Jehu]

`Good News/Bad/News kind of thing i think. I appear to have gotten the Heater valves to function using the trusty "wail on it with a wrench" method.Now I can switch between heat and AC and get both on demand and no coolant smell in the cabin. I thought i was in heaven until i was gassing up as a Sunoco and saw coolant on the ground.. near the back of the engine bay. I had this happening before I bypassed the core believing the coolant was leaking into the air-box and mixing with AC condensation then dripping out those vent pipes.
Flashing back to a few months ago when i thought i needed to replace the Blower Motor and had the EXPANSION TANK off the firewall but still connected to the hoses just kind of propped up on the Intake Manifold when my Hood blew down on it . Thereafter i believed it had been cracked and was leaking coolant but it seemed to have stopped or maybe i just never looked carefully enough but here you can see it appears there is coolant leaking somehow from the tank. I can see it dripping so that coolant in the pic was not overflow or spillage it was dripping as i photographed. I was just at the Dealership getting some new O-Rings assuming i needed to refit them and would have to tear everything apart again but i wasn't smelling any coolant in the cabin. I even took it by an auto shop and had a mechanic lend me his nose. He said he definitely didn't smell any coolant in the cabin and he would have if it were there.
Puzzled since i thought i was seeing coolant leaking mixed with condensation from inside the Air Box i aimed the open engine bay into the bright sunshine and found this leaking at the Tank... Much easier to replace that than going back into the heater core again AND perhaps the best news of all This should put to rest my fear the coolant level warning I'd been getting and the coolant I'd been losing could be the Head Gasket. I've never been so glad to find a leak before... The only major issue remaining is my Lower Timing Chain Cover Gasket leak and fixing some rust bubbles around the windshield and replacing that glass. I did an oil change 21 days ago and haven't gotten the engine oil level message yet but its still dripping so gradually i'm getting up the bread to get that done.

[Bin_jammin]

`Good News/Bad/News kind of thing i think. I appear to have gotten the Heater valves to function using the trusty "wail on it with a wrench" method.Now I can switch between heat and AC and get both on demand and no coolant smell in the cabin. I thought i was in heaven until i was gassing up as a Sunoco and saw coolant on the ground.. near the back of the engine bay. I had this happening before I bypassed the core believing the coolant was leaking into the air-box and mixing with AC condensation then dripping out those vent pipes. Flashing back to a few months ago when i thought i needed to replace the Blower Motor and had the EXPANSION TANK off the firewall but still connected to the hoses just kind of propped up on the Intake Manifold when my Hood blew down on it . Thereafter i believed it had been cracked and was leaking coolant but it seemed to have stopped or maybe i just never looked carefully enough but here you can see it appears there is coolant leaking somehow from the tank. I can see it dripping so that coolant in the pic was not overflow or spillage it was dripping as i photographed so I was just at the Dealership getting some new O-Rings assuming i needed to refit them and would have to tear everything apart again but i wasn't smelling any coolant in the cabin. I even took it by an auto shop and had a mechanic lend me his nose and he said definitely didn't smell any coolant in the cabin and he said he would have if it were there so puzzled since i thought i was seeing coolant leaking mixed with condensation from inside the Air Box i aimed the open engine bay into the bright sunshine and found this leaking at the Tank... Much easier to replace that than going back into the heater core again AND perhaps the best news of all This should put to rest my fear the coolant level warning I'd been getting and the coolant I'd been losing could be the Head Gasket. I've never been so glad to find a leak before... The only major issue remaining is my Lower Timing Chain Cover Gasket leak and fixing some rust bubbles around the windshield and replacing that glass. I did an oil change 21 days ago and haven't gotten the engine oil level message yet but its still dripping so gradually i'm getting up the bread to get that done.

Please... for the love of god, learn to use punctuation, or at the very least use a paragraph here and there. You need to make it easier to read your post. My head hurts now.

Help me help you.

[Jehu]

Good, then you have had a taste of what I've been going thru. I see very little wrong with what i wrote. Its punctuated plenty. I experienced it as one episode. This did not call for multiple paragraphs in my view. I collapsed on the couch and slept a few hours after writing it so you're Lucky its not worse.

I also see the forum software doesn't seem to start a new paragraph in an regular way. No time to figure all that out . It was enough i bothered to use the spell checker.

[Robin-535im]

Great! - always nice to find a fixable, relatively cheap candidate for a leak.

What will a new tank set you back?

[Macv]

I thought for a second you were going to sell your 5. You bastie.

[Jehu]

Great! - always nice to find a fixable, relatively cheap candidate for a leak.

What will a new tank set you back?

Its under $50.00 and an hour drive over to Bavarian Auto where i'll get some new Hood Struts too. I'll call the Dealership before i head over but Bav Auto's usually cheaper.

[Jehu]

I thought for a second you were going to sell your 5. You bastie.

I still haven't found anything i'd prefer and can afford. I think if get this oil leak fixed i'll have a pretty nice strech of relatively trouble free driving enjoyment.

[Macv]

Oh but the hardship of fixing a 540i is what makes it a driving enjoyment.

[Jehu]

You only find that on the other side of a long ,difficult and ultimately successful repair but ya. I did feel a new sense of satisfaction when driving it after doing this job.

[Macv]

So whats wrong with this oil leak? Havn't you been fighting a leak for awhile?