Who's changed their radiator in an E34 540i?

There was more angst in thinking about the work than in actually doing it. :)

Here's the procedure and pictures: How to replace a 540 radiator

I actually did this twice. The first replacement radiator I put in was defective. Looks like it was damaged in shipping. If you do this a couple times you can get quite good at it! :)

Although my car is an automatic, there were no connections to the transmission to worry about. Maybe that is also the case on 94 540i's.

This diagram may be helpful: Radiator Parts Diagram

Since I had to be up under the car anyway, I took the time to flush the cooling system. This is a little more involved; you need to drain coolant from the block, too. There are drain plugs on either side of the block.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Beez540

Well, it is the radiator. Since I'm really new to the car I decided I want to have a pro handle this job... but I got in good with the local BMW expert.
How does $432 sound for a new behr radiator, hoses, clamps, other misc. parts, OEM BMW fluid, and labor?

I thought that sounded pretty reasonable.

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Where did you get the radiator. The BEST my mechanic could find was $800!! I'm in S. Cal (Los Angeles) and he tried all the way to san Diego.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pixcutter

Where did you get the radiator. The BEST my mechanic could find was $800!! I'm in S. Cal (Los Angeles) and he tried all the way to san Diego.

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Darn... I think BMA is cheaper then that.....

beat me to it! I was just going to recommend that awesome write up with pics that u did.

Not hard at all... just take your time.

It took me and a buddy about 40 minutes to swap out the 540 radiator using Cambridge's well documented procedure.
We did use a wet/dry shop vac to suck up the old coolant to minimize the mess. That helped a lot.
The old clips were brittle, so we just broke off the old ones and replaced them.