Ebay

December 9, 2024 - Reading time: 2 minutes

So, having decided that the M57 is the way ahead, I started to look for engines or vehicles. Ideally, I wanted a complete manual engine as I think that would be the easiest path for the conversion. Most M57's on eBay are either sold as bare, or are automatic, or both. However, after a few weeks of looking, what seemed to be the perfect manual was available for sale and I took the plunge.

The engine was an M57TU (iron block) from a 2004 X5 (E53) with circa 100,000 miles and was sold complete with everything including wiring harness and ECU. Within a few days, it had arrived:

I started stripping all the ancillaries, mainly to reduce the weight such that it was more managable, and started to determine what I could clean and reuse and what would need to be replaced.

My first objective was to get to a point whereby I could get the compression tester on the engine to prove that the rings, valves and head gasket were all good. Ideally, I didn't want to split the block, nor replace the timing chains - I was prepared to do either or both if needed, but at this stage had no desire to make the project harder than it needed to be.

I also wanted to take some time to understand the wiring loom and ECU and work out how to integrate that into the Defender.