E39 DIY: 540i M62 Camshaft Position Sensor DIY

[415Banker]

Written By: jamesdc4

My car was throwing a camshaft position sensor fault code, so I bought a replacement sensor and O ring and tackled the job myself. Here is a step by step with photos and some other small things I ran into doing the project.

Make sure your ignition is off and remove the top engine cover.
Then, disconnect the mass air flow (MAF) sensor.
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Disconnect the intake air temperature sensor.
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(I later realized that all you have to do is compress the wire clip with your thumb and slide the harness off.)
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Remove the air filter housing mounting fastener (10mm nut-driver).
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Loosen hose clamps (common screw driver or 6mm nut-driver). (Notice the orientation of this clamp's screw, indicated by the yellow arrow, and it's proximity to the fan blades. I will address the obvious, potential problem later.)
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Remove the air filter housing and MAF. (Although unecessary, I found it was easier to work the housing out if I took the upper half of the housing off by disconnecting the clamps and exposing the lower portion of the housing containing the filter.)
The yellow arrow indicates the intake camshaft position sensor and the red arrow points to the air silencer box.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a282/jamesdc4/IMG_7866.jpg

Although the manual indicates a specific tightening torque of 3.5 ft-lb (5 Nm), there was no mention of a special tool for this project, so I just used a 5mm Allen wrench to remove the sensor and was careful to note how much force I used to break it loose.
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Tight quarters made for slow going so I removed the air silencer box to make more room (10mm nut-driver).
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Disconnect the camshaft sensor harness from the cable duct above the right cylinder head. (Just squeeze the wire clip. No screw driver necessary)
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The way the sensor wire was threaded made it difficult for me to remove the old part without removing the oil dip stick tube, so I just cut the wire.
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Install the new sensor using a new O ring! Lightly coat the O ring with engine oil. (While I was in there, I used electrical tape to seal the cracked portions of the protective sheath indicated by the yellow arrows.)
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Carefully route the wire along the path of the existing wiring and connect the camshaft sensor harness.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a282/jamesdc4/IMG_7872.jpg

I mentioned earlier that there was a potential problem with the positioning of this clamp. Even though the Bentley manual shows this clamp in the position above (photo #5), it is dangerously close to the cooling fan blades......
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a282/jamesdc4/IMG_7873.jpg

.......so I repositioned it. (The final orientation I settled on has the screw pushed back behind the hose you see above it in this picture.)
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a282/jamesdc4/IMG_7874.jpg

Reinstall the air filter housing and MAF sensor in the reverse order of the removal.
Next, plug your scan tool into the OBD port and clear the fault codes.
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Double check to be make sure you have reconnected all hoses, bolts and clamps. Check for any loose wires and gently rotate the cooling fan blades manually to check clearance.
Start the engine and go for a test drive, then recheck later for fault codes.

I hope this DIY helps those of you that decide to take on this project yourself and save some $s on labor.

There is another DIY on this project here:

http://www.bmwtips.com/
#23 on "Engine Trans & Exhaust"

[schumi2006]

Hi, I've got a question to ask u, I did the same parts change and in short, everything went quite wrong. Can the SCREW right next to the CPS unit go all the way into the interior of the engine? Because I actually used a longer screw after I lost the original(but it still wasn't longer than the CPS right next to it), and I screwed it in till it can't move, but was still like 5mm away from being able to hold the CPS. So I screwed it out and added 2 nuts to support the CPS correctly.
Mechanics suggests that the screw may have damaged something inside, due to the overscrewing I did.
If the screw socket was one-wayed and didn't even go into the engine, no such problem right? Or even if it did go in, since it's not longer than the parallel CPS, how likely is it to cause damage?

[Zeekster27]

Great DIY! Did mine this weekend M62tu takes two though : / the second is located on the opposite and easier since there's nothing blocking and since I have an s/c it was the same concep of the above just loosen the clamps slightly move air tube up to be able to twist the Allen wrench and WALLA no pesky "now you see me now you don't" service engine soon light... Lol btw if you don't got a code delete like the one above just unplug the battery for a min sux to reprogram the radio but eh it does the trick