4.6is Chain Guide Rebuild Time

[V8 00USH]

Been otherwise engaged with other issues I've had to deal with - my broken down car transporter needing some love and my parents Gen2 Prius with HV battery issues but now that they are all sorted I'm back on the X5 again.

Almost finished the LPG system bracketry - just need to give it a quick paint of satin black now. All LPG pipes are fresh and new as are the clips. Black fasteners all round to match the others on the manifold.

Swapped to 2 smaller rubber mountings to stop the lower LPG injector unit bracket from being tempted to swivel - in reality it probably wouldnt but the potential of it doing so was annoying me!!  :blink:

Anyway...some pics..







More updates soon.

[briankerrys47]

What can one say  a brilliant post  I am in  my 80's and was that interested never fell asleep once,thank you.

[V8 00USH]

[quote="briankerrys47"]
What can one say  a brilliant post  I am in  my 80's and was that interested never fell asleep once,thank you.
[/quote]

Plenty more to come to keep you awake... )

So sticking with the LPG system I turned my attention to the rather scruffy 10 year old vapouriser and decided that in it's current state it had no place in my engine bay. In addition to this I didnt believe the seals had ever been replaced in it and since the recommended interval for doing this was 50k it was definitely overdue. I do remember there being some traces of coolant coming from this too at times.

Current state....




So I started off by stripping it down...





All the old seals - majority of which had as suspected hardened


Then I popped the parts into the ultrasonic cleaner for 40mins


...which resulted in..


I wasnt overly happy with the results of this even though they were much better so I media blasted it and the engine cover mounts which had them coming out like this...


Next job....yes you guessed it is to bring out the satin black paint again to match everything else. Also ordered some more black bolts for reassembly, a new full seal kit and a new LPG coolant temperature sensor since I was having issues with the LPG kicking in when it wasn't properly up to temperature sometimes.

More updates over the weekend - and providing all the bits arrive I might even get to start it!! 

[X5Sport]

That definitely looked on the ‘manky’ side and in need of some TLC!

[V8 00USH]

Ok so got a few more hours in over the bank holiday weekend in in between other bits and pieces - getting close to first startup - unfortunately the lack of one o-ring stopped me getting any further - it's a particularly critical o-ring too as it seals the oil feed from the head to the hydraulic tensioner that sits in the top left chain cover - I did still have the old one which to be honest wasn't in bad condition but I couldn't bring myself to re-use it just for the sake of waiting a couple of days - I ordered it from BMW this morning and I'm picking it up later.

So on with what I did get done..

LPG vapouriser all painted.....I painted it with the housings bolted together as it saved on masking times.








Engine cover brackets and new LPG brackets also painted..




Then I split the painted vapouriser apart and got everything lined up ready for reassembly with new seals


Then fitted the new seals...





The finished article.....(and yes I'm going to have to touch up the little bit of brass showing). Bolts used where black coated stainless steel ones again and not the ones that had been painted over.


So with that done I then turned my attention to re-assembling the newly painted bracketry for the inlet manifold which turned out like this.....really happy with this.



Next job.....front lower timing chain cover. I unwrapped my freshly blasted and powercoated cover and ran a tap down each bolt hole to make sure I wasn't going to have any issues further along the line....tedious I agree but a necessity for anything that has been powercoated or blasted. Water pump bolts can have a tendancy to seize/shear at the best of times.






All ready to go on with it's new gaskets.


I also ran some sealant (Dirko) where the cover meets the upper sump to give it the best chance of sealing. There is a metal gasket here as standard but unfortunately it requires a whole load of other work to swap out (lowering subframe etc) so I'm trying to avoid it if possible unless I absolutely have to do it! Not my best icing work I'll admit but it's a tricky place to get to deep in the engine bay together with the end of the crank being right in the way...excuses excuses I know!


All fitted...


At this point I was able to see how much of the crankshaft pulley was visible which turned out to be all of it so I was able to give it a lick of paint...


Next job....the sump....

Old breather drain removed


...given a lick of paint and fitted with new vaccum and breather hoses and fresh heat shielding and new o-rings for the banjo bolt. This was an absolute mare to refit back into place again. Seemed to take me forever!


Brand new pickup from BMW (not cheap)


Fitted in place with new o-ring and bolts torqued to spec


Bead of sealant applied to sump - why sealant when there's a gasket available I hear you ask (and if you're not asking that you should be!!)....well in a couple of hundred miles I'm going to be taking the sump off again to check for rogue pieces of chain guide that may have still been lurking since it fell apart so I will refit with proper gasket then.


Sump all in place


Next job.....upper timing chain covers...it was at this point I realised I didnt have the o-ring I needed.

Again...ran a tap through all the bolt holes..


Including the tensioner mounting hole too...


I couldn't install the left hand cover as previously mentioned but I fitted the right hand side one instead with a new gasket..


Next I got out the freshly crinkle black powder coated rocker covers....ran the tap down were required..


Fitted new gaskets....


And placed it onto the engine - looks very good I'm sure you'll agree. The upper chain covers haven't been fully secured yet as this gets done after the rockers are bolted down to ensure the underside rubber seal seals correctly.



So basically this is how it currently sits...


Still a fair amount to do......ideally need this running this week though so I can carry on with other projects that are waiting.

More tomorrow hopefully.

[Greydog]

What a great job, mine was just chemically cleaned when they rebuilt the engine but it's easy to see where the man hours come from
Look forward to seeing the finished running engine

[sleepyfolk]

This is the best engine porn ever!

[A Blair]

Great thread V8 00 USH.
I just love your engine. Seriously I wish I could have that talent. I have thought about buying another engine to do what you are doing.
I have two important questions if I may.
where do you live.
When are you going on holiday.
Try not to think the worst. ☺

[V8 00USH]

[quote="A Blair"]
I have thought about buying another engine to do what you are doing.[/quote]

Unfortunately they aren't cheap and certainly not what you'd call readily available!

[quote="A Blair"]
I have two important questions if I may.
where do you live.
When are you going on holiday.
[/quote]

Haha....I live in Liverpool, UK, no plans yet this year. I am due a Nurburgring trip at some point soon - I usually go twice a year but haven't been this year yet.

[A Blair]

Liverpool you say.
I am a wirral lad born and bred, with a home in Aberdeen (About as far as you can get from the ex) currently working in Antwerp.
Seriously love all those shiny engine bits so good luck and keep the posts coming.

[AW8]

I continue to be hugely impressed....... fantastic results 

Thanks for sharing.

[V8 00USH]

[quote="A Blair"]
I am a wirral lad born and bred, with a home in Aberdeen (About as far as you can get from the ex) currently working in Antwerp. [/quote]

Funny that....my day job is based in Prenton over in the Wirral.

So last nights stint can only be described as being filled with multiple mishaps - felt like a bit of a wasted session but it's not really as it's all good experience. Now that I've made a couple of not really what you would call mistakes more the wrong order of doing things I wouldn't make the same mistake again should I need to repeat the exercise.

So started the night at around 9pm by fitting that o-ring I was missing..


Then I moved onto getting the hardware together for securing the valve covers down.....which as you can see I was already off to a bad start. 4 rubber seals missing and 1 bodged cap nut that someone had obviously fitted previously from a rocker gasket job. I now know why it was bodged but I'll come back to that later...



So...not to be put off I cracked on and fitted the left hand upper guide and rocker cover not before cleaning out the threads as per usual. For those of you that wonder why I bother doing this and may have the attitude 'oh those threads would be fine'...look at what comes out of one hole after running a tap down it...



Now if any of you have ever tried fitting new rocker cover seals you'll know that it can sometimes be a bit tricky to get the cap nut fasteners to start due to the thicker newer rubber seals - the additional powder coat probably didnt help matters either. So the best way to compress the rocker down to get the nuts to start is to remove the rubber seal from a couple of the nuts and use a couple of washers instead - one of each side of the rocker which will pull it down which will let you fit the rest of them easily.



As I was securing the front fasteners I realised I'd made a massive mistake.....



...yes you guessed it they weren't black.....so out came the paint again - I'll refit those once they've dried at the next sitting...

Next job....freshly painted and ultrasonically cleaned Vanos solenoids with new gaskets..




...and here was my 2nd mishap (only really due to the fact that I'm overly anal!)....the socket that's provided with the ridiculously expensive locking kit I remember being a very very snug fit...so much so that it was in danger of removing the fresh paint....



So...I had to go with an alternative option....which meant disassembling the work that I'd already done that night...so that I could use a spanner instead.....




Now onto the 3rd mishap.....the Vanos seals..


Now here in this picture everything looks great.....they look properly fitted with an nice black cap bolt at the top holding them in....unfortunately that is the only bolt currently holding them in - for some bizarre reason I can only put down to the powdercoating getting in the way I could not for the life of me get the lower bolt in. Sooooo....since it was 11:30pm the next session will see me removing (again) the front upper covers and fitting the seals at the bench then fitting them onto the engine over the solenoids.

This then leads me onto the final hiccup of the night....the dipstick...the bane of anyones life who's ever done this job before - it's ALWAYS in the way and is seemingly impossible to remove due to the way it's bent. I'm now not 100% confident of getting it back into it's proper home with the left hand Vanos solenoid in the way - you need to get it into a certain position to be able to refit it into the sump with the new o-ring. Again...another job to work out next session.

So going back to the reason why someone had probably previously bodged one of the cap nuts....the cost...I rang BMW this morning to order a replacement cap nut to be told that including discount they were....£13 EACH!! So if you had to replace all 16 of them for whatever reason you'd be looking at over £200 for 16 nuts....which is...absolutely NUTS!!  ) )

Now to be honest....in the grand scheme of this project £13 is a mere drop in the ocean but I'm not one for spending money unnecessarily. So I've come up with another plan which will allow me to replace all the 16 fasteners (not just 1) for hopefully a bit cheaper than £13 and more in keeping with my current theme. All will be revealed in due course...

I've also ordered the other 5 missing seals too. Next installment hopefully tomorrow.

P.S. Yes I've spotted the couple of rusty brackets in the above pics which will be getting attended to in due course 

[V8 00USH]

Last nights update, unfortunately I only managed to get a quick hour in...but any progress is progress right?

Started off in a positive manner by fitting a couple of new parts..

New LPG coolant temperature sensor - mine was having issues in that it would kick onto LPG when the engine was still cold.




Then fitted the new front crank seal...



That then meant I could fit the crank pulley mounting flange


Then it was time to address the dipstick.....removed the LH rocker cover, upper chain cover and Vanos solenoid which then enabled me to maneuver the dipstick into it's locating hole.


New dipstick sealing hardware


All fitted into place...


With the upper chain cover removed I was able to very easily address the Vanos seal issue I had been having...



Fitted all the left hand side back together and then finally fitted the new hydraulic chain tensioner




(look at the dirt underneath that.....I'll have to sort that!!!)

Repeated the same thing on the RH side bank then got the newly painted rocker bolts and loosely fitted the rockers back on - just waiting on my new bolt solution to turn up...




Next visits jobs include.....mounting the inlet manifold, fit up the breather system and loom - then we may attempt a test start before putting any other ancillaries back on again.

[V8 00USH]

So......after looking more closely at the rubber seal underneath the upper guide covers I wasn't 100% happy with the way it was sat as looked squashed and misformed - I worked out that this was due to me fitting the vanos guide seals in place first and then having to pull the upper chain covers in using the bolts due to the tight fit around the Vanos solenoid, so the seals had obviously 'dragged' their way across the lower surface - I obviously couldn't bring myself to leave them like this - chances are they would have sealed fine since they are rubber but I really didn't want to take the risk.

So...off they came again....on removal I found this gasket sitting like this...


I had to come up with a solution to get the Vanos seals to line up with the mounting holes so that I could fit them after fitting the upper covers. So I did this....

Chopped a couple nuts up to make them into studs...


Which then enabled me to do this...


..then this...


....then I secured the seal down using the nuts as tight as I dared...


....then I removed the lower nut and stud which meant that the hole was nicely lined up...


I then repeated this for the top mounting bolt which also lined up a treat.

Was this worth the extra effort.....well I'll let you be the judge of that...here's how the seals were sat before...



....and here's how they sat after.....absolutely flat and perfect!



So then after this I plugged up all the intake ports and buzzed off the surfaces with a air powered wire wheel which brought them up perfect. I also pulled the breather pipe into it's proper place which you can see at the back of the LH bank.



I then remembered I had a couple more bits to paint that I'd forgotten about - the water pump and the other tensioner. So these were dug out and the mounting surfaces prepped.





I also got out my new 88 Degree thermostat - 88 degree I you ask...the standard thermostat is an electronically controlled 102 degree item which means the car usually runs at around 104-108degrees. This has always seemed far too excessive for me and I believe won't be helping longevity of various parts of the engine. From what I have read it was more to do with emission control. Either way it's unnerving so I wanted to lower the running temperature of the engine more to a normal more acceptable level. I'm hoping this thermostat will do the trick and allow it to run around 10 degrees cooler under normal operation. It should also mean the electric fan won't be kicking in and out as much as it used to either.



Next I got busy with the masking tape...




I also took this opportunity to remove those 2 rusty mounts I'd previously spotted - one is for the standard heater control valve (on the right) which I'll blast and paint and the other crude industrial looking one (on the left) is for the LPG vapouriser which I'll recreate out of aluminium and paint.





Unfortunately both of these brackets have left their mark on the paint in the engine bay - something which I'll probably deal with again at some point - BMW really seem to skimp out on engine bay paint in all the cars around this era - they either use a very flat basic paint or they paint it the same colour as the body but don't lacquer it - it's a real shame!

Anyway - that was it for the night. More updates over the weekend - perhaps even an engine running video clip!

[IanP]

Have you thought about changing all of the small hoses at the back of the engine bay while you can easily reach them? With these engines running high temperatures and pressures they have  hard life.
I didn't do them when I had my 4.6 engine out for overhaul, and regretted it. (Twice