Okay, Round two (pictures pending). I had intended (yet again) to just do a little bit of work, mostly cleaning. Ha! Two hours later and what was a single piece (Head + both manifolds + fuel rail + coolant attachment) was now in oily grimy pieces all over my bench. I removed both the rocker shafts and rocker arms. Only a slight bit of trouble here, hopefully no permanent damage done. Thereby Earendil - Technical Forum
QuoteMichiel 318iS I'd forget about that shock and rather pay for a new one. We often bend shocks at work by impacts, need a long straight ruler to check for bending, in the long run you'll end up replacing it again. If you want to re-use parts from a crashed car, go for the parts that were in the non-impact zone. Might there be any negative result from using 3 older shocks with aby Earendil - Technical Forum
I got some help this evening and moved the head from my engine bay to the work bench. I'm hoping to have some time before the weekend to clean it up a bit and remove both the manifolds. So far I'm hearing Varsol/Break cleaner/Simple green for the gunk on the outside. What about the carbon buildup on the inside? Should I attempt to clean the inside at all? I don't want to damageby Earendil - Technical Forum
QuoteMichiel 318iS No use in buying two sets either, tyres wear when not being used as well. You know, you should really stop storing those tires on your treadmill...by Earendil - Technical Forum
That said, a 100% increase in price is outrageous!by Earendil - Technical Forum
QuoteFerdinand QuoteDave_G205/55-15 is not a common tire size, but there are a few good options... I have the Yokohama S.drive, and I love them, but they are a lower-treadwear higher-performance summer tire... In anticipation of an early spring I just bought a set of those Yokohama S.drive tires in 205/55R15 from Tirerack.com. I haven't had them mounted yet though as there's still a gby Earendil - Technical Forum
QuoteArcheo-peteriX Project is moving along smoothly B) Two comments to make... 1. Put the T belt back on properly; BMW designed it that way so why tempt fate with a belt that is one tooth off and jumps one more? Perhaps. So there is no wisdom in "If it aint broken, don't fix it" ? I'll probably put it back. The timing belt being off a tick should be the LEAST of my coby Earendil - Technical Forum
QuoteMichiel 318iS You are talking about oily head bolts? It could be that during working off the bolts, the head loosened a bit and oil from the head drained and went into the bolt holes. Perhaps... It was the drivers side bolts, the very front and very rear bolts, in other words the first to be loosened. Probably makes no difference Can you think of anything to keep an eye out for? Or jby Earendil - Technical Forum
And The saga Continues.... Actually, it's more like a story about how I attempted to fix the valve springs to read when you're bored . Not really a saga per say...by Earendil - Technical Forum
how does that work?! Does it wiggle loose, holding on by the last few threads, and then the pressure blows it out? I guess what confuses me is that it blows out past the threads, and you were able to thread a new one in and it stayed. It's good to know that works though. I keep a few spark plugs in my trunk, I'll be sure to at least give that a shot if I ever decide to play engineby Earendil - Technical Forum
Stage one, ready the engine for removal of the head. I had intended to do a little "How to", but since the Bentley describes how to get to the point of removing the head so well, this first part will be more like a picture book of my weekend Friday after work I headed out to the car. The sun was out, and it was a hot 55 degrees, and I had intended to just take some pictures...by Earendil - Technical Forum
Those pictures I promised of the springs and shocks, as well as the damage to the front left wheel. If anyone wants to take a wild guess at the cahnce that that front shock is still good, please do. I know they towed it on all 4 wheels to get it home. It looked like the tie rod on the drivers side was bent, but there was no noticeable damage to the control arm, knuckle, spring or shock. The Shocby Earendil - Technical Forum
Quoterkj QuoteDave_G The OBC display in my '91 died a couple weeks ago, so I went and ordered the LEDs and resistors to do the conversion. The day after the parts arrived, the OBC display started working again. Is my car trying to tell me something? Oh well, at least I have the parts now for when it dies again. Yes Dave, your car just gave you a warning of things to come, they'll do tby Earendil - Technical Forum
QuoteKelly How is the driving (cornering, breaking) changed buy switching from a 205 to 195? I'm also interested on people's opinion on this. Intuition tells me that a wider tire would get worse gas milage, but would brake better. I would also expect it to effect steering, and not in a positive direction. However, what physics tells us should happen, and what is actually perceivabby Earendil - Technical Forum
I did this conversion with white LEDs, and it was fine. Perhaps White is too bright in some situations, but personally I thought it was perfect. My one disclaimer is that I have an aftermarket stereo with a red backlight. The stereo is a couple notches brighter than the rest of the dash lights in the car, so that is what my OBC is competing with. I suppose white LEDs could appear overly bright iby Earendil - Technical Forum
The "X" is one of the few things I wish my car had (okay, and intact valve springs). When I lived in the northern deserts of Spokane, WA, winter just meant driving with a respectable amount of power being applied to the road. On a flat desert, this equates directly to easy acceleration. Now that I'm back in the mountains, applied road power does not equate to acceleration the sameby Earendil - Community Forum
QuoteFerdinand I don't mean to rain on your parade. Just want to be sure you're not rushing into this without some careful thought and planning. It's not as easy as it first sounds to do this with the cylinder head in place. I really do appreciate that. It might have been the only thing I Noticed, but I did notice the removing of the rocker shaft. When I do my timing belt I alby Earendil - Technical Forum
QuoteFerdinand Plan-B: There is a tool, " Universal Overhead Valve Spring Compressor ", that will let you compress the valve spring from on top, without removing the cylinder head. Perhaps what I'll do is go this route, and not remove the head. I need to do the timing belt too, so I can get a lot of "stuff" out of the way on the front end. This leaves me only needingby Earendil - Technical Forum
Yep, I have a very well used, torn, oily, but still in one piece bentley. I know I looked in there for information specific to removing the valve springs and found nothing. I'll look the whole section over as soon as I go back to my car, and see if what that says about removing the head makes sense to me. Thanks for the reminder though!by Earendil - Technical Forum
Quoterkj Sensible shift points are when you're keeping a motor under power, that doesn't mean running at five grand for any length of time, I guess you have to learn things like this the hard way, maybe after you put your car back together you'll have a better idea. It's quite possible to learn things the easy way. Who said anything about staying at five grand for any lengthby Earendil - Technical Forum
Quoterkj QuoteBob in Everett The spring quality and life get back to that RPM thing. As I pointed out previously, the high speed gets to the natural frequency of the springs and they "surge" which means there is a wave motion going back and forth at the same frequency as the rocker arm hits the end of it. This causes impact of the coils against each other and stress concentrations, thby Earendil - Technical Forum
QuoteFerdinand Replacing the valve springs is way easier if the entire cylinder head is first removed. But of course that means removing the cylinder head, which in itself is a nuisance because you'll need a new timing belt, head gasket, and head bolts, etc. Humm... yes.... tell me more about the "etc" you speak of. Okay, so I'm still trying to work out the differenceby Earendil - Technical Forum
Quotedaniel QuoteEarendil I'm trying to find info on what broken springs mean. since no one else's advice has been very useful, i'll chime in. broken springs "means" you need to swap in an S52. simple as that. Haha. I told myself that if I put enough work into the body before the engine goes, that I'd put a different engine in there. However I haven't puby Earendil - Technical Forum
And more than ever, thanks for the encouragement. I've never come so close to losing my baby. It's hitting me harder than I thoughtby Earendil - Technical Forum
Quoterkj What can happen?, you fail?.... so what, failure is the best teacher you'll find anywhere! Rick I'll respond to this little section for now, because it encompasses a lot on my mind. My E30 was a great college car, because it didn't need to be reliable, and working on it catered to what I had, which was time and not money. Now I have a job and require a more reliableby Earendil - Technical Forum
Quoterkj Tyler, Baby To start of with I would never do this job with the head in place, I would always do a head gasket, head bolts and the rest with the head off. That way you don't have to tear your hair out doing a simple job, but, beware of simple jobs; they can get mighty big in a hurry. Would you suggest to me, if you knew I could not point to "the head" and am going toby Earendil - Technical Forum
So, a couple hours of research later I can find no info on how to replace the valve springs. The Bentley also has nothing. All I seem to have figured out is that I need a spring compression tool, but besides that...? Has anyone here actually done this themselves, or did y'all just stay at a holiday inn last night? If anyone wanted to help walk me through this when the time comes, that woby Earendil - Technical Forum
QuoteBob in Everett Yep, those high revs do have a price. The springs fatigue at high revs because the frequency of the valve action gets to the natural frequency of the spring and it surges making the coils touch each other. This causes a contact spot that starts a fatigue crack. Interesting. I suppose combined with that could be the shear age of the engine its self? New springs, bothby Earendil - Technical Forum
QuoteArcheo-peteriX The 325i has double valve springs. Since you could see the broken coils, it is likely that only the outer ones have broken. That would also explain why your engine runs fine. Peter, if you were here I might just kiss you! Since getting home to internet resources, I have read about these double springs, which I hadn't noticed before. I can't imagine how the outer spby Earendil - Technical Forum