E46 Things
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VANOS unit off.
Oil pump disk removed. The tabs on the cam hub that often break off fit into the holes crossed off in red. It is the same design as the Euro S50B32 but the S50 has a tighter fit between the hole and the tab so the impact force is lower and tab breakage is not a problem there.
the options for preventing tab breakage are to buy a one of the aftermarket higher strength hubs with larger tabs. Buy a cyro treated stock hub. Buy a redrilled oil pump disk. Or, be friends with a machinist and have them drill it.
Mr. K Precision himself @Jeff will be adding the holes in blue above.
I checked the cam timing as it currently sits. The timing is not set correctly. The exhaust cam is about 2 degrees advanced, but it must have been within the acceptable range for adaptation since there were never any codes or issues. It will certainly not hurt anything to have a wider range of cam adjustment available once I reset it correctly.
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I installed the anti-rattle parts. There was no axial freeplay beforehand and no axial freeplay afterwards. Waste of money? Yes. The other piece of the anti-rattle solution is to use S62 diaphragm springs. They are stiffer. The only positive from this portion of the project was being able to clean the thrust bearings and housings. There was a little bit of crud built up.
ORIGINAL VANOS THRUST BEARING AXIAL FREEPLAY: JUST FINE
All but 1 of the VANOS seals have been replaced. I am not a fan of how the teflon seals need to be stretched to fit and don't feel satisfied with the fitment of one so I ordered another and will wait a few days to get that last seal in. Visually, the old rubber seals were in decent condition and the teflon seals were not that worn or brittle. The exhaust side appeared to be worn the most/was the only side that seems like the new seals will give an improvement.
ORIGINAL VANOS SEALS: DECENT CONDITION
Next I replaced the cam bolts. They were the original 8.8 bolts (shown on the exhaust side) with no Loctite and none of them were loose, but new 12.9 hardware and Loctite 243 (shown on the intake side) will provide some peace of mind despite the originals likely never having any issue in the future based on their current track record.
ORIGINAL CAM BOLTS: TIGHT AND UNBROKEN
Yet another reliability upgrade/“while you’re in there” piece, the upper timing chain guide. This guy is known to break and wear out fast. HEY! MINE IS BROKEN!
ORIGINAL TIMING CHAIN GUIDE: BUSTED!
Fishing out the broken piece without dropping it down the timing cover was a little nerve-racking. I even had a vacuum cleaner running to help try to catch the stray piece as i pulled it out with pliers
Here is the upgraded piece made from Nylatron, a material I use often in my engineering work. It has good friction properties and very good wear resistance for a plastic.
Everything should be buttoned together later this week as long as I get the parts I need.
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Did you make or buy that Nylatron guide?
https://www.instagram.com/_jdesigner_/ http://nevertoolow.tumblr.com/
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Did you make or buy that Nylatron guide?
purchased
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Two steps forward, two steps back.
+1) Replaced the belt idlers that were beginning to sound like a tiny elephant with a kazoo.
+1) Replacement o-ring and teflon seal arrived. VANOS rebuild is complete. Just waiting on oil pump disk to be machined before I continue re-assembly
-1) The idler pulley bolt is so long that I couldn’t remove it without removing the electric fan which required permanent removal (see also breakage) of the fin mounted zip strips. While I was investigating whether I could run longer ones through the condenser+radiator to make future removal easier (im not going to drain the coolant and remove the radiator when I want to remove the fan) I noticed the AC condenser fins are almost entirely Aluminum Oxide instead of Aluminum. They fall off when you touch them, so a new condenser is in my future. I have never seen them so brittle before. I may see how corroded and brittle the front side of the radiator tubes are and replace the radiator at the same time.
-1) I found a broken power steering line mounting bracket under the car. Very minor inconvenience. Looks like a transmission mount and is only sold with the hard line.
UPDATE: The part appears to be the same mount the secondary air pump uses so I have it on order.
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VANOS installed.
Cams are timed perfectly.
It took a few hours and some patience and a little bit of experimentation to make the timing perfect. I had it set within the acceptable range but it needs to be perfect because quite simply it’s an S54 and the S54 deserves it.
What I believe prevents some people from getting it perfect is a slight advancement of the cams while tightening the sprocket hub bolts and the slightest bit of timing chain slack. You can follow all the directions to the T but it can still be slightly off. There are plenty of forum threads where people had incorrect timing and error codes simply from using a non-BMW timing tool or by wrongly assuming they had it close enough. It is a fairly involved process and do not want to revisit this at a later time. It is as perfect as it can be. If by some chance it throws a code or is off, I will write myself off and quit working on cars.
Later today I should get around to the valve adjustment and get it all put back together.
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Damn that's an ugly airbox. It ruins the whole engine bay. Absolutely unacceptable. If only a solution existed...
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Brian I gothcu boo- this for the low low price of $8200!
https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-european-bmw-parts/euro-csl-intake/11617833496kt/
Would this fit a s50b32? BTW it’s $8554 now
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Would this fit a s50b32? BTW it’s $8554 now
From what I can tell it does not fit a euro s50 and the price did go up but not to $8554 when you've got a wholesale account.
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