Leaderboard

Had last Friday off and got a good 3 days of 12-13 hour shifts in over the weekend. Disassembled all the lifters and spent a good half a day cleaning them out. Some of them didn't look in too good a shape. Contemplated using the lifters and trays from the 325 but unfortunately managed to mix them up when removing the head. Apparently they wear to the individual cylinder they sit in and it's not good practice putting them back in randomly. The 330 ones I managed to keep in the correct order so stuck with those, although they did look worse for wear. 330i with 161,XXXkm on the left vs 325i 226,XXXkm on the right. This is probably the worst one of the lot but clearly see the difference regular oil changes make. Will do for now but new lifters is on the list of potential future maintenance items. My Aliexpress timing kit worked well and setting the timing was generally quite a straightforward affair. Only gripe I had with it was with the timing chain sprocket alignment tool. It doesn't space the sprockets far enough apart to lose all the slack from the chain so leaves too much room for confusion. Luckily I had a second set of sprockets from the 325i that I zip-tied together when removing and used that as a template. Here's how a correctly aligned set sits on the tool. I cleaned and reused the timing chain tensioner but replaced the spring. A couple of mm difference in height between the old and new. VANOS installed. Turned the engine over a few times, all rotates smoothly enough and stays in the right alignment. Then spent a silly number of hours cleaning out the valve cover. The waffle pattern is an absolute pain to clean and next to impossible to get perfect. Managed to get all the chunkier crud out and it took at least a good 10 flushes for the water to stop coming out all brown. Valve cover installed followed by new spark plugs and coils, cam, crank, knock and temp sensors, oil filter housing and whatever else I had access to. Pretty much at the point where I'm happy to mate it up with the gearbox and drop it in the car. Will need to tidy up the wiring loom and possibly hook it up prior. Will leave the intake manifold install for when the engine is in the car to avoid it getting in the way of the lift hooks. The intake manifold got fully disassembled and properly cleaned inside and out with a variety of brushes. New O-rings on the tested and cleaned injectors and air distributor rail, new temp sensor, CCV and hoses and vacuum caps. Thoroughly cleaned out the throttle body and ICV, lubed up the latter as per the guidance from this thread. Ready to throw onto the engine with just the rebuilt DISA to install after the intake boots are fitted. Getting there.

Close to rust free. That’s encouraging. I assume they still have the 1996 540i to keep this company?

No, but you'll still need to register it as a new battery.

Looking for some spare wheels before I try raid Pick-a-part. Closer to Whangaparaoa the better, happy to travel for the right deal. 1x compact spare wheel for E46 Touring. IE: BMW Steel rim style12 - 16 x 7 ET47 P/N: 36116750006 - https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showparts?id=AW33-USA-01-2001-E46-BMW-325i&diagId=36_0521#36116750006 1x any standard 17" spare wheel for E36. Or any number of Style 66 wheel, any config.

600hp V10 E21.

Had an ex-engine builder mate come round one evening with his set of micrometres to check over the bearing clearances. All seem to be sitting towards the upper end of the spec. Not ideal but she's also not a drag racer so happy enough. Main bearing clearances sat around 0.050-0.055mm - spec is 0.020-0.058mm. Con rods were around the same. Also rechecked them with plastigauge later on and all sat bang on 0.050mm. These are the piston rings I ended up using, as recommended previously, complete with M52TU-style bottom rings. Checked the ring end gaps with a feeler gauge and to my great relief no grinding was required. Spec is 0.20-0.40mm, both top rings were bang on 0.40mm in all 6 sets out of the box. The oil control rings were between 0.60-0.75mm but they're also a 3-piece instead of the stock 2-piece so probably fall under some other spec. Gave the block a last clean and blast through wish some compressed air, wiped down the bores and got to installing the crank. Bearings went in with a little coating of assembly lube. Sacrificed a brand new detailing brush to oil duties and painted a bit of oil on all the journals as well. Main caps went on and torqued to spec - 20Nm + 70 degrees. Made sure to remember to put the brace plates on the first time around after watching 50skid step on that rake. Piston rings got clocked to different sides and not to match oil openings, brushed on some oil onto the bores, piston & ring compressor and gently tapped the pistons in place. Caps torqued to the same spec as the main caps, with brand new oiled up bolts. All turns over beautifully without much effort. Happy to have gotten to this point. Called it a day at nearly 11pm on Wednesday with a great sense of accomplishment. Best sleep I had all week. Another weekend of wrenching ahead, hoping to get her up and running before Christmas ✌

Haven't managed to make much progress in the meantime but gearing up for a wrenchfest over the long weekend, I finally unwrapped the block and chucked it up on the stand. First time I had a proper look at it since getting it back from the shop a good two months ago now and... boy oh boy. What the actual f**k man. Just lost for words at this point. Especially pissed at the chipped and mangled edges where the block meets the timing cover and oil pan, which is prone to leaking even when perfectly straight. Will have to carefully file away and straighten those out. Pure and utter negligence. Not even touching upon the "cleaning job" they did. Loose dirt all over the outside still, thread locker in the threads and metal shavings throughout. Didn't expect it to come out clean enough to eat off of but f**k me... Would expect better from a backyard cashie job, let alone a supposedly reputable shop recommended by several local indie mechanics. If you're looking for a machine shop down in Christchurch, you'd do well to steer well clear of Car Aid. What an utter shitshow. On a lighter note, stopped by Seal Inniovations today who helped pick out a nice new viton O-ring for the cylinder head oil non-return valve (size 015 - 14mm ID x 1.78mm c/s if anyone's wondering). Beats paying US$80 for a whole new valve.