KwS

Cheers guys. One bit of advice i will give, and one thing i have learnt from this stripped bolt.... Always use quality tools. The Hex set i was using was a cheap set from Supercheap. Now i know why it was cheap. Compared to the Bahco 5MM hex socket i purchased to replace the cheap one, the cheap one is sloppy and crap in the bolts. Bahco one is much better quality, much better fit and has better edges. I know its common sense, but its never bothered me in the past. Now im making a list of all my cheap tools, and will be replacing them with higher quality ones. Oh, and never give up.

Right so, JB Weld was useless, nothing more than glorified glue. Didnt really harden, was kinda like a blob of semi-hard paint and the moment i turned the ratchet it just twisted out. I then got angry, so out came the dremel with a cutting disk. I rammed the dremel in the limited space, and began cutting away. got a decent gash in it before i ran out of space. Smashed the living crap out of it with a chisel and instead of aiming to turn it, i aimed to cut the head off, so went hard. Began to get limited by space, again, so decided to change to a grinding stone on the dremel.... and went hard with that. More chiselling and by this point half the bolt was missing, and i could see the gap between the bolt and washer. I decided to try and remove some more metal from it with pliers.... "did that just turn?"..... sure enough, with a mighty twist of the pliers it slightly turned again. Spent the next 5 minutes turning it half a turn at a time, until it finally came out. GREAT SUCCESS. Now that i have that out, nothing stands in the way of removing the unit and FINALLY beginning the rebuild. I still begin this Saturday morning. The culprit.

You have such an irrational hard on for manuals.

Okay, so ive now resorted to one last thing to get the bolt out before i remove the front end of the car to gain access.... JB welding a 5mm hex socket into the bolt. I stuck it in there yesterday and left it to set overnight and its gone pretty solid. Ive just put another layer on tonight and will try to crack the bolt tomorrow evening (about 48 hours to dry the first lot). In the mean time i decided to have a go at the shifter and handbrake boots that i have sitting around. I pulled the knob off, and removed the boots. Im retaining the old knob for now, and will replace it later. The old boots are ugly, hard, grey leather. Not good to look at or feel. The replacement ones are soft, and gloss black. Both have M stitching. My original boots were glued or melted to the frame, so i had to cut them off. Once they were off, it was a simple case of stretching the elastic on the boot around the frame and then wedging it into place. They look good, and i cant wait to get the car out of the garage and into the light.

Click the banner you quoted. Its a free website. My M3 will have higher consumption than most due to the missing O2 sensors. Its still pretty good considering my driving style!

Would wrap the wood grain (prefer dark wood grain), but other than that its a pretty smart looking car. Must go like a rocket too with a casual 500HP. Only questionable thing i see is that it appears to still be pushing that power through a slushbox and not SMG like M5. Wonder what it drives likes (no doubt its been fettled by Alpina).

Have a look here. Everything you need to know is in this document. Any further questions should be directed to your certifier. http://www.lvvta.org.nz/documents/standards/LVVTA_STD_Frontal_Impact.pdf

i tend to use genuine, from the dealer for oil filters. Cheap enough really.

not enough space on this last one to get vice grips on it. Tried. Even if i could get vice grips on it, i wouldnt have the space to turn them. If it was another top one, it'd be out by now. Its a real shitty bolt to round, not recommended. The shitty thing is, there is no real way to prevent it. The socket was on straight, and the hex socket was new so had fresh edges. Its just one of them things.

+1, really good quality especially for the price.

only way to get an ez out in there would be to remove the Ac condensor which i dont really want to do. considered the hacksaw blade thing, will see how i go first as that will be super painful and even then i need to work out how to get enough torque on whatever screwdriver i use to try and turn it. Ill see tomorrow how good this High Strength permanent loctite is.

Most of the buildup is coming from a seeping oil filler cap seal (pretty common and something i already knew about). It looks worse than it really is in those pics because its all been stirred up with many penetrating lubricants and brake clean. Itll be getting a real good degrease and clean once its all back together. I was under the car doing the oils a month or so ago and under the car is pretty clean and dry save for a couple of small damp spots and a weeping power steering system (damn E36 feature). I have a flexi thing for the dremel, but the small cutting disk is too big to fit and i risk cutting too many other things whilst im there. The lack of visability of the bolt doesnt help either. Once this bolt is out, the vanos is off and i can finally get working on the seals and rattle kit (which i thought wouldnt be the hard bit). Im suprised the hex key fit because the bolt is down quite deep, and i didnt think the short end of the hex key would be anywhere near long enough, but it was the perfect length. In one of the pictures of all my tools in the previous post you can see my hex sockets, which arent short but just werent long enough for this. For the past few years at least, its been running motul fully synthetic oil, but i dont know how long ago the PO started using that, or what a previous owner used. The oil in the engine looked good when it was drained, no chunks or flakes. Im happy with the over all condition of the engine, considering the age and KM. Could be cleaner, but im just happy there isnt any sludge or noticeable wear.

Right, so today was also a story of ups and downs. This is where i left off, with the car buttoned up for the night and two bolts rounded off and stuck. This is one of the two bolts that i was stuck on. I had been belting on this with no movement and gave up. Finally after some more belting with a hammer and screwdriver, it started to turn! And then there was one. So before i started on that one again i though i had best check the last set of bolts i need to remove to get the vanos off; the vanos bridge bolts. These are four bolts on the part behind the vanos. Two are easy to see, the other two are recessed in the bridge. First issue, all the holes are filled with oil and some old sludge. After much brake clean and cloths, i got it nice and clean. Issue two, the two recessed bolts are too deep for my hex socket. This is where i spend he afternoon running around trying to find someone with a deep hex socket. Nope, no can do. In the end i have only one option, buy some allen keys have cut them up to make a long hex socket. I go to the Warehouse and buy a set of cheap allen keys that have squared off ends (god i hate the ball end keys). This is where the win comes into it. I decided to whack the 6MM key in the hole; perfect fit! hmmm, how do i turn it now.... jack handle! These two get the Tool of the Day award! The other two bolts are easy, so all of them are cracked, no rounding. Yay! I then turn my attention to the one stuck bolt i have. After much work, much frustation and much cussing i decide the only way to get enough room is to remove the radiator. The rad, although dirty, has been replaced in the past and is in good condition. This also gives me a chance to clean the oil cooler which is packed with mud. One thing i will note too, is to remove the radiator you must disconnect the oil cooler. It is held in with one 10mm bolt on the RH end, and then you lever it out of that bracket with a screwdriver (couldnt find this info anywhere else so had to work it out myself). Even with the radiator gone i cant get it out. I try all my tools, and come to one conclusion. I cant get a drill in there, no room. Cant get the dremel in there, no room. A hammer and chisel or screwdriver isnt turning it. Im stuck. I have no use high strength loctite to secure the 5mm hex socket inside the bolt. Ill leave it 24 hours like it says, and then cross everything and see if it will hold long enough for me to crank the bastard out. If not, i dont know what ill do. Car is wrapped up again. To be continued, again.

Thanks, its bit of a pain but i wont let it beat me. Hardest bit will be getting the new bolts, really crossing everything they will be in NZ. Yeah, i used the Beisan instructions when i did the M52 seals and it was tops. I figures its just because he only had access to an Evo and thought it would cross over (you can even see in the pictures that the engine is a dual vanos evo). I will be contacting him once im done to see if i can help update the instructions to make it better for anyone that does it in the future. Regardless, hopefully this thread will help anyone that is looking to do the job in the future, as there is VERY little out there about the 3.0 vanos rebuild.

Havent got the gearknob yet so i havent installed the boots. Will definitely post pics when they are fitted.

The leak isnt coming from the cylinder so no worries there. Either its a leaking spark plug tube seal (which considering how crusty the seal is, wouldnt suprise me), or it is excess oil that was spilt ages ago and wasnt cleaned up. No risk to anything internal. The "gunk" i think you might be referring to is the black coating on the internals. This is usually caused by infrequent oil changes at some point in its life. There is no sludge, the black is a thin, hard coating, sort of baked on. Other than being discoloured everything else looks good inside.

Only the heads burred thankfully, so should be able to get them out, but hoping i dont need to remove had to get to the bottom one. I have cleaned the oil up, and since i now have to buy new bolts for the vanos unit ill get new valve cover gaskets too.

So, today.... There comes a story of sadness, happiness, anger and ultimately heart ache. Today was vanos day. Rolled the car into the garage and began work. First thing ill say about it, is that the instruction on the Beisan Systems site are sh*t (http://www.beisansystems.com/procedures/euro_s50_single_vanos_procedure.htm). Totally sh*t. Like, useless lump of sh*t. They are based heavily on the 3.2 Evo engine, which clearly doesnt share that much with the 3.0 as a lot of the instructions and pictures do not match. Did a stock take of my tools to make sure i had everything needed, Check. The willing victim First step, remove fan and shroud. First failure.... 32mm wrench is too big to fit between the fan and water pump bolts. Solution, remove two of the bolts in the pulley. A swift whack of the hammer on the spanner and off the fan comes. Fan is on a reverse thread. Remove the shroud with the fan. Fan was very dirty, will need a clean. Clutch is original but seems to be OK. Keeping organised! Next up, remove the coil cover and disconnect all the coils. Pull the coils out. issue two. Found two of the coils drowning in oil. Removed the plugs and cleaned out of the oil. Cleaned the coils. Unsure of its it from a spark plug tube seal failure or someone spilling oil whilst filling. There is oil around the top of the hole so i think maybe a spill. Remove the valve cover. Third issue. Gasket is hard and like plastic. Beisan says that the gasket is Viton and does not require replacement. Bullshit. Issue four, as you can see in the above picture there is a thin coating of baked on crap in the engine. Such a shame to not see it nice and clean. Not sure if crap oil in the past or long service intervals, but no sludge, just a hard thin coating. Issue five, finding Top Dead Center. The Beisan instructions say to line up a pointer like the below one, with marks on the front of the harmonic balancer. After 2 hours of searching and much frustration i finally worked it out. By fluke i found the pointer, a simple mark on the timing cover, and the marks on the balancer arent on the front, but hidden down behind the pulley. WTF. Once i knew where this was it was easy as to align TDC. So i start pulling the Vanos to bits in order to remove it. Issue six, in order to align the intake pulley you need to rotate the cam using a 24mm Spanner. The spanner i purchased for the job is too wide, doesnt fit on the hex in the cam. Have to run out and buy another, different brand one. Issue seven, Beisan says the solenoids will be linked, and removed in a certain way. Nope, in the 3.0 they are separate and the wiring doesnt exit via the bottom like the 3.2, it exits top and bottom, per solenoid. The top solenoid wiring is also spiral found to the sensor on the vanos bridge, so that needs to be removed before the solenoid comes out. Took the intake piston cover off and removed the tiny wee nut OK. Next up was to remove the bolts that hold the vanos unit to the head. MAJOR ISSUE. Two of the bolts strip and the hex socket spins freely. f**k. I cover her up, shut the bonnet and go inside. This is an issue for another day. To be continued.

Found it, behind the toothed wheel >_< Will put up pics to show where it is in my thread once im done. ONWARDS!

Hi all, in the middle of doing my vanos and i have hit a real snag. I cant find my TDC marks T | O on the crank pulley. I have lined the cams up so the lobes are at 45 degrees pointing to each other, and i can see the pointer on the timing case, but no bloody mark on the pulley. i have spin it over a couple of times watching the pulley and cant find it. Anyone with a 3.0 know where they are? The set up is slightly different to the 3.2 engine.

Hes also pretty busy with the megameet, so give him bit of a break.

Keep an eye on my project thread over the weekend and you will get an idea of what it takes to rebuild the S50B30 vanos using Beisan kit.

I used to be a huge subaru fan, almost everyone i knew a few years ago owned one, and ive owned a few myself. The auto AWD system is good, and strong too. The later model 98/99 onwards are better, as are the manual boxes. The engines are good provided they havent been abused or badly looked after/maintained. The older 2.5L non-turbo engines were terrible, real prone to headgasket failures. The 6 cyclinders in all generations are fantastic, and bulletproof. The turbo engines are good, but for drivability the later model single turbo engines are preferred over the twin turbo ones. More reliable too. The rocker cover gaskets are prone to leaking, but a new set of genuine gaskets will fix this. They fail because the oil can pool on them and they get badly overheated due to the exhaust manifold sitting so close to them. The later BL/BP single turbo or 3.0 sixes are really nice cars. Highly recommended if you want a comfortable AWD cruiser with some power.

Want to try that again?

The procedure you have linked is for the dual vanos 3.2 Evo, not the single vanos 3.0 like Beeker2 and I have. This is the correct procedure, which is much simpler. http://www.beisansystems.com/procedures/euro_s50_single_vanos_procedure.htm