Also done a Vanos Seal Replacement (e46)

[scottr 11]

Hi all, right., so like Allan here I've also recently replaced the vanos seals in my car (weekend just gone), and I'm here to describe my experiences with the effort (both good, and bad). Sorry about the length, but hopefully there's something of use to someone in here. I tried adding to the other post but it seems to have locked now, so I've made a new thread. Admins, feel free to merge this with Allan's thread if you think it's appropriate

The car is an auto 2002 E46 320i, with the 6 cyclinder 2.2 litre dual vanos M54 engine which has done 120k.

Unlike Allan we didn't experience any really telling signs that the Vanos unit was tired, but once I'd done some research after investigating an oil leak (which appeared to be coming off a nut that was holding the vanos unit to the engine) I'd released there were some subtle signs that the vanos unit wasn't in the best condition. It would idle rougher than i thought it should sometimes after cold starting (still idled fine though). It also used a bit more fuel that I thought it should. Note we never had an issue with stalling, bunny hopping, hesitation etc. The car ran fine, it just seemed rougher at times, and used more fuel that I expected.

So, I ordered a bunch of tools from amazon, valve cover gaskets etc from pelican parts, some random assortments from deal extreme (led work lights) and the beisan seal kit. It arrived over the course of a couple of weeks and once it had all arrived I'd started into it on the following weekend.

I opened the Beisan procedure guide on a laptop in the garage, grabbed a beer and put on some tunes. The rest of the story goes as follows...

1.) Getting the fan off.

I manned up and used a 3pound sledge hammer and a large spanner. It was easy enough to get off and was exactly as described. A few fast-ish but guarded hits and the nut came loose. I'd definitely recommend using a hammer with some weight in it. I got the 3 pound sledge from super cheap auto for 12 dollars. It's cheap and looks it, but it did the job required.

2.) Removing the valve cover, inc coils and cabling.

I'd removed the cabling and coils as per the instructions on beisansystem's website (easy enough to do, I've already replaced the spark plugs before), and eventually was ready to remove the valve cover itself.

Note., whilst here I'd discovered that there was another leak of oil coming out from under one of the grommets at the front by the first sparkplug, which was running down the length of the gasket and slowly dripping onto the exhaust. Intermittent burning oil smoke found!

Unfortunately however I'd bought everything but the grommets as I didn't expect I'd need to replace them, and shipping on them was a killer (Pelican parts had them as individual items, with a massive shipping cost attached). That's no matter though, I can get some here (and did today from European Autospares. Same day delivery, very impressed!).

The valve cover seal took a little bit of effort to break, but eventually I was able to get a putty knife under one corner and the rest of it lifted off easily enough.

And this is where it went bad.

As the valve cover came off, half the seals around the spark plug holes stayed on the head. That's fine, the valve cover seal was knackered and felt more like hardened plastic than rubber, and had pretty much no flex in it whatsoever. I started lifting off what had stuck to the sparkplug holes using the putty knife when all of a sudden a piece shattered into two small bits and fell into the head. I was able to remove one piece easily enough, but the second piece was just unreachable and had slipped in behind a valve spring.

3.5 hours later and I had it out, thanks to a piece of strategically bent number 8 wire, a mirror on a stick (it was behind a valve spring so this was akin to keyhole surgery) and a long pincher tool. It was a curved piece of plastic that was covered in oil so it was incredibly difficult to postion so that I could get it out. Luckily, the piece was triangle shaped and largeish and I was able to eventually aim part of it down into an oil gallery so that I could grab the other end with the pincher tool. It was not a fun time.

PROTIP: Recommendations are that if you end up with gasket still attached to the head, cover the internals before trying to get it off. If it's brittle it's likely to shatter.

3.) Getting the vanos unit off.

This was easy, follow the instructions and it pretty much comes off. Follow the instructions on how to deal with the oil and you won't get any mess.

4.) Replacing the seals.

The seals were easy to replace., easier than i expected. take out the pistons, cut the old ones off and stick the new ones on. I soaked the new ones in warm water to warm them up a bit first (as directed by beisan) as it was a cold day outside and I didn't want to have to muck around too much trying to get them on.

Working the seals into the unit took a bit more effort than i expected, but as the instructions say just keep at it and they'll eventually get in there.

Intial feelings were that it was quite tight, and i wasn't sure if it was ok as it sounded like there was a bit of metal touching metal noise when pushing them in and out. I figured this was probably because i wasn't pushing them in fully square and continued on. I'd pulled them out a few times to make sure and everything looked ok (which it was).

The old seals were alright, they weren't too loose (as in the didn't fall out), but they could be moved with relative ease. The new ones took considerable more effort.

The old rubber rings were flat, and hard like plastic. There was very little give and very little elasticity.

5.) Reattaching the vanos unit.

Attaching the vanos unit was easy enough, except for the fact that in/lb the torque wrench I bought wasn't actually reversable so I couldn't do an exact left hand thread tighten. I wish I'd spent a little more and got an in/lb one that was reversable, as the ft/lb one I bought was. Lesson learned though. I got the feel for the required torque setting and torqued the bolts up to an amount that was slightly higher in feel than that.

PROTIP: If buying a torque wrench for this, ensure that it works in both directions.

6.) Reattaching the valve cover gasket with including seals, and attaching the coils and cables as necessary.

It took considerable time and effort to get the old sparkplug seals out of the valve cover gasket. Probably ~30 minutes as the seals were incredibly brittle and shattered with every attempt. putting in the new seals was easy enough though, and so was attaching the cover back onto the head.

7.) Putting the fan back on.

This was easier said than done, you don't have a great deal of room so it's difficult to get it on there square so that you can turn it onto the thread. I'm sure with practice however this would become easily enough.

Overall Effort.

Overall, excluding the nightmare with the old gasket, it wasn't a difficult task to do and difficulty-wise I'd rate it slightly above just changing the valve cover gasket itself. It took more effort to get down to that point than it did taking off the vanos unit, changing the seals, and putting it back on. It took me ~10 hours all up over 2 days, and that's including the drama with the shattered piece of valve cover gasket. So take that off and it ends up being about 6ish hours at a slow and steady pace.

Starting the car once complete.

I started the car and it had an immediate but minute hiccup here and there, then settled into a very smooth idle at just over 1000rpm, then very shortly dropping to a very smooth and constant ~700rpm idle. It wasn't usually this smooth after starting for the first time in a few days, so I could tell things were looking reasonably promising.

Driving the car once complete.

I took the car for a drive around the neighbourhood and it felt slightly hesitant for the first little bit, but then eventually it just became quite smooth in both driving and idling. I started doing take offs from standing, slowly at first and then eventually giving it a bit more power until I was comfortable that all was well, and that I could notice the difference in power delivery and performance.

What's different?

Below is a list of what's noticably different, both from what I can tell and what the wife's said after driving the car around today.

• I've already mentioned the idle, which is more consistent and smooth. It was consistent before, but it's better now.
• Starting and idling from cold is not really any different than from warm (before it was a little rougher).
• Power delivery in the lower rpm range is definitely better.
• The car feels much more responsive to drive in the lower rpm range.
• The gear changes feel slightly different (the wife says smoother)

But the thing I've noticed most of all is the correction for driving up hills. We've both found ourselves having to dethrottle quite a bit going up hills as the car takes noticably less accelator effort. The normal acceleration point causes the car to continuously accelerate as opposed to keep constant speed.

I've just filled the car up and reset all the meters, so the jury is still out on mileage.

Hopefully someone finds the above helpful, it's always useful to have someone's real life experience with something like this.

Edited May 23, 2012 by scottr

[hotwire 352]

Good write up And good result on retrieval of rogue gasket part. I know the feeling with this type of thing - an easy job... turns to sh*t

[euroriffic 609]

Great write up there. I'm looking into doing this to the 328 in the not too distant future after the 318 has had it's transformation. Already have seal and rattle kit ready to go so just need gaskets and borrow the cam locking blocks off the Wreaker. Good to see it wasn't overly difficult to do for another back yarder so should be able to do it easily enough.

[Allanw 1071]

Great job! It's an impressive difference it makes!

Bummer about the going wrong... I HATE when that happens, you have a plan all sorted, and one tiny stupide thing screws you up!

Our signs were more obvious when cold, because our car is manual. I think hte auto masks a lot of the symptoms.

My wife didn't notice the driving up hill part... she just goes faster now!

I find we have enough torque now to drive everywhere under 3K, unless you're in a hurry :-)

Nice write up!

Cheers,

[scottr 11]

Yup getting that gasket part down there was a royal PITA, but fishing it out was better than the other option of attempting to remove the exhaust cam + the bed it sat in and then redo timing etc. I was not prepared to do any of that so it was get the plastic out or send the car down the road and spend $$$ for someone else to pull it apart instead.

Hopefully there's not any more down there that I didn't notice., I had a good hunt around but didn't see anything that looked out of place. Seems to be fine though.

Cheers for the compliments on the write up, hopefully someone else undertaking this someday finds it useful

I need to do the waterpump at some stage soon, so it was good practice at least.