E36 M3 Resto-mod.

[KwS 2429]

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.

[Beeker2 69]

Keep the updates coming, i'm learning lots.

[atlantiskiwi 73]

Hey man, can you post a pic with your gear knob and boots? I be been looking at the same ones and am curious what it looks like on.

just purchased these off ebay. Should go nicely with the ZHP gearknob ill be getting.

ZHP Knob (shorter and heavier than standard. Obviously the one i will get have the 5spd pattern)

[KwS 2429]

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

[Allanw 1072]

Bummer dude!

At least none of it is end of the world stuff, but still mightly piss offing!

That's pretty retarded about the Beisan uide, because the other ones are over the top detailed! The M54 one is about 5 times longer than necessary, and I think he quoted about 3 times how long it took me - I guess he's aiming at non-mechanical newbies... I'd have assumed that all his quides were the same... apparently not!

Oh Well, Hope the rest goes well!

[KwS 2429]

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.

Edited May 31, 2014 by KwS

[KwS 2429]

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.

Edited June 1, 2014 by KwS

[KwS 2429]

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.

Edited June 1, 2014 by KwS

[KwS 2429]

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.

[Beeker2 69]

Dumb question, but for those turned bolt heads which are exposed, did you not try vice grips?

[KwS 2429]

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.

[atlantiskiwi 73]

I'm assuming that's an app your using? I do a lot of city driving which is probably the diff.

This is my fuelly at the moment.

Lots of high RPM full throttle 0-100KPH, but very little rush hour or town driving. Mostly motorway driving.

[KwS 2429]

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!

[KwS 2429]

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.

[KwS 2429]

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.

[Beeker2 69]

very good!

[_ethrty-Andy_ 2136]

great stuff, we have all been there with a bitch bolt!

good reading this thread, was several pages behind!

[euroriffic 612]

Hmm hopefully I don't struck this problem when I get round to doing mine.

Keep on keeping on

[KwS 2429]

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.

[Ahmedsinc 414]

+1

Only gear I'll use now is Knipex, Wiha,Koken, Sidchrome (not the new chinese crap either)or Stahlwille. Fluke for any electrical test. Still have a Bahco set but the only time it's been used in the past 18 months was to strip the parts car.

Your perseverance is admirable Kelvin, keep going the way you are & you'll be back up and running in no time

[KwS 2429]

Right, back with some more Vanos fun!

So, the other day, stuck bolt came out. This finally meant i could remove the vanos unit and begin the rebuild.

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS MY EXPERIENCES WITH THIS. THIS IS NOT A STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTION, IT IS MEANT TO COMPLIMENT THE BEISAN INSTRUCTIONS TO FILL THE GAPS AND HIGHLIGHT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE 3.2 AND 3.0. PLEASE FOLLOW AT YOUR OWN RISK.

First step was to clean up as i left a lot of my destructive tools lying around.

Next up was to begin the removal. First you need to remove all the bolts from the front of the vanos unit (two already destroyed and removed), 6 short, 1 long for 7 in total (not the 9 Beisan says).

Once this is done, remove the 4 bolts across the vanos bridge, and remove the bridge. Note, all 4 bolts are the same length (not 2 short 2 long like Beisan says)

Proceed to carefully slide vanos unit forward a little. Beware of the oil pump driver which is a disk that goes between the vanos unit and the exhaust cam. If dropped, this will take a swift trip to the bottom of the oil pan. Beisan has no picture to show what you are looking for with the driver, so i took a few.

The driver is a disk that sits here.

Looks like this

When removing the vanos unit, my piston got stuck to the shaft that sticks out of the intake cam. I had to use my tack lifter to gently lever it off the helical gear. There is a wee notch in the top of the gear above where the piston is stuck that i found to give just enough room to lever from.

Removed!

Minor marking from bolt removal

Remove piston (push out with finger)

Eww gunky.

Pull the intake cylinder apart

Bag of seals

Once removed, ALL parts get a thorough cleaning in a mixture of brake clean and degreaser. The vanos bridge and bolts came up mint.

This is another part Beisan was clear about. When you replace the seal on the cylinder and you are refitting to the bore, DO NOT PUSH THE CYLINDER IN. Let is rest, and then use the cover to push it in with the tightening of the screws. If you push the cylinder in you WILL ruin the seal.

Rest it like this

Put on cover (aligning the indent in the side with the vanos filter next to it). Make sure you remove the oring on the cover as per instructions, first.

And slowly wind the screws in, bit by bit and doing them in a star pattern until the cover is seated completely. Remove cover and cylinder should looks like this,

Nicely seated.

Clean the cylinder cover and renew the seals on that too

Another thing Beisan missed is that the cylinder cover has a dowel to align it, and MUST be aligned correctly.

Thats that side done. Next up is to remove the oil pump cover. My bolts were really tight, so i soaked in CRC (penetrating oil), cracked then, wound out 3 turns and then put more oil on them and left to soak.

Rest time. Will resume after a drink.

Edited June 7, 2014 by KwS

[KwS 2429]

Part Zwei.

The CRC worked a treat, all the bolts in the oil pump cover came out OK. The cover its self was a real sh*t to get off but some persistence and brute force popped it off.

Insides were a bit black but no chunks or sludge. Gave it a wipe down and replaced the seals.

Yeah boi, i own a Rolls.

Vanos unit all back together

Next up was the solenoids. I had done a lot of research on how best to approach this, and the E39 M5 boys have some pretty good info about it (same solenoids).

I decided it was best to replace the seals, remove the gauze ring and clean the solenoids. The gauze ring is the brown bit you can see in some of the photos of the solenoids. Its a plastic ring with some gauze filled slots.

My gauze rings were fooked. No gauze was missing in places, and the rest was blocked. Used a scalpel to lever it off slightly, and then some pliers to break them and pull them off.

I then turned my attention to the cleaning of the innards. Obviously i cant disassemble them, so had to find another way. The best way people tend to use is to flush them with brake clean whilst actuating them. I went with this method.

Out came the 9V battery and connector.

The solenoid leads are moulded with the polarity on the connector, so just join + to + and - to - and hopefully you should hear the solenoid click. I didnt.

It turns out the top solenoid was dead. Nothing at all. A began to flush it by blasting brake clean into the ports, and after a few tries i finally get a faint click from it. Yay! I spray and actuate a few more dozen times until im getting a nice, solid, hearty click every time and then move on to the next one.

The lower solenoid wasnt as bad, it clicked first try but was very faint. A thorough cleaning fixed that, although some of the sh*t that came out was pretty nasty.

Replaced the seals on both, and put them aside.

Replaced the vanos filter. Old one was black and you can see blockage in the gauze. Its cheap and easy to get at so ill replace this again in a thousand km or so.

Since the vanos unit was done, i moved onto the anti-rattle kit.

You need to replace the splined, helical gear from the intake cam.

It wasnt easy, mine was reluctant to move forward enough to pop out until i game it some help. I also noticed it was hard to get into the Beisan tool so i gave the spline a real good scrub and it moves much freer now.

Once removed the cause of the rattles was WELL obvious. There should be no axial play (wiggle)..... mine had a ton of movement. Loose as a goose.

Pulled it apart with my Supercheap li-ion rattle gun, worked a treat. The innards were dirty, with chunks of something inside it and noticable wear on the end washers.

The Beisan kit replaces the outer ring and both end washers.

All fitted up with the discarded bits in the background

Back in the engine.

Pile of spare parts

And this is where im at now. The vanos unit is back on, just waiting on the bolts to completely finish the vanos and then i need to reassemble the valve cover and cooling system.

Now for the waiting game.

[yng_750 247]

Awesome work

[Beeker2 69]

update please

[KwS 2429]

As you wish.

Part: Something-a-rather.

So, the parts arrived today, all the way from Germany. Woot.

So i got a new valve cover gasket and spark plug seals, 3 new bolts and 3 new washers for the vanos unit (to replace the rounded ones and a spare), and a new oil cap as the old one weeped.

New stuff

The new vanos bolts to replace the rounded hex. Its obvious im not the only one to have issues, the new bolts are T30 Torx, not hex.

Same deal with the new solenoid cover bolts, no more hex.

Final vanos bolt in, YAY!

Vanos solenoids installed. Note the placement, with wires exiting top and bottom, not both exiting down the bottom like the B32.

New cover gasket

Cover on, with new bolts. Also had a real quick go at polishing it the other day when i was bored.

New valve cover gasket. The new gasket is much softer, and much better to work with than the old one. Note that with the S50 engines you apply the gaskets to the head, and then the cover onto that. The gaskets have locating lips, ridges and dowels.

Cover on. What a prick of a thing to get into place. Took about 3-4 tries as it kept getting stuck on the loom holder above it, and the rear cam cap.

Coils in

Radiator in

This is about where i connect the jump pack (battery died whilst it was sitting), and with the coils still disconnected, cranked the engine a few times to get oil into the vanos unit. No bad noises, cranks fine. WOO!

Coils connected, key turned and it roars into life. Idles a bit lumpy and having some power issues thanks to the flat battery. Idle is to be expected, vanos isnt worn in and the ECU has lost all its learning and reset to defaults.

I take it for a real quick spin down the road and back and then fire her back into the garage as i had no fan and the temp was coming up to normal operating temp quickly. Parked up, everything looking OK, nothing spewing anywhere.

Installed the fan and the shrouds and took it for another spin around the suburb. Didnt want to go too far because i needed to get the oil to temp, and the coolant pressurised. Drives good, and the sound at 1800RPM is gone. Little growl from vanos when letting off the throttle, but there is still 300+ KM before its fully worn in.

Its fast, i give it a quick boot, and its off. Didnt rev too high or give it too much, and i dont know yet if its a placebo and feels fast because i havent been driving it the past week or not.

Anyway, i roll back into the garage for one final check before i head down the hill for a longer run. Pop the hood, slight smell of coolant, OK because i spilt lots draining radiator. Nothing else looks out of place. Jump back in car and back out of garage....

Hmmm, thats a nice trail of green. Nuts.

Back into the garage i go. Looks like i derped the lower radiator hose, and its leaking from there. Will fiddle it a bit tomorrow and get it clamped correctly (think i pushed hose on too far) and i should be good for a decent run tomorrow night.

Getting there!