e39 Wagon Head Job

[Peter@AEW]

So as they say in the classics the car drove to Cape Town broke down with a thermostat housing failure was given to friends down there to fix, was "fixed" and proceeded to overheat and blow a head gasket.

Car was taken to the main dealer in George who proceeded to quote .......are you ready for it........R75 000 for a new engine.

The car is recently out of Motorplan with 112000km since new with my sister in law having bought it new in 2001.

Car was trailered up from CT.

Had to use the Allroad to help it off the trailer

The dealer stripped the cams and when trying to loosen the head bolts the first head bolt he went for came out with the heli coil and he stopped at that point to do his R75000 calculations.
This is how the car was left.

Some of the engine parts in the "boot"

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A corrected view of the boot

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Sorry guys I cannot edit the post.........either I do not know how or this may be a limitation of the forum....any mods there to help me please?

 

[maximus]

:thumbdo:

 

[Peter@AEW]

Evidence of something going terribly wrong

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As I have mentioned the car has recently come out of Motorplan...what I find strange is that the power steering hose has been leaking for a long time and it was not replaced. I suspect that the leak is from the hose wall itself and not a joint.

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Removed the inlet manifold which is extremely simple to do although not as simple as on the e36 6 cylinders.

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I had a close look at the head where the thermostsat housing fits.

You will notice that the sealing was non existent.
If you look closely you will see that the butcher who fitted it used GREASE on the mating surface which led to the rubber not sealing properly.
Grease is non compressible and it deformed the rubber seal.

Here you can see how the rubber gasket deformed.

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The inlet manifold unquestionably a work of art by BMW

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The offending head bolt with heli coil threads.

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Removed the head and tommorow it will be on its way to the engineers along with the M62 heads.

 

[moranor@axis]

what size engine is this?

 

[P1000]

what size engine is this?

I think we only got the 2.5l here. This is a very sad story.

 

[Peter@AEW]

2500cc

I was contemplating with my brother in law to fit a 12 cylinder with Nitrous and twin turbochargers and a supercharger but by the time we finished discussing it we had sobered up.

 

[moranor@axis]

lol drunken mods FTL :rollsmile:

 

[Nic_s]

It's shocking how terrible service is these days. All the best with fixing.

 

[Sabretooth tiger]

damn :sorry:

 

[Fordkoppie]

Does the ECU log how hot it got?
Doesn't the aluminium block become brittle if it overheated excessively, hence the helicoil coming out?

 

[P1000]

Does the ECU log how hot it got?
Doesn't the aluminium block become brittle if it overheated excessively, hence the helicoil coming out?

These blocks have up to 17% silicon IIRC, I don't know if it becomes brittle or soft, but if it overheats, you will never be able to torque the headbolts again, so you always need to use helicoils/timeserts when you find one that overheated. Luckily these have cast iron liners, otherwise it would be much cheaper to chuck the block, than to re-etch the bores.

 

[Peter@AEW]

No idea as to what temp it reached I was told that the motor shut down via the ECU and would not restart untill it had cooled off.

I shall take the head in and see what the engineers have to say but when I spoke to them they said that they would use a "brass insert" as it is better than the standard helicoil.
Any thoughts on that or experience?

I doubt that it would be worth doing the motor if I had to have all the helicoils removed and redone?

Any guidance would be appreciated.

 

[moranor@axis]

if the ECU cut the engine im pretty sure it got very hot

 

[Fordkoppie]

How much can one pick up a complete M54b25 at these jap importers?
It might just be cheaper

 

[Peter@AEW]

How much can one pick up a complete M54b25 at these jap importers?
It might just be cheaper

Hope you sitting down with your crash helmet and seat belts on.

R15 000/R19 000

 

[Sabretooth tiger]

How much can one pick up a complete M54b25 at these jap importers?
It might just be cheaper

Hope you sitting down with your crash helmet and seat belts on.

R15 000/R19 000

ouch

 

[P1000]

How much can one pick up a complete M54b25 at these jap importers?
It might just be cheaper

Hope you sitting down with your crash helmet and seat belts on.

R15 000/R19 000

That's not a bad price. Helicoils are quite cheap when it comes to engine parts, they should be quite a lot less than a new set of head bolts (which you would also need). Problem is you need to rebuild the entire motor, and then hope the guy that did it was competent enough. To be honest, I would rather get an import.

 

[ivan2terrible]

I bought the m52b28 4 10k.. Add the 4 from the m54 and u got a close figure 

 

[Peter@AEW]

Whilst the car was waiting for the head to be assessed and re manufactured we decided to do the front suspension.

For those who are not aware the e39 has an aluminium cradle as well as all aluminium suspension components.

For cleaning Alexander used PREPSOL with a paint brush and fine steel wool for the stubborn areas.
FRONT LEFT

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Whilst busy with the left side we also replace Fuel Filter (Bosch).

Please tell me why the original filter is date stamped with that date on an 11 year old car which has had all its services by BMW main agents.............

Undertray

New filter

 

[rick540]

No idea as to what temp it reached I was told that the motor shut down via the ECU and would not restart untill it had cooled off.

I shall take the head in and see what the engineers have to say but when I spoke to them they said that they would use a "brass insert" as it is better than the standard helicoil.
Any thoughts on that or experience?

I doubt that it would be worth doing the motor if I had to have all the helicoils removed and redone?

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Have just been using Helicoil yesterday. What you show in the pic is actually a stripped aluminium thread, so you will be needing Helicoil now. They are pretty strong as the inserts are made from stainless, whereas brass I dont think will be strong enough. Also brass and aluminium will galvanically react?