engine oil varnish

[Thunder]

http://www.bmwfanatics.co.za/showthread.php?tid=65864

This is gonna be a epic repair, specially with the 2 gurus on the car.

I do have one question though.

How is it that when ever you guys open an engine it always have that nice copper shine to it?

 

[ChrisBrand]

Awesome job alexander. Still need to contact you on setting TDC, keeping it there and securing the cams without spending thousands on a kit.

 

[444YYY]

How is it that when ever you guys open an engine it always have that nice copper shine to it?

You don't want that 'copper shine'! That's traces of oil staining from BMW's 25000km recommended oil change intervals!

With more frequent oil changes they eventually "wash" away!
Or Peter works his magic on it - but it's a big tiring process...

 

[Thunder]

How is it that when ever you guys open an engine it always have that nice copper shine to it?

You don't want that 'copper shine'! That's traces of oil staining from BMW's 25000km recommended oil change intervals!

With more frequent oil changes they eventually "wash" away!
Or Peter works his magic on it - but it's a big tiring process...

How must it look when the engine is healthy?

 

[Peter@AEW]

This is V'Nolan e36 M3
Should look like this.

fordkoppie's old CSL roughly 60K

Then there are others on this forum who own cars at 180k and they look like they just left the factory.

 

[Yuben]

So I guess this is not up to std:blueCry:

 

[AdiS]

So I guess this is not up to std:blueCry:

The honey colour is almost unavoidable unless the car has been serviced more regularly from new.

My former 330 looked the same.

 

[Superman323]

Cool!

 

[Ratslaaf]

Yuben,

You're running Castrol right?

 

[Yuben]

Yuben,

You're running Castrol right?

Yep

 

[Zound]

Sorry, don't want to derail the thread but I've also been concerned about engine appearance since I opened mine up to do the Vanos seals.

However, I have a different situation, mine has no trace of the golden honey appearance but is almost a dark varnish. Not sure what to make of it. Bear in mind that I bought the car with 245 000 km's so I haven't had the ability to enforce a strict oil change regiment throughout the cars life. Previous owner had the car serviced at Ross Duncan, but the invoices do not indicate what oil was used. Sorry for the poor quality picture...

 

[444YYY]

Zound, what was the distance between oil changes?

 

[Zound]

Approximately 20 000km's

 

[Yuben]

Guys please advise if you would like me to split this thread, so that head condition can be discussed separately?

The current discussion is not related to this awesome M3.
:coolShake:

 

[AdiS]

Guys please advise if you would like me to split this thread, so that head condition can be discussed separately?

The current discussion is not related to this awesome M3.
:coolShake:

Yes please. I think its a worthwhile discussion for those who are interested.

 

[moranor@axis]

Varnish in the engine is not the end of the world so long as it does not buildup to a level where it can flake off and clock things up

if you have varnishing it is best to reduce your oil change intervals to make them shorter this way the cleaning agents in the oil can clean the buildup over time

 

[Xack]

Think its gonna be difficult finding a s54 as clean as Fordkoppie CSL, simply cos bmw probably sticked to the 25k oil service intervals on all //M3's under maintenance .....on the other hand Peter says that he's seen his fair share of clean motors, so hard to tell

 

[AdiS]

Think its gonna be difficult finding a s54 as clean as Fordkoppie CSL, simply cos bmw probably sticked to the 25k oil service intervals on all //M3's under maintenance .....on the other hand Peter says that he's seen his fair share of clean motors, so hard to tell

More often than not the motors will have the honey color. The issue is if there is sludgy build up. I would say, on aggregate, it's very rare to find a clean motor that had not got the varnish look to it.

 

[Zound]

This is good news. I was initially under the impression that the honey golden colour was the sign of a well maintained engine and feared that mine had been poorly maintained/ abused by the previous owner. Mine is definitely a varnish and not sludge as it is almost impossible to clean/remove with moderate effort. I'll be changing oil every 10k now and am keen to move over to Liquimoly products after hearing such successful reviews.

 

[Andy1GP]

This was my Z4M with TWS 10w60 used. Not quite BMW service intervals as both Ish and I had them do the oil changes more frequently.