DIY Supplemental: Crankcase Vent (CCV) Replacement Notes and Photos (97 540i)

[treeofgreen]

Car: 2002 X5 4.4i
Hi Guys
Have a question or 2:

Is it possible for there to be a tear in the rubber diaphragm and oil to be sucked in occasionally? lets say under high load etc?

My problem is only happening every couple of days and never on start up. Its only after the engine has warmed up (about a good 15-20 mins of my 40 mins morning drive) that it seems to be happening. When it does spew out smoke it only happens for about 1-2 mins then completely stops.

I took this into account and have been driving like a granny (rarely going over 2k revs). Since driving like this it has only blown smoke maybe once a week and usually on a wednesday (i do about 150kms of complete highway driving).

So does this still sound like a ripped/torn rubber pcv diaphragm? Maybe a very small rip?

I have heard the belt slipping noise before spewing, usually i can just ease of the gas and then back on and it stops. Only other symptom is if i am idling there is a slightly weird idle, like a little rumble then if i cruise off after that = SMOKE... then 1-2 mins of smoking then all gone again :S (this doesnt happen every idle, just every few days, the "rumbling" just seems to indicate that the smoke is about to come)

Please help!

[bin01123]

Like many, I had to deal with a stripped bolt. My problem-bolt was the lowest-right(passenger) side bolt. At first, I tried an extractor set from Craftsman.
Craftsman 10 pc. Damaged Bolt/Nut Remover Set, Low Profile Bolt-Out
Sears Item# 00952166000 | Model# 52166
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_1...ku=00952166000

Those did not work for me. I was able to get the extractor around the bolt head, but couldn't apply enough force to get a solid bite. Even after multiple Macguyverisms, I just couldn't do it. I even tried some tiny/slim locking pliers, but didn't have enough room for proper rotation.

Luckily, I had a friend with a wide variety of tools who had a similar extractor set, that were actually sockets you put on a ratchet. They were made by Matco. Sorry, I don't recall the exact Matco part number, or size, but looked similar to these: Craftsman 10 pc. Impact Grade Bolt-Out™ Damaged Bolt/Nut Remover
Sears Item# 00952165000 | Model# 52165
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_1...0&%20Diesmv=rr

Using a small stubby ratchet, and really short extension to clear the coolant pipe, he was easily able to break the stripped bolt loose within minutes. This final bolt had plagued me for way too long. I felt very fortunate he had that tool. Otherwise, I was going to just do the whole intake manifold gasket job instead of investing money into more extractor sets that were not guaranteed to work. The car had the intake manifold gaskets done not too long ago, so I was really trying to avoid this route in the first place.

So I was finally able to take off the OCV unit. While removing it, I loosened the vent pipe out of position. I didn't really have a good idea of how the pipe is held in place, so this alarmed me quite a bit. After all the torment removing the OCV caused, I was not expecting this at all.



You've probably figured this out by now, but I just had to deal with this; and it does indeed connect to a small hole in the front side. When I noticed mine came out of place, I made some futile efforts to line it up into position from the rear. I might be able to do that now that I know how it goes, but there was no chance it was going to happen at the time. Getting it back into place turned out to be quite easy. I just removed the air intake and throttle body. This should give an opening to the front side of the intake manifold. The vent pipe sort of has only one proper way of fitting. The front end of the pipe should fit into a port near the bottom/passenger side corner. I was still somewhat blind to how things were lining up, but being able to hold the pipe from both ends made it doable. If lined up correctly, the back end of the vent pipe should be able pass in and out of the intake manifold opening. For me, the pipe was knocked loose and pushed into the intake manifold. It helped to carefully rotate the pipe until the backend was outside the intake manifold, before lining it up back into place. It also helped to hold the vent pipe from the front side while I pressed the new OCV into place.

E30User,

Is there anyway you can find the tool used to get that stripped screw off? I was trying to replace my CCV ahead of time before it went bad and stripped the screw in the center bottom which is the hardest one to get to. I haven't replace the intake gaskets before so I thinking about just pulling the whole thing off and replacing it then.

[chuchuk99]

First of all, thanks a bunch for the wonderful write-up! After spending eur1,5k to replace water pump, tensioners, and the belt, and also reconditioning the gearbox to address the squeaking sound, it was still there, so was the smoke. After considering driving the car over the cliff, I came around the ccv issue. Like many others I have stripped the 2 lower bolts, that are harder to reach. I have forced the cover to brake, but a piece of it together with the 2 stripped bolts were still there. After about half an hour of swearing and trying to get them out I realized that i was turning them the wrong way, fastening instead of unscrewing. Must have incidentally changed the direction on the ratchet. After changing the direction the stripped bolts came off easily. All in all, abt eur100 for parts and 3 hours of work. Everything gone now: annoying sound, oil consumption, rough idle, and smoke! The lesson learned: next time google and check forums first, before going to the garage!!

[dannydoo]

If you strip the bottom bolts,simply remove the old ccv cover with screwdriver,take a pair of angled pliers and snap the plastic housing the cover sits on,this will give you enough room to put vice grips on any of the bolts.The CCV backing the bulk of it will protect the plenum from being damaged,the housing that the cover sits in is verry weak and youll have the bolts out in 5 minutes.Took me about 6 hours of ez outs,and bolt removers that I couldnt get in there and use.Then I got brute force and made plenty of room for monster vice grips .I stripped every bottom bolt.As long as you have a new ccv kit no worries.Plastic cant get in the intake BTW

the little lip thats in your way. Tools are called EZ out... Or Screw extractor...bolt exactor...My method is
the BEST

Your diaphram is gonna be alll oily and its like a rubber ballloon inside. Thus the whistling sound if its popped////95 95 996 97 dont have the oil seperator inside the timing chain cover as does 98-2004 it sits right in front of the throttle body/ wish I could tell you how to test it..I want to test mine

[BlkzhpWoG]

Ok I'm going to ask this here because I hope the OP or another person smart on this can help me out. I've read about the 540's CCV and last fall I was having some blue smoke on start-up. I tried to get the whole CCV off, stripped a bolt, gave up, and just replaced the diaphragm. Blue smoke was gone to almost gone (ie not noticed by my wife, the primary driver). So I thought it was fixed.

Now the big question. How many other failure modes does the CCV have? About a week ago the 540 is giving massive clouds of blueish oil smoke on start. I haven't noticed any other symptoms like MPG drop, whistling, etc. There is some gurgling from the dipstick tube and the suction there is light. Suction from the oil cap is also minor. There is a ton of dried and fresh oil on the valley pan under the CCV cover. That tells me that there is obviously a lot of oil in the plenum but what else on the CCV would leak it in there? I'm assuming a year old, 14K mi, membrane is good (obviously, right...). The only other thing I can think of is the tube that goes through the plenum and attaches to the back of the CCV cover. Realizing that I've probably missed some basic concept with this, what do you all think?

[firstdecimal]

I ordered the ccv cover. Already replaced ccv vent pipe. There it a little rough idle and a high pitched whistle sometimes. No smoke and oddly enough, if the car is running normally (no whistle) and I pull the dipstick, I get a whirring noise. Just looking to confirm that this is bring caused by a broken
diaphragm in the ccv cover... Thank you

[E39 guy]

Ok I'm going to ask this here because I hope the OP or another person smart on this can help me out. I've read about the 540's CCV and last fall I was having some blue smoke on start-up. I tried to get the whole CCV off, stripped a bolt, gave up, and just replaced the diaphragm. Blue smoke was gone to almost gone (ie not noticed by my wife, the primary driver). So I thought it was fixed.

Now the big question. How many other failure modes does the CCV have? About a week ago the 540 is giving massive clouds of blueish oil smoke on start. I haven't noticed any other symptoms like MPG drop, whistling, etc. There is some gurgling from the dipstick tube and the suction there is light. Suction from the oil cap is also minor. There is a ton of dried and fresh oil on the valley pan under the CCV cover. That tells me that there is obviously a lot of oil in the plenum but what else on the CCV would leak it in there? I'm assuming a year old, 14K mi, membrane is good (obviously, right...). The only other thing I can think of is the tube that goes through the plenum and attaches to the back of the CCV cover. Realizing that I've probably missed some basic concept with this, what do you all think?

I just replaced the valley pan coolant panel gasket, valve cover gaskets, CCV and associated intake manifold, air intake, vacuum lines and other gaskets. About $300 in parts vs $3500 quote from stealer. (Bmw dealer). Very common e39 540 problems, oil in spark plug holes, oil on outside engine, coolant leak in engine v, smoke, vacuum leeks, rough idle power loss. If you keep an E39 540 to now you will have to do this. I am a very experienced home mechanic and this was about 6 hours total. Injector rails, valve covers and intake manifold had to come off. Fixed all problems, runs great, but big job. Sounds like you have similar issues, at least with the valve cover gaskets. All of these engine top gaskets and vacuum hoses are not great material and get brittle and leak. My car I have had since new and garage parked with about 90k miles now. Use only oem CCV or it will whistle and make you nuts. Make sure you have a trusted person give you an assessment on these areas if you do not do it yourself. Car is well worth these fixes as most of it (water pump, front thrust bushings, and cooling system expansion tank excepted) is Rock solid.

[toybreaker]

I had these same issues 4 months after I got my 97 540I6
I removed the intake manifold since I stripped 3 of the torx bolts. I replaced the all the associated gaskets as well as the CCV, and did the valve cover gaskets at the same time.
Ran like a champ for anothe 3 months until I had the move to Guam and sold it.

[FREE100KSECRET]

Anyone know how to replace the small CCV line which goes to oil return pipe, not the one from oil separator, but the smaller one which runs under intake manifold. Is there a secret to replacing this one, it broke nipple inside hose on old CCV unit.

Thanks,

[FREE100KSECRET]

Oh well, couldn't wait, so jumped into it and replaced all hoses, and CCV. All I can say to BMW engineers is they have to be a bunch of idiots, or it is all about forcing you to go to stealers to rip you off for thousands.

Some forums say no clamps are on these two hoses going to crankcase, the #10 was clean, and the smaller one was also clean. The separator was also clean, and the CCV was clean and no splits in rubber, but the two top hoses going to separator were collapsed and spongy, and were slightly clogged, not with the orange crud many talk about, just oily carbon, so I replaced those too as I had it apart.

The symptoms were common, smoking like crazy out exhaust, blue clouds, but car runs fine, so that was strange given all the smoke coming out tailpipe, never mind actual oil dripping from tips. This is an X5 with 4.4 motor for reference sake, so here is what I learned.

The #10 hose had clamp, and bear to get off, and so did little oil return hose, and that too was near impossible to reach to remove, never mind put back on with clamps. The secret to get new hose on is to install it on separator first, with clamp tightened, feed it through the small opening to crankcase return tube, and with a lot of luck, position the bottom clamp so you can tighten it with socket wrench, so make sure you get quality clamps, not the cheap Chinese crap with screw slot only. Same is true for small tube.

OK, as trying to thread tube under manifold, forget about it. That is how I pulled old one out, and it is tight fit for I really had to pull hard, broke off little nozzle on old CCV, so very flimsy, another stupid engineering design. If this is an oil drain tube, shouldn't it be a bit larger as to not restrict flow? I ran wire down crankcase tube and it appeared clean, as was all but the two top hoses going to separator. A note, having owned BMW's for years, I change oil no more than at 7500 with full synthetic oil and top quality filters. The small hose can he pressed under the manifold back applying pressure, forget about trying to thread it through for it is too tight.

Now for the bad news, the rubber gromet which pushed up against front tube in CCV valve was a little bit corroded, so I assume it was not a tight fit looking at it, but given how much resistance the new one had, it may have been tight enough. Overall, I found no issues others have listed on this and other threads. Well, after doing all this work, I still have smoke, but not immediately when starting as it was doing before. It actually starts after about 15 minutes of slow speed under 2K driving, not as much smoke, but still more than I want to see from any car I am driving.

If I start car and let it totally warm up at idle, no smoke, so I am stumped, could that much oil have been sucked up into manifold that it needs to burn out? If so, how long does it take, again, top two hoses were compressed, so they were obviously the problem as I see it given all the other hoses and CCV were fine. I am wondering how much oil could have pooled up in manifold, and not being able to see much more than black from back, looking like wet oil residue, but no puddled I could see, I am wondering if any knows how much oil can remain in manifold area. Car runs fine, idles smooth, no codes, so I am stumped. Anyone have an answer?

Thanks,

[soo WWII is ok]

helloooo all fellow techs and wrenchers !, this is my first post here..

to first, comfort and reassure, the OS is on the outside of the block, and when that tube goes back to slip in, it has a ridge around it that mates to the block on the inside,
so, the head cant be broken off. Even more so, there is a set screw backing the head from the chain guide; at least on the 01 540 Im on.
To note, the materials and connections are mediocre so a lil tenderness and accuracy is advised.

Im in the process of replacing the OS, and this motor is all undressed. I found that to replace the OS, all must be removed: TC covers, TC guides, even the chain (not completely but).
Now that its in, (and noticed the new design of the rubber gasket at the bottom is upgraded to a smaller, ribbed opening), I need TORQUE SPECS ...
PLEASE ?

Hence I joined =), and tried the FAQ section but still havent found them.

'Is there anybody out there' that has the specs for the guides and covers ?
Any tips for a done right and tight the first time covers install ?

Gratefully
WWII was ok ? ; no it wasnt !

[Youngathur2]

This write-up is meant to supplement this article written for CCV replacement on a 740i M62: Crankcase/Oil Seperator (CCV) (M62)


1997 540i M62

Recently my car started exhibiting the classic symptoms of a CCV failure: choppy idle, blue smoke out the exhaust, massive vacuum at the oil filler cap, and dipstick, and a strange whistling, almost spaceship like noise at idle. Breaking the vacuum on the crankcase would immediately make the noise stop.

Here are the diagrams of the crankcase venting system on the M62 for my car.

Intake Manifold:http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...37&hg=11&fg=40

Oil Seperator: http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...55&hg=11&fg=15

Vacuum system: http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...02&hg=11&fg=45

The cover on the back of the intake manifold is the crankcase vent (CCV). Its function seems to be to regulate the amount of vacuum that pulls on the crankcase to evacuate vapors. When it fails, the crankcase will be subject to full manifold vacuum. Massive amounts of oil will be sucked into the intake tract and burned throught the engine. This vacuum leak will cause very rough idle and possibly some engine knock when accelerating. At highway speeds, the problem becomes almost unnoticable.

I ordered these parts from http://www.autohausaz.com

11617501563 - Intake Manifold Cover
11611729728 - Gasket

Here are some pictures and commentary:

Original intake manifold rear cover. Note the fuel pressure regulator vacuum line and the coolant line. Both of these will be removed during the replacement.



The cover removed and the new gasket in place. Note the removed coolant hose and the location of the vent pipe opening within the manifold. The vent pipe is mounted securely and will not move. When you bolt on the new cover, the nipple should slide right in there without issue.

I had no problem getting a rachet and T30 Torx socket onto these screws. I would recommend replacing them with M6 x 1mm x 25mm socket head cap screws. The Torx screws strip too easily.




The new cover. When installing the new cover, make sure to grease the connections. The pipe going to the oil seperator (lower right hand corner of the second picture) must be dealt with gently. You don't want to break the top off the oil seperator which is connected to the other end of the tube you are pushing that thing into. Review the Oil Seperator diagram above to understand this.

FYI all connections to this thing are under full engine vacuum.




Old cover. The gaskets and diaphrams have completely broken down. It appears that the design of this is for the diaphram to limit or stop vacuum going to the oil seperator under certain circumstances. My guess would be that high vacuum situations such as idle would pull the diaphram/gasket in to block the vacuum.

[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]Nice ,could you tell me what those two Hoses with the yellow clip at the back of the crack case are connected to or could be trace back too.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]
[/COLOR]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]My hoses aren't connected to the crack case and its difficult trying to find out what hoses or where the hoses are. I'm debating on taking off the whole intake manifold looking for these hose.[/COLOR]

[Jaaap]

Replace the Torx bolts with some normal bolts like these:

Hex bolt with washer
07 11 9 905 871

07-11-9-905-871-BOE.jpg

The washers are a bit bigger than the standard ones but i think/hope they'll be ok.
-EDIT: the washer does not fit on 1 of the 7 locations (bottom left, near the vacuum pipe) so i had to file the washer off about all around.

[Chedley]

Yes, it is doable to replace the CCV without removing the manifold.
But....
About those Torx bolts : they are actually Ribe, not Torx bolts. But a T-30 torx bit fits fine to unscrew them.

I found using this type T30/T20 wrench -the one you find in the trunk of new BMW cars (see pic)- works best to reach those bolts and unscrew them.,,,but with patience, some swearing, and most important- make sure you do not strip them. Otherwise, you will have to pull out the manifold.
You can -should really- replace the bolts with M6-1.0 x 25 mm bolts. Hardware stores have them with 10 mm hex heads, or 5 mm Allen heads, or even Phillips screw heads.

V8-CCV-bolts.jpg

[rbelton]

This is the M54 CCV test, take the oil cap off while running to check vacuum. I wonder if this test is applicable to the M60/M62 motors as well?



vid link: https://youtu.be/vODpt5b2DsM

[300kplus]

Anyone know if this applies to the M62 as well?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MarkR1717]

Yes, except the X5 M62 has an elbow joint on the pipe. And they were RIBE bolts not Torx. RIBE have squared ends to the star not pointy.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kurbelgeh...-127635-2958-0