New member, first e36

[jmo69]

As far as the rings go the 50's kid of Youtube fame said in one of his videos about m54 oil consumption that a place near him was selling ring sets for the m54 with the m52 style oil ring. He never gave a name though. He checks the comments on his videos so you could check there if need be.

[gdavid]

As far as the rings go the 50's kid of Youtube fame said in one of his videos about m54 oil consumption that a place near him was selling ring sets for the m54 with the m52 style oil ring. He never gave a name though. He checks the comments on his videos so you could check there if need be.

There is a good chance I bought from the same guy. I reached out to an eBay vendor who had kits of 90% of what I wanted and asked him to price up the gaskets, bearings and rings I wanted. He was quick to understand what I wanted regarding the rings and everything came as expected. I never got the name of the shop but I could dig through texts and find his number.

[bluptgm3]

Anyone have a timing cover to sell?

I started to clean it up today and realized it was all cracked up, it is intact but has hairline cracks running through it. They don't seem to be concentrated at any particular point but are worst around the front main seal.

I think the timing cover is a die casting, what you might be seeing are casting marks.
Got photo?


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[gdavid]

I think the timing cover is a die casting, what you might be seeing are casting marks.
Got photo?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. You just saved me from paying the price of being stupid.
I just snapped a couple of pictures and could feel that the lines are all protruding out.

[jc43089]

Yea, all the ones I have seen look like that, it's from the manufacturing process.

[gdavid]

Slowly progressing and replacing more parts than originally planned, which is fine. I was going to reuse the timing chain guides because the looked fine but were apparently brittle because the first one I attempted to install snapped at the little retaining tab. Glad it failed when it did. I am also going to replace the hydraulic lifters because I am installing a modified m54b30 intake cam and don't have the tray it ran on. I see alot of S52 cams installed in m52 engines with no mention of replacing the trays and lifters but my build isn't about HP gains, I want it bullet proof for alot of miles (relatively easy miles).
Also of note, this engine had an MLS head gasket on it so it obviously was replaced before and the head that was on it is warped beyond what the machine shop would resurface. Since the head gasket and head showed no sign of being blown, this tells me that at least in some cases a severely warped but not cracked head will hold with a MLS and proper bolt tension. I would not be willing to take the risk (I got another head) given the total investment I am making, but I would consider giving it a shot in an otherwise clean car left for dead due to a cracked head.

[gdavid]

Here is fixture that is of interest to a very limited number of folks. When modifying an m54 camshaft (at least for the b30). Unlike the one piece helix gear on the m50 & m52 the bolt is separate from the gear and must be in the correct orientation to get the full range of vanos movement. It will only be off by a couple of degrees but it may throw things off. The smart move is leaving the gear on and trimming it in place like Hakentt suggests but I removed it to trim it in a lathe. This tool is set to the orientation of the stock came and holds the m54 gear in place while the bolt is tightened. Someone makes one for the m54 for about $100 and it would work but I made this from spare parts.

[gdavid]

I got a couple minor things done on the project engine, I trimmed the vanos helix bolt on the m54 b30 intake cam. I had already trimmed the helix gear but did not want to take a mm too much off of the torx head because the torque spec is high and I wanted every bit of tool engagement possible. I put the cam and tray on the head and test fit the vanos assembly to test plunger travel. It could not make the last 1.5-2 mm of extension without the bolt bottoming out. I found I was able to grind it down to the end of the tapered recess of the bolt's head and get the required clearance. I tested this without the vanos gasket which will add to the clearance. This means nothing to 99.9% of e36 owners but should make sense to the small number of guys running this cam in a single vanos.
I also spent about 2 hours cleaning the exhaust cam ledge. I have two to sets to choose from, unfortunately set with the one with the best journals was brown from oil stains, probably conventional oil run for too long between changes. The other exhaust cam/ledge set looks prettier from 5' away but the journals are scarred up. I soaked the good ledge in acetone overnight which softened the deposits in the outer recesses up didn't do much for the rough cast surfaces. It is all cosmetic but would drive me nuts knowing that ugly thing was in there. I have used a zep product before on aluminum that worked wonders but also ate at the aluminum if left on too long so I didn't want to go that route and ruin the lifter cylinder and journal surfaces. I ended up going at it with seafoam engine detergent and a tooth brush, it wasn't easy but it made a tremendous difference. I will be giving the intake and exhaust ledges and cams one final cleaning before putting them on the head with new lifters.
Most of the engine's accessories are left to be cleaned or replaced but once the valve train is together, I could swap everything I need from my running m52 if need be.

[gdavid]

Aside from the project engine my current work on the car has been chasing a droning noise in the car I believe is a bad bearing, it has new tires and a alignment done. So far I have changed the CSB and swapped in used differential. I didn't have a new guibo on hand when I changed the support bearing but it looked to be in good shape, not original. The forward of the two universal joints had some slop in it but I had no way of replacing it when I changed the CSB. Now I have have an entire used driveshaft that will be going on tonight along with a new guibo. It may be dry wheel bearings but I really can't hear a difference while turning the car to shift the load. All four feel fine and sound fine when the car is jacked up. I am replacing both of the rears tonight and have one front hub on hand. The rears are timkens, the front is a cheap driveworks I will only install ad a temporary fix if everything else fails to help. I will be replacing the axle halves as well tonight. The noise doesn't vary with engine load. Aside from the auto transmissions output shaft bearing, there shouldn't be any culprits left. I will feel it for play tonight but can't find a replacement part number for it. I have never heard of one failing. I haven't changed the transmission fluid yet but that is in the docket tonight as well, long night ahead.

[gdavid]

Car is still racking up 80+ miles a day, so I have an about 2 hours to think about it each day. Can't wait to drive in peace. I have been anxiously awaiting for my wheel bearing puller set to arrive, if it doesn't arrive today (as it is scheduled) I will go nuts. In good news, I installed no-foul spark plug extenders to my post cat O2 sensors which has ended my weekly P0420/P0430 codes. I dislike masking symptoms but since I was simply resetting the codes without doing anything about it before, this will improve my quality of life. If the cats were truly plugged I would expect the codes more often than 400-500 miles. I think my MAS is the culprit as the codes came with changes in weather, or perhaps some engine blowby which will be fixed eventually.

[gdavid]

Didn't finish, too late of a start and lost alot of time to stupid stuff. The exhaust, axles, and rear bearings are out. I'm happy with the harbor freight puller kit, it wouldn't stand up to regular duty, but is good enough for the couple of times a year I will use it. The exhaust is crazy heavy, when I did the CSB I left the rear hanger attached and just let the front down and aside. I heard it was heavy but lifting is believing. Remaining work is removing the outer races from the rear hubs, removing the heat shield and driveshaft, filling my original diff, swapping it in and reassembling everthing. Still a fair among of work but pretty straightforward and I don't have to disassemble anything else that I haven't had apart recently.

[gdavid]

Got it all back together, the rear wheel bearings were due, and the CV joints of the axles felt bad. The noise at 65-70 mph is better, I have a new vibration around 40-50 mph, I will try rotating the axle 90 degrees relative to the diff input. I think the front bearings are probably due as well and new bearings may be quieter. I snapped my rear stabilizer links and the effect is clear. The car would probably feel good with a stronger bar.
-just looked at performance sway bars, don't know why I was so ignorant but damn they are pricey for such simple devices.

[gdavid]

After a longer test drive I realize my new vibration is between 30 to 40 mph. I think I introduced this with the new (used) driveshaft. The guibo I installed did not have arrows to identify it's orientation so I may have that off but as I understand it, it would tear itself to pieces in short order if it is wrong. I'll inspect that and reposition the diff-driveshaft flange before doing anything drastic. My old driveshaft didn't have slop in the ujoints like I miss recalled, rather it didn't articulate smoothly if bent beyond its usual (and very small) range of motion. From a diagnosis perspective, it would be better to change one thing at a time but there is no way I was going to remove the exhaust mutiple times. I will get it all sorted out but now I have to worry about tickets because the car doesn't howl in protest above 70 mph anymore. The rear bearings on both sides where shot so the noise didn't increase or decrease when turning the car, my normal diagnosis method. The individual ball bearings looked ok, but they were pretty dry and the bearing cages were falling apart. My front wheel bearings are probably in the similar shape.

[gdavid]

Haven't done much to the car in ages. I have put 24K miles on it over the last 11 months, it has just over 93K miles now. I bought a newer car for my wife this week, kept her old car so I finally have a spare car again. I am looking forward to replacing my rockers and swapping in my stroker but it is running so well and the motor has such low miles still that I will probably continue to run it while I catch up on some deferred maintenance to my spare. Oddly enough I now have 3 vehicles with straight six's. A trailblazer ext 4.2, a xc90 3.2 and my 328.

The trailblazer has been a good car for the money but just has typical GM glitches my wife can't stand anymore. It has a problematic electronically controlled mechanical fan that is prone to sticking on and prematurely wears out the water pump while robbing power and makes a ton of noise. I'd like to convert it to an electric fan and have the ecm codes associated with the fan removed.

I am waiting for some front control arm bushings to arrive, the ones in the cheap-preloaded lolly pops I put on the car last summer are way too soft and allow a chattering under had braking similar to warped rotors. I really wish I hadn't thrown my old lollipops away, I could have pressed in the new bushings before touching the car. I also need to replace the horrible euro strut mounts. I am torn about what to do with the car, the rockers aren't that bad and it will be a big job but if I keep it long term, I want it 100%. I have the new panels on hand. The body is pretty clean and I want to stay with a sedan but it is an auto with an open diff, the smart move would probably be selling it and dumping my stroker into another e36 with a manual and bad head. Too many decisions but at least I have options.