New to me 745i -some guidance appreciated please

[Hit Man X]

Found multiple tool sets. Let me see what I need in my cars first, then I shall go from there for needs of others.

[cdnalpina]

Been so busy I haven't had a chance to tuck into the 745i until today. I managed to get a couple of things sorted so far. The power steering blockage resolved, plus the front calipers were completely seized up so I have rebuilt those and bled the whole system.

Now onto the engine bay - which is filthy and obviously neglected. I'm going to start with the ignition system and and valve adjustment. Naturally with projects like this, mission creep sets in and this is where I need some guidance from the collective brain trust here please.

First of all, there is this connector that is completely gone and a wire has become disconnected from the pin as can be seen in the pic below. Could anyone show me a picture of what the in tact connector looks like or better yet if there is a BMW part number for it so I can order a new one? Or retrofit options are always good too!

unknown connector.jpg

Next question is what I found when I took off the valve cover - not the nice clean valve train that I am used to seeing in my other BMWs. My question here is what can I do to clean this up? I'm guessing fresh oil and an Italian tune up once I have the car back together will help immensely, but on some of my other BMWs I have done the seafoam treatment and had good success. Has anyone used that on a 745i? Any suggestions or guidance would be appreciated. Picture below of what I'm talking about

745i valvetrain.jpg

Thanks in advance for your pearls of wisdom with all of this. Also, anything I should watch out for while in here, or preventative maintenance items recommended to do while I'm tucked into this would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Rob

[cdnalpina]

Update: Valves were surprisingly all gaped correctly! I think I am going to pull the intake manifold and will repaint the intake, valve cover, throttle body and the inlet tube to the throttle body. These engines are beautiful, and I want to make mine look like it should.

I came across another piece that is missing (I know there will be more). I tried searching on RealOEM.com but I could not figure out what piece it is that I am missing, or if it is a piece of a larger piece of trim. HEre are some pictures of what I'm talking about. First pic is of the driver's side, showing the piece in question. The second is the passenger side showing where it is missing. Any guidance on what part number I should be looking for would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,

Rob

door trim left.jpg

door trim right.jpg

[Hit Man X]

Lubro Moly has some decent 'top end cleaners in a can' you may want to investigate.



There can be so many smalls wrong with these cars it is not even funny. See if has a 2.5bar FPR, install those cam oiler bolts that have safety wire retention (hell, verify oil actually comes out of the holes too!), lash the valves, W8DC or BP5ES plugs, 15/40 Diesel or 20/50 VR1 oil, HAND inspect all clamps as well as intercooler couplings, slap a wideband on it to verify idles around 14:1, etc. The car I am rebuilding now has a cap and rotor from 1998...

I am intrigued by you going over the plug wires. Are you able to find Bosch or Bremi anymore? I have used Kingsborne before, good stuff yet their site seems to be inop for a while. I am nearly to the point where I will just buy a new set at my autostore. They are $81 USD here, not bad really.

OH, have your injectors serviced by a shop. I send mine to Cruzin Performance in Michigan. Last set ran me about $140 including shipping both ways.



Still have that foam thing you wanted.

[cdnalpina]

Hit Man, my sincerest apologies for my tardy reply - life has been busy and I haven't done a thing to the car since. Hoping to soon though, now that the white stuff falleth here.

Thanks again for the advice! I am becoming overwhelmed with the notion of removing the intake manifold - so much more involved than on an E34 535i. Many more hoses and wires just begging to be broken. I may man up and go for it but a part of me wants to get the car running well first and then consider dismantling to beautify.

As for the wires, they are a common failure point on the E32 and E31 cars (even E34) and can cause the engine to miss and especially on the V12s put them in limp mode (running on the good half of the engine only). By virtue of that, I have a bunch of spare wires from parts cars over the years. Typically on the V12s, it's the #6 and #12 wires that fail, and these are the wires that have the cam position sensor on them. So I was quite pleased that the 745 used the #1 wire, as I have several of those. What I did was measure the resistance on the 745 leads and they were the same resistance as the E32 and E31 leads (not surprising at the end of the day I guess). What I have done is:

- take the broken #1 wire from the 745
- cut the cap end off and slid the cam position sensor donut wire off - making note of the orientation of the donut on the lead (may or may not matter)
- I took a known good E31 #1 lead, exact same length as the 745 lead, and cut the rubber boot off first, and then the connector as close as possible to the end of the wire to preserve as much length as possible
- my friend had some spare wire caps, I believe from Kingsborne, that he generously loaned to me until I could replace
- I slid the cam position senor wire on the E31 lead and then attached the new Kingsborne connector and boot
- did a resistivity check after and it is bang on in tolerance

The only wild card is if the cam sensor donut is any good. They can be tested on the E31 leads but I don't know if these ones can at all. Anyone know if and how they can be tested?

So it would be my recommendation to everyone to check your wires because I have had this issue on one of my E34s where a lead or two were bad and the car missed and ran poorly. In the case of your cam position sensor wire, if you have a bad/broken lead running through it - the car never can really understand the position of the camshaft. So I would put this on the 'regular maintenance' schedule of things to check.

Thanks on the foam insert - I have those plates for you as well!