Diagnostic tool + shaking idle for bmw e34 -93 540i

[Jimmyboss]

Hey guys.


Two questions,

Is there any diagnostic tools for our precious BMW E34 -93 540i EU version?

And also I got a shaking seat during idle around 600rpm when hot.. My seat is shaking, also my drivers door when open it’s shaking as f*ck.

Checked my ignition coils. Everyone of them is running great.

Changed my spark plugs last year too.

Vacuum leak around intake manifold?
Any procedure to locate the vacuum then?

Or another tips?
I’ve been in thinking of change my fuel filter both of them. Could it them?


I’ve also had an problem that happens like one in 20th drive time, when I’m driving and like gonna brake for redlight, the moment my vehicle stops at the redlight it suddenly turns off. I don’t know why
Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

[E34 Lives]

All this shaking is most likely a vacuum leak. Sounds like you replace a few items already so you can cross them off your list. Make sure your MAF is good (use only MAF cleaner) and no leaks from the connecting boot. The ICV unit and throttle can use a good cleaning with carb cleaner. Replace your PVC plate in the back of your manifold and new manifold gaskets and throttle body / PVC Plate gaskets. This is all maintenance items any ways.

As for your rough idle when stoping, my money is on a bad brake booster unit vacuum leak, the diaphragm in the brake booster can go bad especially given their age. You can NOT find this leak with a smoke test. Try testing at a safe place, stop in drive, and pump the brakes like crazy, if the engine cut off, then you have found your vacuum leak in the brake booster confirmed. Sounds like your brake booster is shot if it causes your engine to die upon braking. Have the brake booster rebuild by professional, new old stock are hard to find and expensive. Also a good time to replace or rebuild master brake cylinder and replace all soft brake lines to overhaul the braking system.

As for diagnosis tools, I been using the built in stomp test when I get a check engine light, since this is OBD1 and this engine design is natural aspirated port injection, non VANOS and not turbo it is much easier to troubleshoot without an OBD tool. I don’t use one on the E34 and found the forums to be best source for troubleshooting.

Good Luck!

[TiagE39]

Double check that the black wiring harness boxes atop the engine are seated correctly and not warped. If they aren't placed correctly, they can cause an intermittent connection with the fuel injectors.

[eddycooper]

I have a Euro-market 540i as well. The "stomp test" does not work.

One option is the Peake R5/FCX-3 code reader. The company stopped making them, but you can find them for sale on forums or Ebay. If you do end up using the Peake tool, send me a message. I have a paper copy of the "Euro" version of the code lookup book for the Peak tool and I'd be happy to scan it for you (it's a bit different from the US-market book).

There are other scan tools out there as well.

[Jimmyboss]

All this shaking is most likely a vacuum leak. Sounds like you replace a few items already so you can cross them off your list. Make sure your MAF is good (use only MAF cleaner) and no leaks from the connecting boot. The ICV unit and throttle can use a good cleaning with carb cleaner. Replace your PVC plate in the back of your manifold and new manifold gaskets and throttle body / PVC Plate gaskets. This is all maintenance items any ways.

As for your rough idle when stoping, my money is on a bad brake booster unit vacuum leak, the diaphragm in the brake booster can go bad especially given their age. You can NOT find this leak with a smoke test. Try testing at a safe place, stop in drive, and pump the brakes like crazy, if the engine cut off, then you have found your vacuum leak in the brake booster confirmed. Sounds like your brake booster is shot if it causes your engine to die upon braking. Have the brake booster rebuild by professional, new old stock are hard to find and expensive. Also a good time to replace or rebuild master brake cylinder and replace all soft brake lines to overhaul the braking system.

As for diagnosis tools, I been using the built in stomp test when I get a check engine light, since this is OBD1 and this engine design is natural aspirated port injection, non VANOS and not turbo it is much easier to troubleshoot without an OBD tool. I don’t use one on the E34 and found the forums to be best source for troubleshooting.

Good Luck!

I’ve tried the “rubber glove with a straw test, removed my Airfilter and used my breath to pump the glove up, didn’t leak at all (did open the vent from the front manifold intake to let the air flow into the cylinder house.

I am thinking maybe it could be my fuel filters are clogged. Ordered ones may receive them next week and will update to see how it went for me! Thanks


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[Jimmyboss]

Double check that the black wiring harness boxes atop the engine are seated correctly and not warped. If they aren't placed correctly, they can cause an intermittent connection with the fuel injectors.

I checked them too, didn’t see any badly Connected box.

My money is on Fuel filters, will update next week when I change them, thanks


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[Jimmyboss]

I have a Euro-market 540i as well. The "stomp test" does not work.

One option is the Peake R5/FCX-3 code reader. The company stopped making them, but you can find them for sale on forums or Ebay. If you do end up using the Peake tool, send me a message. I have a paper copy of the "Euro" version of the code lookup book for the Peak tool and I'd be happy to scan it for you (it's a bit different from the US-market book).

There are other scan tools out there as well.

Oh I were into Peake. I couldn’t be 100% sure it works. Well thanks for that, gotta order one from eBay directly!

I’ll send you a pm if I don’t find the code lookup on the internet thanks



(Sorry for double posting!)
Have no idea how to mention all in one post

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[shogun]

In Germany people buy for the E34 from doitauto https://doitauto.de/ads-obd-diagnose...d-inpa-ediabas
ADS OBD Diagnosis unit for BMW and INPA Ediabas, supports BMW with ADS Protokoll & ISO-Protokoll OBD1 & OBD2, cars 1988 - 2007

I have also a Peake tool for my E32 750 11/88, but that is very limited, basically the same like the stomp test on US cars.

[Oostblok]

I have a euro 540 as well, I got this https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/32793335301.html Didn't use it much it yet but so far it works fine.

[Jimmyboss]

In Germany people buy for the E34 from doitauto https://doitauto.de/ads-obd-diagnose...d-inpa-ediabas
ADS OBD Diagnosis unit for BMW and INPA Ediabas, supports BMW with ADS Protokoll & ISO-Protokoll OBD1 & OBD2, cars 1988 - 2007

I have also a Peake tool for my E32 750 11/88, but that is very limited, basically the same like the stomp test on US cars.

Which one do you prefer?

I found one Peake in eBay right now, I’m leading the bidding war(alone)

All I can see is this Peake is very easy to use. Only read codes output from the reader and match it through the manual book.

I’ll pick one of them

Thanks Shogun!


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[Jimmyboss]

I have a euro 540 as well, I got this https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/32793335301.html Didn't use it much it yet but so far it works fine.

Very cheap wow! Will buy that too! Thanks for the hint!


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[shogun]

The advantage of the Peake is that it is easy to use, small, fits in glovebox, and for your 1993 model with the newer DME than my 11/88 you get much more fault codes out. http://www.peakeresearch.com/manuals...201.0%20NA.pdf
One of my wrenching buddies has a GT1 tester, too complicated for a quick check, till he has set up the unit I have already done the check with the Peake.

[E34 Lives]

The brake booster leak will not show up on a smoke test or leak down test, so the glove and straw test will not identify this vacuum leak. As mentioned your engine cuts out upon braking, this is most likely the brake booster.

The fuel filter should be changed as part of maintenance anyways, if the engine still gets rough on braking after filter replacement, then brake booster diaphragm most likely needs rebuilding. But keep in mind the 540i has two fuel filter, so the odds of both clogging at the same time to create this rough idle is unlikely. I once had a fuel cut off intermittently and I thought it was a fuel pump going bad, I replaced it and still had same problem, upon closer inspection it turned out that the old BMW fuse had a hair line break that was barely visible, only after checking in bright sunlight did I see it, so starting small and working out on diagnosis is good.

I have the PEAK diagnosis tool, forgot all about it . I just review its capabilities, it does have a bunch of extensive functions. I been doing diagnosis without it, maybe will start next time I get check engine light.

[a777fan]

For clarification, only early 540s have the two filter setup. My April ‘95 car has the newer single filter setup.


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[E34 Lives]

Interesting, my 540 production date is January 1995 and I have two filter setup. I read that there was a switch to a single filter setup starting May 1995. But for the above discussed case with the 1993 540i, it should be a dual filter setup from the factory.

[Jimmyboss]

The advantage of the Peake is that it is easy to use, small, fits in glovebox, and for your 1993 model with the newer DME than my 11/88 you get much more fault codes out. http://www.peakeresearch.com/manuals...201.0%20NA.pdf
One of my wrenching buddies has a GT1 tester, too complicated for a quick check, till he has set up the unit I have already done the check with the Peake.

I pulled the trigger on the Peake. 100$ from Australia to Sweden should take a few weeks

I’ll let you guys know more when it arrives.

About the Fuel filters, not yet changed them yet. Still haven’t received them.


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[shogun]

1993 E34 540 is not listed in the Peake manual, it says: A NOTE ABOUT NON-U.S. BMWS: The above vehicle reference refers to US specification BMWs only, and does not include any non-US BMW variants. To best use the R5/FCX on your non-US BMW, you will need to determine which of the above most closely matches your BMW. For instance a 1991 320i, is a 3 series, four cylinder, made for non-US markets: In this case, the best table for you to use would be table K13, as the closest US spec car would be a 1991 31 Bi (which is also a 4cyl, 3 series) This method doesn't always work, you may need to experiment to find the correct table.

so I would use table K11 for 1994 540

[E34 Lives]

I would not put too much expectation on the PEAK tool, it is OBD1 generation diagnosis, very general codes. I am trying to recall why I stop using this tool, the last time I used it gave me a possible bad O2 sensor which was incorrect, after replacing both O2, rough idle problem came back.

I found that the M60B40 is actually pretty straight forward engine and majority of intermittent rough idle issues are vacuum leaks, so a replacement of the engine PVC plate and all the manifold connecting gaskets seems to address majority of problems. Further replacement of valve cover gaskets, and oil cap, gas cap, dip stick o rings and checking throttle area hose connections. Lastly injector gaskets, only did this once (I got one of those rebuilt kit and put on new washer, tip and grommets). Most of this is normal maintenance and should address the dreaded common engine vacuum leaks. The last thing that can leak is the brake booster, which stumped me because it didn’t show up on smoke leak down testing, and only during braking.

Engine dying and no start have mostly been associated with electrical short couple with blown fuse, or some disruption of fuel sending system. The strangest short I ever got was a seat heater short preventing car from starting, how is the PEAK tool going to diagnose that?

So, I went through the stage of wanting to get answers from a diagnosis tool to just doing a maintenance regiment that prevents these things from coming up, I do fall behind on maintenance, but when I sense that the engine is acting up, I just revert back to doing the regiment and seems to keep all the vacuum gremlins away. This is my personal experience so yours might be different, but I think all long term E34 540 owners go through this process with the M60 engine.

[E34 Lives]

I just bought a XTOOL Anyscan A30M Wireless BT OBD2 Scanner for my other car that uses OBD2. OBD2 unlike OBD1 cars are very dependent on this tool to determine problems and everything is computer module driven.

While going through the scan tool menu I saw E34 diagnosis as part of this scanner function, but I will need to buy a 20pin to 16pin connector to connect to the OBD1 port in my engine bay. This scanner can do real time and reset via wireless connection, so if you are looking for a scanner tool maybe this is a good choice. I will need to order the cable to test out. But if the diagnosis software functions are in the tool, and the OBD port is just sensor data points and triggers, then maybe this tool can perform more complex diagnosis on an old OBD1 data set, who knows.

Will let you know once I get around to ordering a cable and trying it out, my expectation is low on what it can do, but it is cool that tool has E34 as a selection for doing diagnosis.

[Jimmyboss]

I would not put too much expectation on the PEAK tool, it is OBD1 generation diagnosis, very general codes. I am trying to recall why I stop using this tool, the last time I used it gave me a possible bad O2 sensor which was incorrect, after replacing both O2, rough idle problem came back.

I found that the M60B40 is actually pretty straight forward engine and majority of intermittent rough idle issues are vacuum leaks, so a replacement of the engine PVC plate and all the manifold connecting gaskets seems to address majority of problems. Further replacement of valve cover gaskets, and oil cap, gas cap, dip stick o rings and checking throttle area hose connections. Lastly injector gaskets, only did this once (I got one of those rebuilt kit and put on new washer, tip and grommets). Most of this is normal maintenance and should address the dreaded common engine vacuum leaks. The last thing that can leak is the brake booster, which stumped me because it didn’t show up on smoke leak down testing, and only during braking.

Engine dying and no start have mostly been associated with electrical short couple with blown fuse, or some disruption of fuel sending system. The strangest short I ever got was a seat heater short preventing car from starting, how is the PEAK tool going to diagnose that?

So, I went through the stage of wanting to get answers from a diagnosis tool to just doing a maintenance regiment that prevents these things from coming up, I do fall behind on maintenance, but when I sense that the engine is acting up, I just revert back to doing the regiment and seems to keep all the vacuum gremlins away. This is my personal experience so yours might be different, but I think all long term E34 540 owners go through this process with the M60 engine.

Great information! Thanks. Will check PVC plate and the manifold connections.

When i turn the steering wheel little bit left and then suddenly brakes a bit hard, my engine wants to die - or sometimes it goes down to 300-400rpm then 1 sec later back to 600~

My left door is shaking as f*** when the engine is running and my driver door is open.

My seat is also shaking but not my steering wheel.

Any clue?


Also, for a couple of days ago, my drivers side fog cable died. I ordered a new one from nearest car scrap and took the head cap, changed it but now I get like check Tail lights, Brake lights, license plate lights on my dashboard. I’ve checked them, nothing wrong with them!


Someone pointed out try to unplug the headlights adjustment cable to try solve this problem, anyone got any clue about this situation?


Will order this XTOOL Anyscan A30M Wireless BT for sure! Thanks for that

Thanks in advance guys



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[shogun]

In case you have automatic headlight aim control, that can cause a problem with faulty messages when the motors are old, just remove the plug from the rear of the headlight aim motors in engine bay behind the headlights and test if the faults disappear.
There was a technical information: German:
Sporadische Fehlermeldungen in der Check Control, z. B.:Abblendlicht, Kennzeichenlicht, Ruecklicht etc., obwohl Beleuchtung in Ordnung.Betroffene Fahrzeuge: E 32/34 mit Leuchtweitenregelung. Zeitraum alle. Ursache: Stoereinfluesse durch Leuchtweitenregulierung. Massnahme zum Pruefen: probeweise ersetzen oder abklemmen.

Sporadic error messages in the Check Control, e.g.: low beam, license plate light, rear light etc., although lighting is OK. Affected vehicles: E 32/34 with headlight range control. Period all. Cause: Interference due to headlight range control. Measure to check: replace or disconnect on a trial basis.

repair with ceramic condensator https://forum.e34.de/thread.php?threadid=107819
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...Error-messages


or the CCM check control module is defective http://www.e34-welt.de/tips_tricks/R...0e34%20e32.pdf

[letank]

but I will need to buy a 20pin to 16pin connector to connect to the OBD1 port in my engine bay.

I will need to buy a cable too, trying to figure out a good vendor, if anyone has a suggestion for a reputable seller.

I was looking at the whole sheebang in ebay from this vendor in Germany, but not too sure what is in the package from mycor-media, I sent this seller a message, will follow up.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/19494629949...cAAOSwJrxhgRAp

keywords search INPA , ADS, E32.... works on E34 as well

[Jimmyboss]

In case you have automatic headlight aim control, that can cause a problem with faulty messages when the motors are old, just remove the plug from the rear of the headlight aim motors in engine bay behind the headlights and test if the faults disappear.
There was a technical information: German:
Sporadische Fehlermeldungen in der Check Control, z. B.:Abblendlicht, Kennzeichenlicht, Ruecklicht etc., obwohl Beleuchtung in Ordnung.Betroffene Fahrzeuge: E 32/34 mit Leuchtweitenregelung. Zeitraum alle. Ursache: Stoereinfluesse durch Leuchtweitenregulierung. Massnahme zum Pruefen: probeweise ersetzen oder abklemmen.

Sporadic error messages in the Check Control, e.g.: low beam, license plate light, rear light etc., although lighting is OK. Affected vehicles: E 32/34 with headlight range control. Period all. Cause: Interference due to headlight range control. Measure to check: replace or disconnect on a trial basis.

repair with ceramic condensator https://forum.e34.de/thread.php?threadid=107819
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...Error-messages


or the CCM check control module is defective http://www.e34-welt.de/tips_tricks/R...0e34%20e32.pdf

Shogun, you are AMAZING!

Thanks for everything u do man!

Amazing information, will look at it when I got time in the upcoming weeks.

Thank you


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[Jimmyboss]

I will need to buy a cable too, trying to figure out a good vendor, if anyone has a suggestion for a reputable seller.

I was looking at the whole sheebang in ebay from this vendor in Germany, but not too sure what is in the package from mycor-media, I sent this seller a message, will follow up.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/19494629949...cAAOSwJrxhgRAp

keywords search INPA , ADS, E32.... works on E34 as well

Oh cool, I got the 16pin to 20pin cable, I don’t remember where I bought it here in Sweden, but anyway, does the interface work well for BMW E34 M60 motor too?

Cool! Need one aswell, but I’m into the one E34 lives recommended before it looks amazing


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[Jimmyboss]

Update: just in case someone got same problems as me in the future


I had some problems with shakeing seat at idle. It seems my motor mountings were very very bad shape.

Changed them and it runs smooth right now. No more vibrations at driver + passenger seat.


Still, I got a misfire, my engine is not running completely fine so I think the next solution is to scan the car for error codes.
Last year changed all my 8x spark plugs (NGK)
my ignition coil in very good shape too
Also changed my crankshaft sensor
My engine doesn’t die anyway least until today when I brake and turns left at the same time

I also changed Drive belts (were very bad also), 2x fuel filters, Chain Tensioner

Next stop >>> scan the car for error codes
Wish me luck guys!


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