View Single Post
  #76  
Old 01-04-2017, 03:28 PM
X53Jay4.8is X53Jay4.8is is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Southlake, Texas
Posts: 2,094
X53Jay4.8is is on a distinguished road
Quote:
Originally Posted by dannyzabolotny View Post
Thanks! The chain guide job really isn't hard to do, it's just really time consuming.

-------

Anyways, onto the conclusion of the guide story. After the engine was timed, I jacked up the X5 and proceeded to install the newly cleaned oil pan with a new gasket. Brake cleaner can work miracles, even on grubby old oil pans.



I installed the oil pan, torqued the bolts, torqued the drain plug, and reconnected the oil level sensor. While I was under the X5 I decided to take care of everything else under there, so I installed the power steering pump and the reinforcement plate. I reused the reinforcement plate bolts because they looked fine to me.

Once I was done with everything underneath, I moved on to installing the upper timing covers. I used a zip tie to keep the tensioner rail tensioned once the tensioner tool was removed. This isn't 100% necessary, but I like to do it just to make sure the chain never has too much slack which could potentially mess up the timing.



Initially I installed the upper timing covers quite loosely, since they need to be pressed into position to seat properly. I used a trick I learned from Beisan Systems, which was to use double the washers on four of the valve cover nuts, so that I could use the valve cover (without the gasket) to physically clamp down on the timing cover.



Check out that rad powder coated finish on the valve cover. It's two-toned and quite textured, which helps to hide the flaws that the valve covers had after 213k miles. I got it done at a local powder coating shop, it was around $80 for the pair. They were baked to get the oil residue out, sandblasted to remove the old finish, powder coated, and then baked to cure the finish.



After the upper timing covers were torqued down, I installed the Vanos solenoids along with their new gaskets. On the passenger side I also installed a new timing chain tensioner. I saved the old one to take a comparison picture to show the difference in tensioner designs over the years.



The old one wasn't that worn, the old spring was just shorter. Later on, BMW redesigned the tensioner spring so that there would be more tension on the timing chain upon cold startups, thus minimizing the startup rattle.

With the upper timing covers fully installed, I replaced the valley pan gasket. The coolant in the valley pan looked pretty clean— there wasn't any real cross-contamination going on, which was a good sign. I cleaned up around it a little bit but I didn't go crazy since that part of the engine isn't visible at all in most situations. I was thrilled to see proper blue BMW coolant used everywhere.







I was able to reuse the plastic cover after cleaning it a bit, which was nice because of how ridiculously expensive a new one is. The old valley pan gasket piece had a 2010 production date so it held up for 6-7 years, not too bad at all.

With the valley pan all sorted out, I installed the water pump and the water pipes, using new o-rings lubricated with silicone grease. The water pump was pretty recent and had a metal impeller so I elected to reuse it. I also installed the alternator, which was probably the easiest part of this whole job. After that I installed the crank pulley/harmonic balancer. You always want to install it after the water pump because it blocks access to one of the water pump bolts.



Finally, it was time to install the beautifully refinished valve covers. Everything went on quite easily with no issues.



I stopped there because of the holidays. On January 2nd I was finally able to resume the work. I installed the intake manifold, and no joke, that was possibly the worst part of this entire job. I had to remove a rotten OSV hose that was super hard to access, and then I had to install a new OSV hose there. Even with the cabin air filter housing removed there was almost no room to maneuver. I also had to pretty much crouch on top of the engine with my knees on the valve covers, now that got painful pretty quickly. Here's the area I'm referring to:



I ended up bending the pipe a little bit so that I could access it better. Once the new hose was installed I bent it back into place. After that hellish experience, the rest of the intake manifold installation was a downright breeze. I used new intake manifold gaskets as well. Once the manifold was installed, I connected the dozen hoses going to it, as well as the fuel supply.



After that, I installed the secondary air pipe and the electrical boxes, along with all the electrical connections to the various parts of the engine.



At this point was like 3:30am so I just kinda blacked out for the rest of the steps. When I snapped out of my stupor I had installed pretty much everything else...



Ignition coils, new NGK Iridium spark plugs, cabin air filter housing, air intake, MAF boot, expansion tank, all the cooling hoses, the fan shroud, the fan clutch, the battery terminal, and all the vacuum lines. Nothing terribly exciting there. I then added a whole bunch of coolant and bled the system a bit. I also added in about 8.5 quarts of Mobil 1 0W40, which is my preferred oil for these M62tu engines. I had also hooked up the battery and the battery charger at some point, just to make sure the battery wasn't dead.

Then came the fateful first start. Even though this is my 7th M62tu rebuild, I was still just as nervous as ever when I turned that key. I let the fuel pump prime a few times and then I started the engine. It made quite a clatter initially and quickly settled into a rough idle. It almost died a few times and ran a bit rough while the DME was trying to figure out the whole fuel/air supply thing, but that's pretty normal if you remove the intake manifold and disconnect the fuel lines. After about 30 seconds the engine settled into a happy idle, with just a hint of lifter tick from sitting dry for a month.

After letting it run for a few minutes, I shut it down and went to double check my work under the hood. The expansion tank was nearly empty, so I added more coolant to compensate. The oil level was a tad low as well, so I topped it off. I noticed a sizable coolant leak which was quickly determined to be coming from an improperly installed upper radiator hose. That was a quick and easy fix, and is proof of why you shouldn't do this stuff at 5am after almost 24 hours of no sleep.

Once the fluids were topped off, I double checked the tire pressures and rolled the X5 out of the garage to go for a test drive. Since the gas tank was nearly empty, the test drive was to the closest gas station. It made it there without any issues. I put $60 of premium Chevron gas into the X5— the pump showed 22.7 gallons, so the gas tank was really close to empty. While I was gassing up, I took some pictures of the newly resurrected X5.









This is why I do what I do. No words can describe the immense satisfaction and pride I feel when I start up a freshly rebuilt engine successfully. There's just nothing like it. There were no check engine lights, no error lights of any kind, and the coolant temperatures were stable.

I actually took videos of the entire first startup and first test drive, so once I get those edited together I'll link them here.

I drove the X5 to work yesterday with no problems whatsoever. Drove it to work today as well, so far so good. I've put almost 100 miles on it in like a day, that's how excited I am about it.

Nice finish to the first chapter of this resurrection project. Congrats
Reply With Quote

Sponsored Links