timing guides

[Ryoken]

some background.
as some of you might know I've had an oil leak on my 01 m62 for a very long time, several rocker gaskets later, and its still present ,
the other day I took the car to my works workshop ( work at royal mail, I went to the RM fleet workshop)(they service ALL RM vehicles) any whoo , he diagnosed upper timing case gaskets , not rocker gaskets.
the question I have is this , how long on average do timing guides last?
are there any owners who are on their original ones ,and at what mileage you on?
my engine is on 160K ,. serviced regularly ,3 year old timing tensioner,
doing the rockers are easy, I've done them enough times, upper timing cases don't seem hard, but I don't want to re do them all , if a lot of people say 160k is high for original guides, as , you change quides the mechanic , who does this job will be replacing all the gaskets ive just done

if you get my meaning
cheers
Steve

[e39 4.6]

136k miles for my x5, and it killed the motor

[Ryoken]

pleasant reading
I know I got a guy that said he would do a BHG which includes , timing guides n chains, for 1K so , Im going to get a price for just the guides done , should be less

[oldskewel]

M64?

[Ryoken]

m62

[oldskewel]

Just one digit off, but so is M54. I'll probably be doing my chain guides today on my M54, so I read through wondering if I had anything to help you with. So editing the first post might help lessen confusion for others.

[Ryoken]

edited

[srmmmm]

Originally Posted by oldskewel

Just one digit off, but so is M54. I'll probably be doing my chain guides today on my M54.

Is there a specific reason you're doing your guides? I'm at 346,800 miles on mine. When the valve cover and gasket were replaced at about 322,000 miles, the tech was unable to detect any slack or wear on the timing chain at all.

2002 X5 3.0 346,800 miles
2014 428i 39,000 miles

2004 325i sold at 123,600 miles
2001 325i sold at 66,000 miles

1970 Firebird Under restoration - Paint shop next month

[Ryoken]

I've done the rocker gaskets 4 times , as per original post, the leak is coming from upper timing covers, (90% sure .
I just thought id kill 2 birds with 1 stone , and seeing as the covers are coming off, id (mechanic)do the guides as well.

[oldskewel]

Originally Posted by srmmmm

Is there a specific reason you're doing your guides? I'm at 346,800 miles on mine. When the valve cover and gasket were replaced at about 322,000 miles, the tech was unable to detect any slack or wear on the timing chain at all.

2002 X5 3.0 346,800 miles
2014 428i 39,000 miles

2004 325i sold at 123,600 miles
2001 325i sold at 66,000 miles

1970 Firebird Under restoration - Paint shop next month

"While I'm in there" is why.

I've got the head off. I think it overheated in the past, warping the head. From service records, the PO had some major cooling system / CCV issues about 30k miles ago that may have caused latent damage. Then more recently it started blowing combustion gases into the coolant. So with everything opened up, I'm doing a few other things like VANOS rebuild and chain guides.

In general, at 186k miles and 17 years, everything looks to be really good (other than the warped head), but some of the plastic pieces are understandably brittle.

The coolant pipes on the intake side were crumbling at the ends. And the chain guides similarly seemed brittle. When lifting the head off (block still in the car), it got hung up on some trim stuff at the back end, and ended up dinging the timing guide that sticks up into the front part of the head. I'm sure a professional would just button it back up like that, but I'm replacing it along with the other guides. So yes, brittle, and if you did not ding it, hopefully OK, but in my case, it's not much of a decision.

And in general, this whole engine seems pretty amazing considering the mileage I've got. I saw that the M54 won some award rated as the best engine in the world in like 2002, and was on the top 10 list forever. Well deserved from what I can see.