X won't idel after replacing valve stem seals - receiving misfire codes.

[X5only]

Congratulations! Phew, what a happy ending. Must be the best running N62 engine out there Mistakes happen even with the best. I've heard of one of the best and most experienced chief confess to cracking the egg, throw the yolk into the trash and place the shell into the frying pan!

Enjoy your vehicle and drive like it's meant to be. The missus gotta love your adventures

[Anshev]

Originally Posted by Purplefade

I agree 100%

And yes, without the wiring issue pushing me to go back through my work that bill could have been much higher - had that call been “we need to time it”.

Sadly, I have messed with the Vanos solenoids on this thing so many times that area didn’t get pics... I thought to myself short pigtail to “Vanos 1” and long pigtail to “Vanos 2”... and that’s what I get for thinking vs just taking a pic of it

Dang! I didn’t take a picture either and now rough idle...so the short pigtail goes to farthest Vanos and the long pigtail loops back to the other one???

[Purplefade]

In my case that was accurate - man I went through everything twice, some things three times and it ended up, thankfully, being swapped vanos plugs. It was literally as easy as swapping the plugs and everything was right with the world!



In this case, that picture would have probably saved me 20 additional hours of diagnostic work and trouble shooting - not to mention I wouldn't have had to pull the VCs again... Lived it and learned, I REALLY hope your issue is that straight forward.


Shoot me some history and I'll see if it rattles anything loose in my head
Sounds like you may have just finished a VSS job?

[Anshev]

Originally Posted by Purplefade

In my case that was accurate - man I went through everything twice, some things three times and it ended up, thankfully, being swapped vanos plugs. It was literally as easy as swapping the plugs and everything was right with the world!



In this case, that picture would have probably saved me 20 additional hours of diagnostic work and trouble shooting - not to mention I wouldn't have had to pull the VCs again... Lived it and learned, I REALLY hope your issue is that straight forward.


Shoot me some history and I'll see if it rattles anything loose in my head
Sounds like you may have just finished a VSS job?

Yes, the valve stem seals was the primary objective as the rig was burning a quart of oil per 500 miles.
This thread helped me solve the puzzle yesterday! There was actually two issues causing the misfires.
1) driver’s side Vanos soleniods connections were mismatched. Lesson - mark them when disassemble and take many pictures This particularly important given two sides are connected differently which is counterintuitive. Passenger’s side has short tail going to the top Vanos and on driver’s side the short tail connects to the bottom Vanos. Btw, e53 n62 and e70 n62 Vanos harnesses look different, so it took me some time to dig them out online. And I did take pictures, but Vanoses were behind coolant hoses
2) once solenoids were connected properly, the misfires had improved, but were still there. Checked the codes with ISTA: misfires multiple cylinders and misfire cylinder #1
3) pulled out the coil from the cylinder #1 and noticed a drop of oil inside the connector. Cyl 1 spark plug was the first one put back in and it probably got a little bit of oil residue from contaminated spark plug socket; the old spark plug tubes were full of oil and the rubber insert of the spark plug socket got soaked in oil as a result. Cleaned everything real good and put back in. Engine started - engine light immediately off and no misfires, took the beast for a test drive around the block - acceleration strong, engine sound as supposed to be.
Lesson - a little bit of oil in the coil can cause misfires, so clean, degrease tools really well.
4) another lesson learned - when assembling the engine back together don’t try put everything for initial start ( brackets for coils, all plastic engine pieces, reinforcement bar, basically leave out anything that is not critical). Otherwise, if there are misfires, you will need to disassemble again to be able to reach coils, sensors, Vanos, etc. Mr Perfection learned it hard way:

After the repair, the engine seems pulling stronger. I think the difference is for cleaned injectors that were tripled cleaned with brake cleaner, seaform, and carb cleaner plus new micro filters. Changes in Oil consumption are yet to be observed/measured, but hopefully the erling new design seals will do their job! Would love to see 1 quart per 5000 miles for this 10 year old engine

[andrewwynn]

The more important lesson is perseverance paid off. You did kind of a worst case external scenario and it was the best worst case. More people will have similar oops unrelated to this job that will keep them encouraged.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Purplefade]

Originally Posted by andrewwynn

The more important lesson is perseverance paid off. You did kind of a worst case external scenario and it was the best worst case. More people will have similar oops unrelated to this job that will keep them encouraged.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

It also gave me a huge amount of data that I was able to provide to my Indy which saved him a ton of time and me a ton of money

[X5M-ISH]

Nice, nice. So you have driven your truck by now? Anymore smokey puff of shame?

[Purplefade]

Originally Posted by X5M-ISH

Nice, nice. So you have driven your truck by now? Anymore smokey puff of shame?

Oh yes, picked her up last night and took her out for about an hours drive or so just to let things seat back in from being offline for so long.

After that I treated her to a bath and interior cleaning to get the shop funk off

And yes, I am happy to report that after a nice 20 minute idle, there is no smoke! To follow that up I started it and let it idle in the garage for about 20 minutes this morning before backing out for work and again, happily, no smoke!

(Note - mine only took about 5 or 6 minutes before it started sending up smoke signals, it was terrible, sitting through any type of drive through was enough to make me want to start wearing a bag over my head...)

[crystalworks]

Congratulations!!! Was starting to have second thoughts about doing mine after your problems. You were so methodical/cautious and still had issues... was unnerving. But glad you are set and good to go now.

[Purplefade]

Originally Posted by crystalworks

Congratulations!!! Was starting to have second thoughts about doing mine after your problems. You were so methodical/cautious and still had issues... was unnerving. But glad you are set and good to go now.

Thanks CW!

Nah, don’t sweat it, you can definitely knock it out yourself if you’re comfortable under the hood - and I know you are

Not to mention you’ve got the entire forum behind you.

Make life easy for yourself. I used a 4 shelf garage shelving unit and labeled the top shelf “driver”, second shelf “passenger”, third shelf “intake and misc” and put the big parts on the bottom shelf.

I then made some quick labels for CPS upper, CPS lower, Vanos in, Vanos ex, etc, etc and as I removed pieces parts I laid them by their respective label. I also didn’t throw away ANY of the old pieces parts until I was ready to put that respective piece back on the car - Example I left the o-rings on the Vanos solenoids until I picked them up to put them back in, then I caned the old ones and put the new ones on. Did the same for my VC bolts, CPS o-rings, eccentric shaft sensor gaskets, etc.

Biggest concern I had, believe it or not, were the brackets on the timing covers and alternator and how they went on their respective components, take a decent picture of those and you’ll be solid!

Oh... and snap a pic of those Vanos plugs too