Mom ran my X out of oil

[andrewwynn]

If the Ses light cleared than yes. Do you get new codes and if so which and do you hear knocking before codes trip?

If you have oil filled to mid way I would drain half a quart or so to add 1 qt of Lucas oil treatment then if you don’t hear knocking like actual bearing failure it might be a coincidence like low fuel pressure causing your multiple cylinder misfire.

If the bearings are toast either crank or rod, I am pretty sure you’ll be hearing them complain to high heaven.

Does your Carley app allow real-time view of horsepower? Or: can you connect to the Carly WiFi dongle with a different app. A couple apps I use will calculate real-time Hp and if it for example takes 9hp at idle and shoukd be 6, it’s solid evidence that oil is not getting where it should.

If the bearings aren’t shot but oil got cooked into goo in some small passageway, you may be able to use some engine flush (basically kerosene) to cleanse out the gunk

Stay positive for the moment; I’ve had seeming worse things turn out to be a dirty connector.

[upallnight]

Drop the pan and see if you have bits of the timing guide in the pan. Sounds like the tensioner collapse when the oil ran low and without tension on the chain, it just flayed around until the guides broke off.

[andrewwynn]

Good call UAN. +1 on check the chain guides. But it’s much faster and easier to look with an inspection camera through the oil fill and CPS ports.

It will sound a bit like a cement mixer once chain guides have failed. Usually the chain tensioner can no longer remove all the slack once the guides have their plastics sheered off.

If the chain didn’t break and that’s the biggest problem it’s not that terrible a job to bring a 4.4 back to life, but it’s also pretty hard to tell with all the racket the engine will be making.

If I was trying to determine if It was the guides or worse, I would improvise on the chain tensioner, add some additional length with a dowel (just small enough to fit through the hole, drill a hole into one side to fit over the actual tensioner and maybe glue it on with some silicone. Wrap some Teflon around the threads to make an ok seal because you’ll be creating the tension by tightening the threads of the tensioner.

You will only want to run the engine at low RPM but if you get the “bucket of bolts” sound to mostly go away you can listen for other telltale damage like rod knock to help determine if the engine is salvageable.

If the chain guides fail, in addition to the racket the cams can advance or retard a few degrees from their called position and will cause all sort of obd errors.

If you can remove the slop from the chain you can likely assess the true condition of the engine as you should be able to clear the codes and they may stay cleared. The grinding of chain on metal still will be loud enough the engine may hear that as knocking on the knock sensors but there is a good chance it won’t.

If the sound goes from rattling sound of the slack chain slapping around to a metal to metal shuuuuushhhh, and you don’t have loud knocking I would bet on chain guides. A job if done solo twice and is a reasonable job to do over the course of a week solo in a garage no lift needed.

[andrewwynn]

Follow up on the vanos error; I haven’t heard of them getting stuck before but too bad bank two; bank one you could probably unstick from the oil fill port.

That said, you might also unstick by manually turning the crank bolt counter clockwise a bit (I don’t know if you will break anything turning the engine backwards so I wouldn’t go more than 45° or so, just enough to try to twist the inside of the vanos backward against the cam lobes. (It doesn’t take much force to manually turn the vanos under normal conditions by hand, not sure if the vanos will move from pushing on the cam side vs twisting from the inside with the pin holes made for setting them to zero for timing but it’s worth a shot.

Will your scanning solution let you read real-time vanos angles ?

[andrewwynn]

I took this picture a couple days ago on my M54 motor to show how the actual and requested cam angle follow pretty close. I was just reviving the engine, it would be even closer if under load actually driving.

If one of the banks vanos got stuck (say some oil sludge blocked a pathway to the solenoid, the engine would run pretty badly. Still I would be thinking positively.

[B&K-X5]

So I finally got some time to work on the X on Sunday. I bought a camera and looked down the oil fill hole in passenger valve cover( I can't look in driver side at all). The chain appears tight and was able to see one cam lobe and there didn't appear to be any excessive wear on it. I drained oil, removed lower oil pan and oil filter and didn't see any metal shavings or signs of rod bearing failure. However, one cannot see the crank or rods. I guess I will have to remove the upper oil pan to be sure of rod bearing condition.I did however find some broken parts in the lower pan. They appear to be pieces of a timing chain guides and a steel part that is maybe part of valve intermediate. please see pics and hopefully someone can tell what these pieces are.

[B&K-X5]

also scanned it with my Carly and got the following codes.

002F45 - Interface EWS-DME

002DB4 - MULTIFUNCTION STEERING WHEEL, COMMUNICATION

002DCF - CAN, INSTRUMENT CLUSTER; SIGNAL ERROR

0029CC - MISFIRE, SEVERAL CYLINDERS

0029D2 - MISFIRING, CYLINDER 6

0029D1 - MISFIRING, CYLINDER 5

0029D4 - MISFIRING, CYLINDER 8

002A89 - OUTLET VANOS 2

0029D3 - MISFIRING, CYLINDER 7

Apologies - having issues uploading the actual pictures

[andrewwynn]

Use tapatalk to upload photos.

I looked into chain guides it seems the N62 uses a solid chain guide vs the two part that self destructs in the M62tu.

Doesn’t mean they can’t break bits off

I think the key to solving this is that vanos error.

I think either there is a completely coincidental electrical fault with the vanos system or there is a oil pressure related fault (eg clump of oil plugged some hole and oil pressure won’t get into the vanos unit or solenoid)

The sop is to swap solenoids bank 1&2 and see if the problem swaps bank then you know it’s the solinoid. It’s also possible to be cam sensor related but that will not give you a vanos error so start there.

Text me a picture of the metal part and the crumbs of plastic you suspect are chain guides.

[andrewwynn]

Does the Carly let you read the real-time cam angles that will be the most effective tool in tracking down the primary source.

In the meantime, rule out broken drive train parts (intermediate levers), by doing a compression and/or leakdown test. If valves are bent or non operational, it's a completely different exercise.

[B&K-X5]

today I got the valve covers off and things look ok in there. chains are snug and tensioners appear in tact. I can move the chains about 1/8" or with my finger. I watched a video the other day showing the valvetronic motors being unscrewed to remove. mine didn't go like that. when I got the last bolt out ; they both popped right out like they were spring loaded. this gots me thinking that maybe they were stuck with the eccentric shafts holding the intake valves open. would this make it run like crap ? and could this be a result of low oil pressure ? I am going to get a leak down tester and see what I get tomorrow. I'm not sure how well it would work to do compression test with valve covers off, and lower oil pan off; or if I could damage anything with valvetronic motors off. leak down should tell me if I have any bent valves or bad rings. if test is good; then I think I'm goin to pull off the upper oil pan to get a look at bearings. much to my surprise; there are no videos and little info out there on pulling off the oil pan of an X5 with n62 motor. my Bentley manual has proven to be utterly useless with this problem because they don't have shite in the book for the n62 motor. someone should really tell them TARDS that BMW made an n62 motor; and that they actually put it in the X5.