REPLACING TIMING CHAIN GUIDE RAILS

J.Belknap · #10 05-24-2012, 01:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sergei-e

my filter was plugged with shavings and bits of plastic (all of them went through the oil pump).

Don't mean to sound like the sky is falling, but the filter pictures appear concerning. :/

How does the other side of the filter look? Once junk is in the system, like Ian said, it's time to tear the motor down all the way (or swap in a lower mile lump). The screen before the pump seems like it did it's job in not letting things big enough to wreck the pump get through. As far as the crank/rod bearings & other small oil passageways, being wrecked by the really really small junk..... time will tell. I would HOPE that the BMW filter catches things small enough to wipe out bearings but that might be wishful thinking. This line of thought kind of reaffirms how important the tensioner/chain guide maintenance is. The cost of tearing apart the motor for a full-on rebuild is probably more than swapping in a used lower mile unit. (You could source and maintenance prep that motor now though.) Then, you can just sleep easy at night and when it fails it fails and the freshened lump gets dropped in. They all will fail at some time, heh. But it's still no fun to sit there and watch for a pot of water to boil.

I would run through a few oil changes and filters, inspect them and go from there. The pump itself is likely fine (IMO). With a decent gauge you can monitor it. A canton Accu-sump could be fitted to give you a few more seconds to do an emergency kill. If you do drop the driveline to do the oil pump job though, IMHO, just have a fresh new OEM unit w/ new chain ready to swap in. The rationale is that the internal shaft and twin-screw gears & external cog and chain wears too. And it makes for a less downtime, ya know? That's always a good thing.

Best of luck man, hope to hear updates with good news!

edit: and if it's any consolation, I (and one other X5 owner here) get to be the guinea pigs for the E53 version of the VAC Motorsports oil pump "fix" that they offer for M62's. If it's not "fixed" properly it will wipe the motor for sure. Not that I expect it too at all, but things happen sometimes.