First time working on the 4.6is

[LAWLence]

I went ahead and tackled a couple of things this past weekend. Recently picked up a set of 18s and swapped some Blizzaks on. Man, the ride is comfy on 18s! The car does look very funny from behind without the 315s though.




I also did the valve cover gasket since there has been a nasty oil leak dirtying the undercarriage ever since I bought the car a few weeks back. What a pain in the ass! The passenger side was pretty easy, but the coolant hoses on the driver side drove me insane. I couldn't get the valve cover aligned correctly, and the gasket kept falling off since it was so tight in there. Luckily, my girlfriend came to help (she probably heard all the profanity), and we did some brainstorming. We wrapped some electrical tape between the outer gasket and the spark plug opening area to keep it in place. Worked on the second try!

The whole job took me way longer than I had anticipated. I've only worked on 6 cylinder BMWs my whole life, and it was almost embarrassing how long it took me to finish the job... over 6 hours!

I also found a nasty layer of grease on my front wheels as I was swapping them over. Looks like the outer CV boots are torn... I think I'll have someone do it for me... grease is my least favorite thing to deal with!

[Ricky Bobby]

If the CV boots are already torn and spewing grease its better to do them sooner than later, you don't want to have to replace the axle if you don't need to.

The CV boot job isn't bad just messy if they are already split.