David - As always, thanks for the helpful information!

In researching this, I'm almost positive my experience is the same as many frozen CCV systems. I noticed on a Land Rover site, those with the same M62 have a heater blanket that sits under the hoses and keeps them warm when it's freezing.

LR Part# LLJ000030 - Does this part exist for our vehicles? It does get cold, it was -21* F when this happened. And, even when I move to almost a different county I still won't be more than 15 minutes away from work. I'm concerned that won't be far enough away.

Time for my daily update. I was able to get the CCV off, coils off, and the valve covers off last night. All were really easy. The valve cover gasket was completely destroyed and horrifying. Based on what I've seen so far, that failed completely when the CCV froze and why I have oil everywhere. I haven't seen any indication the head gasket has failed, no reason to believe coolant is anywhere other than from hoses leaking.

I'm also thinking that the reason the engine looks baked in oil is due to bad oil and/or extended intervals. The nuts on the coils clogged the socket so bad I had to clean it for every nut due to caked on oil.

I'm including pics of some of the results. The coils were soaked in oil down by the plug, and the pics of the spark plug valley show why. My other questions revolve around the chain, the tensioner, the chain sprockets, and the cams. There is some wear on the chain, and some black marks on the chain sprockets, the tensioner appears to be pretty far in, and the cams look to have quite a bit of wear, especially on the passenger side. The cams are all intake cams if that makes any difference.

I've never seem wear on cams, or chains, or sprockets, so I'm hoping someone with more experience can chime in. Good? Bad? Eh?

As always, thanks for everyone's feedback!

Nice progress. The internals look pretty clean. Very little carbon build up. That's a good sign. the wear on the cam looks minor. You can pull them out and measure the wear if you really want (look for specs first). Can you feel a ridge with your fingernail? Here's a picture of a cam that really suffered. PO didn't keep up with oil changes.

The oil rail looks clean, too.

nice nice...

Now's a good time to get your valve covers powder coated :D

@David - OK, thanks for the feedback. No, can't really feel anything so I guess that means they're fine. The valve part looks fine, not sure what it's called, the flat piece the cam rides.

@TECN1K - Yeah, first part is getting everything cleaned! I've gotta get a bath for everything so I can start cleaning. That's going to take longer than anything else I think.

Nobody is concerned about the wear on the chain or the black on the sprocket? If so, I'm still debating replacing the chains right now. It's ONLY 150K, and since I know I'll have to do the chain guides again in another 100K, I figured I'd just do the chains then when they'd need it.

The black on the sprocket is a _tiny_ little bit of carbon build up. Not worth thinking about.
I swiped this picture off the internet - this is what a head with carbon build up problem looks like

@David - Oh crap...thanks for that! But, now you're making me cry. My wife's car is an '08 135i with yep, an N54 @73K! Great...so once I'm done with this one I get to do her's next! Ugh...I've heard rumors the N54 can be bad for carbon build up but DAMN.

So as of now, unless something changes when I take off the timing covers, I'm planning on leaving the chains for now and I'll hit those next time in 100K when I do the chain guides again.

My answer about chains would be based on how far you end up tearing the motor down and what the cost associated is. If you're deep enough into it I'd just get the pain over with and have the peace of mind that you're not going to have to do this again...but that's me...i'd not leave anything and change as much as possible prematurely since I'm in there. Once and done.

@X-cellent - I totally agree and understand. I'm still debating...because I'll already have everything torn apart. I mean...if you go 90% just do it all.