Broken rocker arm

[jimoreno]

So I was on my way to pick something up this afternoon and decided to drive the E28 to stretch it's legs. Around 2 miles out from my destination the car started to miss and evidently wasn't running on all cylinders.
Stopped at a BP gas station, fire up AAA and scheduled a tow which happened to be about an hour and a half later.
After letting the engine cool for about an hour decided to remove the valve cover and there it was. Cylinder #2 exhaust rocker snapped close to the eccentric. Took the piece out, pulled the plug wire and put everything back together. Fires right up but the tow truck was 15 minutes away so decided to wait for it.
I guess my engine refresh is not going to be next year!
247K miles on the engine by the way.

[Mike W.]

Odd, but not unheard of. Were you leaning on it winding it out or just putting? Popular wisdom is the rocker shifts sideways and binds, mostly at high revs. On the other hand, I've taken M30s and M10s, same rockers, up over 7K on rare occasion with lots of miles on them with no issues. There is a but however, they were early ones which came with stiffer rocker springs.

Seeing how it's #2, there is a longshot you might be able to remove the upper timing cover, 3 or 4 head bolts, and work the rocker shaft forward to replace that one rocker arm. Might or might not be worth the effort to try. Sometimes those rocker shafts slide relatively easily, other times you need to drive them out.

[ahab]

If you're going to run the engine or drive it at all, pull the injector connector.

[jimoreno]

If you're going to run the engine or drive it at all, pull the injector connector.

Yes, I did that before driving it home. It made the 75 miles trip back home with no other issues besides the evident lack of power. I was planning on opening the engine next year and go over everything so the schedule moved ahead a little bit. I'll be installing the B35 pistons that I got and probably a hotter cam while going to through the whole head.