635CSi M30 rebuild (pic heavy) -- updated 8/26/13: running!

[_marshall]

Just mirroring my thread from bimmerforums over to here. this was separated in different posts and stuff over there, so it's a little discontinuous.

Hi. I'm Marshall.
I go to school in California from mid-September until June. While I'm not there, I'm at home in Marietta, GA, working on an '85 635CSi.

Since I have to leave my shark to the care of my family while I'm at school, I really want to make the most of the time I have here. So I have a hell of a lot of project planned for the next few weeks.

Problems:

• Overheating tendencies
• Awful rough idle
• Awful 55+ mph shimmy
• Stock ride height
• Cracked steering box mount
• Zip-tied aux fan
• General engine bay grossness
• Automatic transmission
• Bent valance bracket
• US bumpers
• Stock exhaust
• Stock US M30B34
• Sketchy RC090s

This summer's plans:

• Cooling system refresh
• Fix the rough idle
• Relatively stock top end rebuild (mostly for my own peace of mind)
• A drop
• New front suspension
• Custom aux fan mount
• Fix valance bracket
• Perfect sound system - there's a little alternator whine at the moment
• Clean up the wheels
• Headers + hi-flow cats

What I'm planning to do is borrow a pal's engine hoist / stand, pull the engine out, rebuild it in my garage and clean up the engine bay while I'm at it, reinstall it, then do suspension. Or maybe do suspension first.

pixxxx:
(only a few for the moment)






2012-07-09 18.23.02

2012-07-09 18.23.11

...and now my M30 is sitting on my garage floor.
The plan for the moment is to go ahead and get head/valves done at a machine shop, do a stock-ish rebuild of the top and bottom ends, fix the wealth of vacuum and electrical issues I had, clean it all up, and drop it back in with new headers. I'm relatively mechanically inclined, but not very experienced with this sort of thing. I have a friend helping me out that knows much better what he's doing, but I definitely would like all the help I can get.

More pictures:

2012-07-09 18.23.18

2012-07-09 18.26.33

2012-07-09 18.26.45

^ in pulling the motor we smacked the front against the front bit of the radiator and scraped off a little paint. whoops.

I'll be following the Bentley manual for most of the rebuild stuff. Please point me toward any information or helpful links!

more pics:
the complete disaster that is my garage:

2012-07-10 23.59.20
one of the awful sensors that probably caused a few issues...

2012-07-10 23.57.27 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
we dropped the pan to get a socket on the torque converter mounting bolts. I think we did this wrong: took the transmission off without taking the torque converter with it. thoughts?

2012-07-10 23.59.02 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
grimy, nasty, disgusting block and pulleys.

2012-07-10 23.56.46 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
valve cover off!

2012-07-10 23.55.20 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
block's a bit rusty...

2012-07-10 23.55.06 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
intake side

2012-07-10 23.54.56 by seewhereweland, on Flickr


and finally, the reason my M30's run like shit for as long as I've owned it...

2012-07-11 00.46.13 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

2012-07-11 00.47.30 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

2012-07-11 00.47.40 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

2012-07-11 00.47.48 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

2012-07-11 00.48.25 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

2012-07-11 01.00.25 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

the head's off to a head shop in Marietta, I still have to get the block sandblasted, various parts powder coated, and bottom end rebuilt. many late nights await.


Not really going for a performance build, both since this is my first rebuild and I'm trying not to spend more money than I have.

Properly mounted it up to the engine stand last night. Took the oil pump, flywheel, and one of the pistons out. Here are some pictures...


2012-07-17 01.21.37 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

the crank!

2012-07-17 01.22.17 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

the one piston we took out so far. this is after cleaning it up with a nylon brush & brake cleaner:

2012-07-17 01.22.26 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
check out that piston wear!

2012-07-17 01.23.38 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
the gunk is baked on pretty thick:

2012-07-17 01.23.03 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
flywheel:

2012-07-17 01.24.18 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
bearing:

2012-07-17 01.23.27 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
my sad, sad radiator:

2012-07-17 01.26.17 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
headers!

2012-07-17 01.29.01 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

a few more pictures of internals; just got the crank out and started cleaning a few things up. the block is still nasty though, hoping naval jelly + wire brushing the hell out of it will be enough for engine enamel to stick.


Untitled by seewhereweland, on Flickr
fresh head!


Untitled by seewhereweland, on Flickr
some of the bearings, these are the 4th, 5th, and 6th from the front.

Untitled by seewhereweland, on Flickr


Untitled by seewhereweland, on Flickr
fresh from the powdercoater!


Untitled by seewhereweland, on Flickr
nasty little buildup on the bottom of one of the bores, below the stroke, must be corresponding to piston wear.

Gotten a lot done recently, with a few delays thanks to forgetting to order rod bearings and somehow completely stripping my oil pump nut (?!). Now the block is cleaned up and painted, crank and pistons are in with new bearings & rings, head is on with new head gasket, and next on the list is getting the timing back together. Pictures below.


Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
block paint

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
I tried to clean up all the sludge caked on the walls of my engine bay (some of which you can see in the first set of pictures) with moderate success.

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
I also straightened some condenser fins, but a good chunk of 'em weren't really still intact.

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
more cleaning...

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
cleaner pistons...

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
the parts table!

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
the garage after the head went on.

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
shiny and clean!

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
this goddamn thing. I was torquing the oil pump nut to spec when it let go and just started spinning freely. Cut it off with an air cutting wheel to discover that the threads had just peeled right off. back to the dealership I went...

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr

Also there were some weird things going on with the new head bolts: the first part of the torque sequence went fine, but then 3 of the bolts (one by the front of the engine and 2 at the very back) just kept spinning when I got to the second part of the sequence? I put in three of the old ones in those same holes and torqued them down and they did fine. So I think I'm just leaving it that way. Really sketched out by that.

[fastcrs]

Car is nice...looks like that diamond is going to shine! Great job...

[_marshall]

Picked up some bits and pieces (bolts, brackets, etc) at pull-a-part this morning, reinstalled most of the accessories and the exhaust. Got the engine off the stand and onto the hoist to prep for reinstallation of the transmission. Pictures:


2012-08-09 22.01.12 by Marshall H, on Flickr


2012-08-09 22.02.00 by Marshall H, on Flickr


2012-08-09 22.02.12 by Marshall H, on Flickr


2012-08-09 22.20.41 by Marshall H, on Flickr


2012-08-09 22.21.00 by Marshall H, on Flickr

[Kyle in NO]

Also there were some weird things going on with the new head bolts: the first part of the torque sequence went fine, but then 3 of the bolts (one by the front of the engine and 2 at the very back) just kept spinning when I got to the second part of the sequence? I put in three of the old ones in those same holes and torqued them down and they did fine. So I think I'm just leaving it that way. Really sketched out by that.

This is going to be a problem. I would not reinstall the engine until you find out why this happened. Did you guys clean The oily sludge out of each bolt hole thoroughly before installing the new bolts? If not, the block can crack if the new bolts hydro-lock.

[Sleeper21]

This is going to be a problem. I would not reinstall the engine until you find out why this happened. Did you guys clean The oily sludge out of each bolt hole thoroughly before installing the new bolts? If not, the block can crack if the new bolts hydro-lock.

--- I would follow Kyle's advice on that one..I had sludge/lint/crap in two of my bolt holes and could not get it to torque specs too. I thought I stripped it at first..

[Eta power]

I'll be following the Bentley manual for most of the rebuild stuff. Please point me toward any information or helpful links!

Factory repair manual - it's free and covers things the Bentley doesn't, like replacing automatic transmission clutches.
http://www.bmwtechinfo.com/repair/main/

Exploded parts diagrams and part numbers. RealOEM and BMWfans are mostly the same, but I prefer RealOEM.
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/select.do
http://bmwfans.info/

Wiring diagrams. These always come in handy...
http://wedophones.com/Manuals/BMW/

Motronic 1 and L-Jet are very similar. Motronic is basically electronic L-Jet with ignition control.
http://web.archive.org/web/201005170555 ... index.html

Search. Use it often, there's tons of good stuff here...
http://www.mye28.com/search.php

Good luck the head bolt issue! Doesn't sounds like any fun.

[mpowertech]

I like where this is going. Keep the pics coming.
And seriously take Kyles advice.

[_marshall]

Update:

Engine's in the car, it turned over and cranked for a moment without any ancillary things connected (PS, cooling, driveshaft, etc). Reattached all those things (besides A/C) and it wouldn't crank. The ignition switch is REALLY loose (like 45º of play before it even gets to position 1), so it seemed like it wasn't getting to the start position. Jumping 12V to diagnostic connector pin 11 turned the starter, but the engine wouldn't catch. Turned out the cold start valve wasn't in tight enough and was spitting fuel. Tightened that up and it turned over a few times, but then the starter suddenly stopped working. Tried jumping straight 12V to the solenoid and it still wouldn't work. Did I burn up the starter or solenoid or something else? Also is there a way to tighten up the ignition switch without replacing it?

Update 2:

Put a new-to-me-but-still-old-but-supposedly-tested-to-be-good starter in it.
Starter issues are continuing. Pulled the plugs to check for hydrolocking, no dice. The starter wouldn't turn it over with the fuel pump relay and the plugs out. Then I tried grounding the block to the battery with a jumper cable, still wouldn't work. Doesn't seem like a grounding issue. I think the starter I just put in may be fried...

[_marshall]

Been trying to figure out what the problem is. I had my battery tested and it's good. I pulled the radiator back out and turned the crank nut by hand, which seemed to loosen everything up pretty well. The starter could turn it with the plugs out. I put the plugs back in and the starter didn't seem to have enough torque to turn it. I turned the crank nut again and if I tried the starter IMMEDIATELY after I did that, the starter would move it. But if I let it sit for 5 minutes the starter couldn't turn it anymore. I guess I need to build oil pressure somehow, maybe use an external pump? Thoughts?

[cvillebimmer]

Check your grounds. When I installed my motor, I got some paint on the ground points. It would draw enough juice to turn the motor with no plugs or ancillary parts, but would just click after installing everything. Sanded down all grounds and it started right up.

[_marshall]

The car's running!

Over the last few months, we pulled the not-running engine out and dropped in a known-to-be-running engine from Todd (alpinacsi), originally from johnnye23. We put in the harness that came with the new engine, with a few splices needed in the glove box and some weird wire stretches needed elsewhere. With a little luck, the engine started! However, turns out that somewhere along the way we didn't properly align the torque converter, so my original autobox got a little mangled.

At this point, you might think "Wow! What a great chance to do the 5-speed swap!" Unfortunately, since I was short on time to get the car driving, I instead bought another 4HP22 from Strictly German. I had it installed by a shop. We attempted to maneuver a transmission under my car with very limited tools when we put in the new engine, but we found it to be prohibitively difficult with no transmission jack, the car on jackstands, and my leg in a boot from a recent surgery--so to a shop it went.

Anyway, I got the car back from the shop on Saturday and drove it home! It had an awful shimmy on the highway back home, but luckily I had already bought LCAs and UCAs before the project really started. I put them in yesterday and got an alignment today. It still shimmies a little, but I think I neglected to put hubcentric rings on the tires I had on it previously.

Next on the list to do:

• a good wash
• reinstalling the clutch fan
• doing the Chevy Vega fuel pump fix
• a few better electrical connections in the glove box
• resealing the glove box

When we pulled the engine harness, we just cut out the rubber seal that sealed the engine harness into the glove box since it really didn't want to come out. What's the best way to seal it back up? I was planning to put the old seal back in and maybe put some silicone on the crack.

PS: maybe this thread belongs in Tech Talk. dunno.