Noob M30B35 Build

[tn535i]

Not sure what you mean by stiffener.

From what I understand you are supposed to be able to see the flywheel teeth; these things are never fully sealed up.

Maybe not fully sealed but no big gaps. I'm not sure what I'm seeing in your picture now. There is usually a big aluminum piece that goes under the oil pan that completes the circle so to speak that the bell housing attaches to. 4 big bolts hold it to the block and the trans bell housing matches up to it without any gaps. There is even a soft plastic seal across the front to close the gap on the oil pan. My concern is that water could even splash up into the clutch area.

http://bmwfans.info/parts-catalog/E28/U ... 1256355_10

Now I'm realizing you must have the oil pan from a later M30 B35 but the trans that came from an early car. I guess they just don't match up the same way? I think you would need the B34 oil pan to use the stiffener. If it were me a might consider going to the early oil pan and stiffener with the early transmission. IDK.

[wkohler]

Hes got what is supposed to be on a 260/6 trans.

Do you still have the heat shield or plate or whatever that screwed to the transmission over the reference sensors?

[tig]

Hes got what is supposed to be on a 260/6 trans.

Do you still have the heat shield or plate or whatever that screwed to the transmission over the reference sensors?

yes.

[tig]

Tonight, after driving to/from work over two days I lifted the car and checked the oil leak situation. About the same amount of oil as previously seen, and it sure looks like it's coming from the oil pan seam at the right rear of the engine where it meets the bell housing (see previous pics).

It had occurred to me that the fact the B35 has an access hole in the oil pan covered with a plastic cover might be handy. I removed the cover and it looked dry in there.


I poked my gloved finger in there to see if there was any wetness inside. The glove came out clean no matter how I poked and prodded. I grabbed a large cotton detailing swab to see if it could pick up any oil moisture inside:


I really pushed the swab around in there, all the way to the right side and up where the rear seal cover would be. I pushed it down low, where oil would collect if it was leaking from the rear seal and pooling in the bell housing. A bit of dry grime (clutch dust?) but NO moisture.


This convinced me the oil leak is NOT coming from the rear main seal or the rear seal cover.

The only place it could be leaking, then, is from the oil pan gasket at that right-rear location. A real fix would involve removing the oil pan and re-doing the gasket. I'm not proud of the temporary fix I've attempted, but the same technique stopped the old timing cover leak on the old motor: I used Toyota FPIG gasket maker to externally cover the joint. I also tightened the cover bolts in that area a bit just to make sure.


This will stop the leak temporarily, forever, or not at all. Nothing to lose. Cross your fingers for me.

[tn535i]

I can't help but wonder if it's something related to my question about the stiffener ?? If the transmission and the oil pan were not originally paired together.. maybe the bell housing section integrated into the oil pan gets some stresses put into it with that particular transmission IF that tranmission was designed to be used with the stiffener. Might be causing the oil pan to pull away slightly breaking the nice seal you made while it was just oil pan on block? Again I admit no experience with the B35 oil pan but I think I see in some of the pics it has larger longer bolts at the rear like the separate stiffener would have and not just small ones. How does it mount across the back by the rear main seal? The old B34 style has several small 10mm hex head bolts that go under the stiffener so the oil pan is essentially independant of the bell housing circle formed by the stiffener.

[tig]

I can't help but wonder if it's something related to my question about the stiffener ?? If the transmission and the oil pan were not originally paired together.. maybe the bell housing section integrated into the oil pan gets some stresses put into it with that particular transmission IF that tranmission was designed to be used with the stiffener. Might be causing the oil pan to pull away slightly breaking the nice seal you made while it was just oil pan on block? Again I admit no experience with the B35 oil pan but I think I see in some of the pics it has larger longer bolts at the rear like the separate stiffener would have and not just small ones. How does it mount across the back by the rear main seal? The old B34 style has several small 10mm hex head bolts that go under the stiffener so the oil pan is essentially independant of the bell housing circle formed by the stiffener.

I'm not sure what you mean by the stiffener. None of the parts diagrams for either the 535 (B34) or the 735i (B35) have a part called "stiffiner".

It's still leaking. But just not from the spot where I sealed. I'm afraid it must be coming from inside the bell housing and my q-tip method just missed finding the spot.

In other news I got some parts from Blunt to take care of this little detail:

[demetk]

I'm not sure what you mean by the stiffener. None of the parts diagrams for either the 535 (B34) or the 735i (B35) have a part called "stiffiner".

It's still leaking. But just not from the spot where I sealed. I'm afraid it must be coming from inside the bell housing and my q-tip method just missed finding the spot.

TN is referring to #15 here. http://bmwfans.info/parts-catalog/E28/U ... ine_block/

So what are you going to do about the leak? This is certainly is one of the worst places for a leak.

[tig]

I'm not sure what you mean by the stiffener. None of the parts diagrams for either the 535 (B34) or the 735i (B35) have a part called "stiffiner".

It's still leaking. But just not from the spot where I sealed. I'm afraid it must be coming from inside the bell housing and my q-tip method just missed finding the spot.

TN is referring to #15 here. http://bmwfans.info/parts-catalog/E28/U ... ine_block/

The B35 oil pan does not use that part.

So what are you going to do about the leak? This is certainly is one of the worst places for a leak.

I'm going to have to take the exhaust, headers, and transmission off. I'm trying to find some other excuse to do that. Hopefully it is the rear main seal cover. That will be easy to fix. If it's the oil pan...

[dsmith]

Put on lift, take the trans panel off, clean it all up with brake cleaner, dry with air, start car and watch for leak.

[tig]

Put on lift, take the trans panel off, clean it all up with brake cleaner, dry with air, start car and watch for leak.

If you look at the prior posts in in this thread, you'll see that I could eat off the bottom of this engine. We know for certain that the oil leak is somewhere w/in the bell-housing. Also, the B35 does not have a "trans panel".

[dsmith]

If you look at the prior posts in in this thread, you'll see that I could eat off the bottom of this engine. We know for certain that the oil leak is somewhere w/in the bell-housing. Also, the B35 does not have a "trans panel".

Wow, I missed that in spades. Only a page of clarification on that before I typed... If it were me, I would do the oil pan gasket first. That orange stuff needs to go and it beats pulling the trans. I bet the rear of the pan is leaking.

[tig]

If you look at the prior posts in in this thread, you'll see that I could eat off the bottom of this engine. We know for certain that the oil leak is somewhere w/in the bell-housing. Also, the B35 does not have a "trans panel".

Wow, I missed that in spades. Only a page of clarification on that before I typed... If it were me, I would do the oil pan gasket first. That orange stuff needs to go and it beats pulling the trans. I bet the rear of the pan is leaking.

Can't pull the oil pan without pulling the trans on a B35.

[demetk]

If you look at the prior posts in in this thread, you'll see that I could eat off the bottom of this engine. We know for certain that the oil leak is somewhere w/in the bell-housing. Also, the B35 does not have a "trans panel".

Wow, I missed that in spades. Only a page of clarification on that before I typed... If it were me, I would do the oil pan gasket first. That orange stuff needs to go and it beats pulling the trans. I bet the rear of the pan is leaking.

Can't pull the oil pan without pulling the trans on a B35.

Maybe my belief system is all messed up but I believe you can.

[tig]

If you look at the prior posts in in this thread, you'll see that I could eat off the bottom of this engine. We know for certain that the oil leak is somewhere w/in the bell-housing. Also, the B35 does not have a "trans panel".

Wow, I missed that in spades. Only a page of clarification on that before I typed... If it were me, I would do the oil pan gasket first. That orange stuff needs to go and it beats pulling the trans. I bet the rear of the pan is leaking.

Can't pull the oil pan without pulling the trans on a B35.

Maybe my belief system is all messed up but I believe you can.

Actually, you can. I was mistaken. However, getting the oil pan off without lifting the engine will be next to impossible. If I'm going to fix this, I will almost certainly have to take the transmission out.

[Coldswede]

Too bad your not closer, You could just borrow my Harbor Freight engine support bar. It works great to change oil pan gaskets. I used it to put a new pan gasket in my '87 353iS. Or maybe you could just buy your own for about $90, last time I checked.

[tig]

I am afraid to admit it, because I was really hoping it was 'just me', but I have another problem.

The clutch actually works just fine. It engages and disengages completely and shifts are easy. However, after driving the 911 the other day, I realized that the two cars used to behave the same and are now opposite: The 911 clutch disengages at the very top, maybe 1". I can just barely press the clutch pedal and shift. On Vlad the clutch doesn't disengage until I'm almost to the floor. It engages when I've lifted maybe 1" off the floor.

I never really thought about how the clutch felt on Vlad before this, but after driving the 911 I realized the way it is now isn't right. So I searched. This thread, among others, taught me some stuff: http://www.mye28.com/viewtopic.php?p=991259

The problem is one of several things:

• I still haven't bled the master completely. I'm pretty sure this isn't it, because it is completely consistent and if there were air in there the travel and feel would change with hard use (right?).
• The pivot pin is worn. Nope. Brand spanking new pivot pin. I know now about the stainless steel one from the 850, and if I would have known that before I would have bought one of those. But that can't be it in this case.
• Clutch pedal bracket. Nope. I installed one of those nifty re-enforcement kits right after i bought Vlad.
• The master is toast. Entirely possible. Now that I've re-read the POs service records I think I though it had been replaced at 164k...but that was the BRAKE MASTER. This means that at best, the clutch master was replaced at 91K. I shoulda-coulda on this one. I'll be replacing the clutch master sometime soon regardless.
• That flywheel. Remember how thin it is? Could this be it?

I don't have time tonight (or probably for a week) to try bleeding again.

What tests can I do to see if the master is failing and the cause?

If it is the flywheel, are there spacers I can put in there to make it offset more?

[ahab]

I still haven't bled the master completely.

Did you mean it to sound like that? You need to bleed the system completely for it to work properly. Regardless of whether or not the air is moving around, it will compress when you press the pedal and you will get insufficient extension of the slave piston. Also, when my slave failed I got the same situation, the clutch would grab upon any pedal travel because the pressure was leaking by the failed seal. It was consistent however and i drove it like that for two plus weeks. A bad master or air in the system will translate to the same problem, insufficient slave cylinder extension, which is the root of the problem. A few thousandths on the flywheel should not even be noticeable.

[tig]

I still haven't bled the master completely.

Did you mean it to sound like that? You need to bleed the system completely for it to work properly. Regardless of whether or not the air is moving around, it will compress when you press the pedal and you will get insufficient extension of the slave piston. Also, when my slave failed I got the same situation, the clutch would grab upon any pedal travel because the pressure was leaking by the failed seal. It was consistent however and i drove it like that for two plus weeks. A bad master or air in the system will translate to the same problem, insufficient slave cylinder extension, which is the root of the problem. A few thousandths on the flywheel should not even be noticeable.

I meant "the problem might be that when I bled the master, I didn't do a good enough job".

I'm not seeing any evidence of brake fluid leaking a the clutch master. My understanding is that if the master were leaking the fluid would be quite obvious.

[tig]

Odd...

In the past few days of driving, I really paid attention to the feel & travel of the clutch. It now seems perfect. For now I'm just going to leave it alone.

Pulled the plugs today to make sure they look ok after about 1200 miles. I didn't know you were supposed to gap new plugs; I assumed they came gapped when new. So the 2nd reason for pulling them was to correctly gap them (I went with what Bentley said: 0.027 in).

I have very little experience judging plugs, but from all the pictures I've seen online (and in Bentley's) they sure look fine to me.


While I had the air cleaner assembly off to access the plugs I noticed that there's a little bit of muck around injectors #1 & #2. The rest are clean.


Is this a normal amount of seepage or should I pull them and re-do the o-rings (they are brand new o-rings)?

Next: Chris Kohler will appreciate this. It will need some modifications to fit, but will make a fun project, and if it works will be awesome.

[unt0uchable]

Next: Chris Kohler will appreciate this. It will need some modifications to fit, but will make a fun project, and if it works will be awesome.

What might that be from? I've never seem an intake setup like that, though I've only owned a couple m30's....

[tig]

Next: Chris Kohler will appreciate this. It will need some modifications to fit, but will make a fun project, and if it works will be awesome.

What might that be from? I've never seem an intake setup like that, though I've only owned a couple m30's....

924 Turbo.

It's what Alpina used on the B7 Turbo.

[tig]

I got my MAF and WAR chip working!

Right before 5erWest I tried with the MAF and standard Miller chip, but something wasn't right and the car ran so rich my eyes were watering. I pulled it off and headed to 5erWest.

This week I got the WAR chip and spent a bunch of time getting a laptop ready. Fucking WAR software still doesn't run on Win7/Win8 so you have to have Windows XP in a virtual machine. Today I finally had it all working smoothly (modulo annoying bugs in the SW).

Step 1 was to test the MAF to try to figure out why it didn't work last time. Brody from Miller told me I should test the voltages, so I did. Everything was fine (12V from the ECU and 1V from the sensor ... 1.5V when idle). I buttoned everything up and went for a drive. It ran fine. With the standard Miller chip it was running lean so I didn't push it hard and decided to give the WAR chip a try.

I started with a WAR tune from the library that seemed close to my engine ("Gen 3 MAF Performance tune for M30B34 using 179 ecu 10.8:1 compression 24lb/hr injectors"). Then I tried "Gen 3 MAF Performance tune for M30B35 10.5:1 Miller cam and Port and Polish".

All of them run basically OK (I found that adjusting the idle to be about 950 made the whole 'spike & dip and sometimes stall' thing go way). However, they all ping (or is that knock? Sounds like knock to me; I don't know enough to know the diff) under load and WOT. AFR wideband shows 10-12 in these cases, which is rich. I don't know enough to know what to adjust to lean it out, but it's perfectly drive-able and will serve as a great baseline for getting it to my tuner guy on the dyno. I'm reading an engine tuning book and may play with it myself during the week, but for now I'm just stoked that it's in and working.

[unt0uchable]

I don't know to much about tuning but 10-12 AFR at WOT seems really lean to me. And your engine doesn't typically knock/ping unless it's running lean if I recall right. I'd say a good AFR during WOT for an n/a motor would be somewhere between 12.5-13.5...I could be way off but hopefully someone can back me up or shut me down! Glad to see it is at least working enough to drive. I'm watching for more replies on this!

[tig]

I don't know to much about tuning but 10-12 AFR at WOT seems really lean to me. And your engine doesn't typically knock/ping unless it's running lean if I recall right. I'd say a good AFR during WOT for an n/a motor would be somewhere between 12.5-13.5...I could be way off but hopefully someone can back me up or shut me down! Glad to see it is at least working enough to drive. I'm watching for more replies on this!

Ideal AFR under load is somewhere near 12:5-12:8. Ideal AFR cruising is 14:7. Higher #s is lean. Lower is rich.

I just played around with a map that had much less advanced timing and it really reduced the knock. The map I WAS using was for a much more aggressive cam. My Paul Burke N21 cam has advertised duration of 282/279. The new map is for a Miller cam, and I'm guessing it's one of their less aggressive cams because the map has much less advanced timing.

[unt0uchable]

Duh. I knew that. Lol. It's been a while since I've discussed any sort of tuning. Thanks for setting me straight!

[joel323]

Regarding your clutch issue, When you use a thin flywheel you need to use a taller throwout bearing like the one used in the e21 323i. Its the taller one on the right. It will contact the pressure plate fingers earlier , disengaging your clutch earlier in the pedal throw

part number: 21511204525

It will work on your car.
It was also used on the 83 533i.

[tig]

Regarding your clutch issue, When you use a thin flywheel you need to use a taller throwout bearing like the one used in the e21 323i. Its the taller one on the right. It will contact the pressure plate fingers earlier , disengaging your clutch earlier in the pedal throw

part number: 21511204525

It will work on your car.
It was also used on the 83 533i.

Thanks Joel. Great info.

As I noted, it's gotten better, but I am going to order one of these for when I drop the tranny.

[VW+bimmer=bliss]

Regarding your clutch issue, When you use a thin flywheel you need to use a taller throwout bearing like the one used in the e21 323i. Its the taller one on the right. It will contact the pressure plate fingers earlier , disengaging your clutch earlier in the pedal throw

part number: 21511204525

It will work on your car.
It was also used on the 83 533i.

The taller bearing (ending in 525) was OE on the 091 G265 transmissions. It made a world of a difference in clutch feel.

[tig]

It's a damn good thing I'm such a positive person and I view pretty much every mistake I make as a lesson.

First, the engine is running fantastically. I've got a tune on the WAR chip that's still not quite right under heavy load, but feels great otherwise. With just a slightly higher RPM (currently set to 850) the idle is incredibly smooth; all the loppy-ness is gone. When cruising there's just the slight drone from the IE exhaust and the purr of a sewing machine to be heard. Gives me goosebumps.

I put the car on the lift this morning to check the status of the oil leak. I noticed a spot of oil on the garage floor too far forward to be from that and I shoved that into the back of my mind: "Oh, that's probably from when I had maytag parked there".

Nope. There's oil coming from the front of the engine.

The weirdest part is the crank pulley is basically FULL OF OIL. There's also some oil up by the bottom of the distributor cover. I need to clean and test some more, but I think there are two problems:

1) Something is leaking up by the timing covers.
2) Somehow the front main seal is leaking into the crank pully?!?!?

The second one is the weirdest to me. Is that even possible?

I obviously made at least two gross mistakes putting it together, maybe three. At this point I'm resigned to pulling the engine out of the car and re-doing all of the seals and gaskets. I thought I was doing the right thing using the gasket stuff I used, but based on prior comments from a few of you (thanks!) I now know I should have used Permatex #3.

It's funny; I'm not even that bummed out about this. I guess there IS a river named De Nile.

[athayer187]

Man, that sucks. Glad it's running great, and the only reason you're pulling it is for leaks.