Well, M5 lasted a week. Time to hit the wrenches. Need help guys RE Harmonic balancer

[BigD]

I guess I was having too much fun for it to last. I'll ask my question first and then give those who care the details. I need to retighten the harmonic balancer on the S38B36. Is this something I should even think of doing myself? I was told there is a retaining pin in there of some sort, and it requires some serious torque to tighten it down. I'm not sure I can find a torque wrench for the figure I was told (I think over 300 ft lbs). Also, I'm not sure how to position it correctly with regards to the crank position sensor. Any suggestions?

Now the story. Drove my mom around town shopping for the first half of the day on Sunday. She gets freaked out by any sudden acceleration (in any direction) so it was 4 hours of driving hell. Then finally I got some "me" time when me and my dad went to the gym. We get on the highway, and I open it up. Had some fun, then there is some traffic up ahead before our offramp (LONG, isolated stretch of road, easily maintain 200+ for several seconds there), so I can't wait to get there. Creeping along behind a truck, finally offramp appears. So, off into third, blip the throttle, drop the clutch and awaaaaaay we go. 5000,5500,6000,6500 and it felt like I hit a rev limiter (the engine just went vroom vrooom vrooom) - only problem was, I was 500 revs short of redline. I popped it out of gear, turned it off and coasted to a stop. We looked around and couldn't see anything wrong. Other than the weird behavior, there were no noises (like that associated with hitting a valve or what not). The engine wasn't overheated, there was no fluid loss, no smoke, no weird smells. Alright, try to start it carefully. It starts, and farts around at like 350 rpm (vs 900-950 normal), running on a few cylinders popping unburnt fuel in the pipe. My heart was in my throat, WTF!!!

Nothing seemed wrong, but it just wouldn't run. Spark was there, fuel was there (could hear and smell it in the exhaust), air was good. Head hunter pulls over, I can give you a tow for $250/km. I told him where to stick his tow. Plus I was still hoping I was going to find some stupid problem and we would keep going. Then this guy pulls over (around 20) in a previous model C Merc. Says he loves the car, was looking at getting one himself, and wanted to know if he could help. The sun was setting and I was running out of time. So he drove my dad home where he picked up the van.

At this point something else weird was happening. While it ran like crap, it would at least run and I could start it. A few minutes later, it got to the point where I couldn't even start it. So I put my blinkers on and sat there - except the blinkers lasted for a few minutes when it didn't even have enough power to click the damn relay. I thought hmm, maybe this thing is so sensitive to voltage, it would crap out on a dead alternator... I was hoping my dad would bring jumper cables to experiment. He didn't. He did bring a big ass extension cord to tow me with (this is how we do things in Soviet Rossia - unfortunately there was no possible application for a sledge hammer). I was surprised none of the three cops we passed gave us a ticket for improper towing (I don't know if there is such a thing, but I remember in Russia there are very specific rules which you must know for the drivers exam - like minimum cable distance, having a flag on every 1m of the cable etc). One of them didn't even see my blinkers cause I could only run them for 20-30 sec before the battery would die again. When the sun set it pissed off a few people something awful - at least none of them hit my baby. I gotta give props to the cord too. I tried to keep a constant speed, but with no power brakes it was tough sometimes, so when my dad would accelerate again I would get a good jerk. The cord only snapped 500m from the house, at which point we retied it and made it all the way.

I had a chat about it with a few guys here last night, and decided to check a few things. We hooked up my dad's van, made no difference. There was an odd squeaking noise coming from the front of the engine. Sounded almost like a belt slipping, or a blown up distributor rotor mucking around in the cap, or a seized alternator. Alternator seemed to be spinning fine with the belt. I pulled the cap, everything seemed alright there, rotor was on tight. I was really at a loss.

Today I called a friend over who just on Saturday helped me do a huge chunk of maintenance (including engine fluids and valve adjustment). While he was on his way, I noticed something that nearly made me pass out. I went to start the car in the morning, and it wouldn't. But I noticed the fan was barely spinning. I didn't think much of it since the engine's cold, but when I went to spin it, it was fairly tight - tight enough to spin completely with the starting engine. Ok, what is this!!! I went to check the belt, all nice and tight. Maybe the alternator is completely seized. I went to see if I could move things just enough to tell if the alternator is moving and....I COULD MOVE THE WHOLE FRIGGIN ASSEMBLY LIKE IT WASN'T EVEN ATTACHED! With one finger of pressure on the alternator fan, I could move the entire accessory belt system, including the harmonic balancer/crank pulley. And by turning, I mean doing 360 turns all day long. I started lying to myself that there is probably a clutch in there or something, so it doesn't engage while the engine is starting. Went to try the same on my rustbucket E28 535 - no dice. oh ****! Is the head blown? Did I somehow manage to break the damn crankshaft? I started imagining paying a 4 year loan for an M5 with no engine. I called my friend and he said it's not good, I must have overrevved the engine and now have no compression (he didn't realize the extent of what I meant by being able to turn things easily). I was sitting there reliving the moment, thinking no way in hell. I know all the gear ratios by feel by heart, at that speed third was perfectly fine, and it's not like I popped the clutch, the revs went up and then it died. I was accelerating from like 5 grand for like 4-5 seconds, and I remembered watching the rpms which never got close to redline. But...what if he's right...oh no.

My dad said it's impossible because the engine sounds perfectly fine when it's cranked (definitely feel compression all around). I thought there was one surefire way to test that. I put it in gear, and went to spin the pulleys again. WOOHOO, same thing, spins just as easily. Alright, short of a broken crankshaft, this sounds good. When my friend came down, he confirmed it. First he saw just how easily it spins, and said even sans compression, it shouldn't be nearly that easy. Then he put it in gear and tried rolling the car, wouldn't budge. At first he was stumped, but then said he thinks he knows what it is. It didn't hit him right away since his main M5 is a 3.8, which has individual bolts holding the pulley (ie the pulley is either on, or off). But the 3.6 has the one big nut. He put his hand on the nut, and said spin the thing again. Said the crank isn't moving.

His guess is whoever did it last, didn't tighten the nut to the spec torque, which made it work loose and in turn drop or shear or whatever the retaining pin.

So while it still sucks that I can't drive my beast for a while, I'm sure glad I still have a good car/engine, and that it didn't happen at or on my way to university (in which case I would have had to get a tow).

[MarkD]

Well you've had it less than a week before this happens - did they give you any 30 day warranty since you bought it at a dealer? If I was you, I'd call them.

Mark

[BigD]

The ad said 1 year warranty. He never mentioned it and I didn't really care (had one of those with the 535, when the rad blew I figured I'd use it, but it turned out rad wasn't covered and coverage was small). It's probably for only a few hundred bucks, but that should be enough for this. The biggest problem is towing. I don't have CAA and I don't want to pay anything stupid for a tow to a garage if I find the right guy...

But yeah, I'll definitely ask him for how much he can help.

Dmitry

Well you've had it less than a week before this happens - did they give you any 30 day warranty since you bought it at a dealer? If I was you, I'd call them.

Mark

[BigD]

I'm still hoping I can do it myself. I'm strong enough for whatever torque the thing will require but I don't know how to set the thing so the teeth are in the right position for the crank position sensor.

Well you've had it less than a week before this happens - did they give you any 30 day warranty since you bought it at a dealer? If I was you, I'd call them.

Mark

[MarkD]

The ad said 1 year warranty. He never mentioned it and I didn't really care (had one of those with the 535, when the rad blew I figured I'd use it, but it turned out rad wasn't covered and coverage was small). It's probably for only a few hundred bucks, but that should be enough for this. The biggest problem is towing. I don't have CAA and I don't want to pay anything stupid for a tow to a garage if I find the right guy...

But yeah, I'll definitely ask him for how much he can help.

Dmitry

Why do you want to work on a car you have had for a week? Tell the dealer you want him to pay for a tow and the repair at a BMW garage.

Mark

[BigD]

Well, I've asked him politely (via email) to see if he can help but I'm pretty sure I know what he'll say. Even if I bought a used car from a manufacturer, they'd probably tell me to pay for it myself if that happened, unless they had an explicit warranty. In the end, it's a 12 year old car you're asking them to guarantee. Some have warranties but they are written very carefully so they can weasel out of expensive stuff if they have to.

Why do you want to work on a car you have had for a week? Tell the dealer you want him to pay for a tow and the repair at a BMW garage.

Mark

[Unregistered]

Dmitry,

We know you are a strong man, but these torque values for this bolt are extreme. On the M5 the bolt must be torqued to 578 ft. lbs....It is done in 4 steps starting with an inital torque of 43 ft lbs. then 3 more of 60 degrees torque angle. You will need some type of degree wheel to be able to achieve the correct angle that will attach to the bottom of the harmonic balancer. And that's the good news....

I can't imagine the bolt backed out, unless like you said it wasn't installed properly like outlined above. I hope I am dead wrong on this, but if you spun the woodruff key that holds the timing chain sprockets onto the crank, then you have bent your valves too. It's guaranteed. I hope to shout that you haven't sheered this key!

You will have to find TDC and align the marks on the harmonic balancer before you tighten the bolt, the balancer should only go on one way, as a pully also bolts through using smaller bolts which are only possible to install one way.

In any case, pull the valve cover and make sure when you bump the engine over the cam marks are lined up with the TDC marks at the front end of the cams. This way you will know if the key spun on the crank or not. Let's hope not...

Let us know if you need additional information...

Jr

[BigD]

Jr,

I don't think it's anything that extreme. The engine sounds fine when you crank it, and when I freewheel the balancer, the bolt wasn't moving (ie the crank). I put the car in gear, and tried spinning the balancer, and it was spinning as easily as before, while the car wouldn't roll (plus when you crank it or when it's running, you can hear the compression). I'm 99.9% (ok, 98% + 1.9% denial) sure the engine is fine. It just sounds like the timing is completely out of whack. So yeah, the bolt is definitely loose.

That does sound like a pretty convoluted procedure (which I'm sure not many mechanics are aware of). Are you sure it's a bolt, my friend was saying it's a nut, and there is some sort of retaining pin or something. Also, what do you mean there's only one way it goes on? Is there a gear that it goes on to? How can it be freewheeling like this? (even if the gear or whatever is stripped, I should feel some resistance) I will probably look to get someone else to do this for me. Hopefully not far. There is an M guru about an hour away from me, if all else fails I'll go to him - man's rebuilt more S38 engines than we've seen pictures of. Apparently he has 3 M1's and an M1 Supercar series racecar (or whatever that challenge race was they had before F1 races with the M1).

Thanks!
Dmitry
PS: I can do a bent over row with 500 lbs, don't need much of a lever :-)

Dmitry,

We know you are a strong man, but these torque values for this bolt are extreme. On the M5 the bolt must be torqued to 578 ft. lbs....It is done in 4 steps starting with an inital torque of 43 ft lbs. then 3 more of 60 degrees torque angle. You will need some type of degree wheel to be able to achieve the correct angle that will attach to the bottom of the harmonic balancer. And that's the good news....

I can't imagine the bolt backed out, unless like you said it wasn't installed properly like outlined above. I hope I am dead wrong on this, but if you spun the woodruff key that holds the timing chain sprockets onto the crank, then you have bent your valves too. It's guaranteed. I hope to shout that you haven't sheered this key!

You will have to find TDC and align the marks on the harmonic balancer before you tighten the bolt, the balancer should only go on one way, as a pully also bolts through using smaller bolts which are only possible to install one way.

In any case, pull the valve cover and make sure when you bump the engine over the cam marks are lined up with the TDC marks at the front end of the cams. This way you will know if the key spun on the crank or not. Let's hope not...

Let us know if you need additional information...

Jr

[MarkD]

Dmitry,

you are letting that dealer off far too easily. Have you even driven 1000 km's on the car yet? This problem is not what you expect in the first week, or even the first year!

The dealer probably bought that car for $10 to $12 K and then painted it so he has a lot of profit in there... get him to pay the whole bill.

But now I'm thinking you don't have a warranty or you would not be asking here.

And Markus Glarner is over an hour away. What will it cost to tow the car there? Even Autotrend can do the job. They work on lots of M-cars. When I had mine checked out there he had another 1993 M5 on the hoist beside mine.

Mark

[BigD]

Mark,

Yeah, I've put almost a click on it already. Did a lot of driving last week and this weekend. This problem can happen any time, again - not a new car.

By the way, about the profit, Will knows this guy and he met him at an auction after we closed the deal. He was griping about it because he sold the M5 for less than what he paid for it and was hoping to make money on mine. Will believes him and so do I. The prices on E34 M5's dropped drammatically once the new 5 came out (being 2 gen's old and all). I saw this car on Trader a year ago for 26k, which is when he must have bought it.

Well, I don't know if I have a warranty, but even if I did I'd still be asking. No used car dealer warrants their cars 100% (ie anything happens bring it back I'll fix it), except maybe for some manufacturers (ie GM selling used GM cars), or at least I've never seen anyone offering that. I heard back from the guy and he says he can give me the warranty (engine/trans only). Waiting to hear the details. I'm still sure it's limited to 3 figure repairs, but hopefully that'll be enough. I'll probably have to pay for the tow though (if I go through any dickhead it'll probably be more than the repair :-( ).

Mapquest says Markus is 120 km away from me, a little over an hour. I meant I'd go to him if it was something more serious. My friend who works at Chuck's has a Euro spec M3, and if he knows this engine well, I'll let him do it. He takes cash.

Dmitry

Dmitry,

you are letting that dealer off far too easily. Have you even driven 1000 km's on the car yet? This problem is not what you expect in the first week, or even the first year!

The dealer probably bought that car for $10 to $12 K and then painted it so he has a lot of profit in there... get him to pay the whole bill.

But now I'm thinking you don't have a warranty or you would not be asking here.

And Markus Glarner is over an hour away. What will it cost to tow the car there? Even Autotrend can do the job. They work on lots of M-cars. When I had mine checked out there he had another 1993 M5 on the hoist beside mine.

Mark