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Thread: Valve Cover/Banjo Bolt Spring Project Pics.....

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Posts
    1,171

    Default Valve Cover/Banjo Bolt Spring Project Pics.....

    I posted this on the E-32 board but thought I would share it with my E-34 friends since someone asked about valve cover refinishing not too long ago and banjo bolts are a common subject of discussion. Every spring I check valve clearances to make sure everything looks good and eccentrics are tight etc. This year, I decided to safety wire my banjo bolts and with the cover off, refinish the valve cover and take it to another level by base and clear coating it with high temp paint and changing the paint scheme of the engine bay to a monochrome silver so the overall car is now all silver and black including the engine compartment. I liked the red valve cover but I thought silver looked more purposeful and more in the spirit of a BMW. If interested, I can post the steps for the valve cover refinish. I also refinished the air box with low gloss paint and rubbed it out to recreate the factory finish the same as all the other plastic pieces that I refinished last year when I rebuilt the engine top end. There was a bit of discussion a while ago on safety wiring the banjo bolts and decided it was time because as reported by many others, they do tend to come loose...even with loctite. Have a look at the pics. Saftey wiring is a bit more of a science than I first thought in terms of procedure...direction of the twisting both before and after the oil bar, no. and density of twists...level of tautness, not clamping on the twisted section of wire itself, etc etc. Would like to express thanks to Bill R for his comment about torquing the banjo bolts...I elected to hand torque them this time with a 1/4" drive rachet to keep the aluminum washers from squirting out from under the bolt head. I encourage everyone to change the aluminum washers...4 total if re-torquing their loosened banjo bolts because they clearly do deform...meant to do so by design for retention and sealing with the oil bar. Also, if retorquing of course...loctite loses its bonding capability...so either recoat with liquid loctite 242 or purchase fresh bolts with encapsulated loctite. I learned a lot about safety wiring and want to extend a big thank you to a good friend of this board and mine Don Gale for all his wisdom... thanks a lot brother for helping me out. If you haven't already done so, stop by Don's wonderful website which is a wealth of information relative to these cars. Also, Don has a 4.27 LSD diff for sale in excellent condition if anybody is looking to improve acceleration in their automatic trans M-30 E-34. The 4.27 LSD diff was std. in model year 1991 on these cars.
    Hope you like the pics.
    George
    90 735iL/149k










  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Posts
    4,150

    Default IMHO the silver looks much better than the red did George, what

    brand was the silver and clearcoat that you used .... Looks really sharp...
    You'll have to get some safety wire pliers though.


    Available here for 8.99

    Its almost mandatory if you live here to know how to safety wire...Lol, home of AMARC, MASDC, Bombadier, formerly Learjet, Raytheon formerly hughes more aircraft here than cars almost...


    Quote Originally Posted by George M
    I posted this on the E-32 board but thought I would share it with my E-34 friends since someone asked about valve cover refinishing not too long ago and banjo bolts are a common subject of discussion. Every spring I check valve clearances to make sure everything looks good and eccentrics are tight etc. This year, I decided to safety wire my banjo bolts and with the cover off, refinish the valve cover and take it to another level by base and clear coating it with high temp paint and changing the paint scheme of the engine bay to a monochrome silver so the overall car is now all silver and black including the engine compartment. I liked the red valve cover but I thought silver looked more purposeful and more in the spirit of a BMW. If interested, I can post the steps for the valve cover refinish. I also refinished the air box with low gloss paint and rubbed it out to recreate the factory finish the same as all the other plastic pieces that I refinished last year when I rebuilt the engine top end. There was a bit of discussion a while ago on safety wiring the banjo bolts and decided it was time because as reported by many others, they do tend to come loose...even with loctite. Have a look at the pics. Saftey wiring is a bit more of a science than I first thought in terms of procedure...direction of the twisting both before and after the oil bar, no. and density of twists...level of tautness, not clamping on the twisted section of wire itself, etc etc. Would like to express thanks to Bill R for his comment about torquing the banjo bolts...I elected to hand torque them this time with a 1/4" drive rachet to keep the aluminum washers from squirting out from under the bolt head. I encourage everyone to change the aluminum washers...4 total if re-torquing their loosened banjo bolts because they clearly do deform...meant to do so by design for retention and sealing with the oil bar. Also, if retorquing of course...loctite loses its bonding capability...so either recoat with liquid loctite 242 or purchase fresh bolts with encapsulated loctite. I learned a lot about safety wiring and want to extend a big thank you to a good friend of this board and mine Don Gale for all his wisdom... thanks a lot brother for helping me out. If you haven't already done so, stop by Don's wonderful website which is a wealth of information relative to these cars. Also, Don has a 4.27 LSD diff for sale in excellent condition if anybody is looking to improve acceleration in their automatic trans M-30 E-34. The 4.27 LSD diff was std. in model year 1991 on these cars.
    Hope you like the pics.
    George
    90 735iL/149k










  3. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Posts
    868

    Default Damn! That VC looks great George!

    Everything looks great as usual!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    No. California
    Posts
    119

    Default I like it !!!!

    Looks great George, I like the silver, almost looks light sandblasted raw aluminum w/Polished accents.
    Great job

    Kurt
    95 525ia

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    NYC
    Posts
    479

    Default Great Job George, silver is the way to go

    Quote Originally Posted by George M
    I posted this on the E-32 board but thought I would share it with my E-34 friends since someone asked about valve cover refinishing not too long ago and banjo bolts are a common subject of discussion. Every spring I check valve clearances to make sure everything looks good and eccentrics are tight etc. This year, I decided to safety wire my banjo bolts and with the cover off, refinish the valve cover and take it to another level by base and clear coating it with high temp paint and changing the paint scheme of the engine bay to a monochrome silver so the overall car is now all silver and black including the engine compartment. I liked the red valve cover but I thought silver looked more purposeful and more in the spirit of a BMW. If interested, I can post the steps for the valve cover refinish. I also refinished the air box with low gloss paint and rubbed it out to recreate the factory finish the same as all the other plastic pieces that I refinished last year when I rebuilt the engine top end. There was a bit of discussion a while ago on safety wiring the banjo bolts and decided it was time because as reported by many others, they do tend to come loose...even with loctite. Have a look at the pics. Saftey wiring is a bit more of a science than I first thought in terms of procedure...direction of the twisting both before and after the oil bar, no. and density of twists...level of tautness, not clamping on the twisted section of wire itself, etc etc. Would like to express thanks to Bill R for his comment about torquing the banjo bolts...I elected to hand torque them this time with a 1/4" drive rachet to keep the aluminum washers from squirting out from under the bolt head. I encourage everyone to change the aluminum washers...4 total if re-torquing their loosened banjo bolts because they clearly do deform...meant to do so by design for retention and sealing with the oil bar. Also, if retorquing of course...loctite loses its bonding capability...so either recoat with liquid loctite 242 or purchase fresh bolts with encapsulated loctite. I learned a lot about safety wiring and want to extend a big thank you to a good friend of this board and mine Don Gale for all his wisdom... thanks a lot brother for helping me out. If you haven't already done so, stop by Don's wonderful website which is a wealth of information relative to these cars. Also, Don has a 4.27 LSD diff for sale in excellent condition if anybody is looking to improve acceleration in their automatic trans M-30 E-34. The 4.27 LSD diff was std. in model year 1991 on these cars.
    Hope you like the pics.
    George
    90 735iL/149k










  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Posts
    835

    Default

    Agreed, looks great. What paint is that?

    Kinda wish somebody would try a bronzit valve cover so I don't end up trying it on my non-spare valve cover.
    erased due to slander

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Posts
    1,171

    Default Many Thanks everyone for all your comments...

    appreciate the validation. Bill...thanks for the link...yes safety wire pliers would be better no question. If I built more engines, I would have a pair in my tool box. Really believe the way to go for the banjo bolts. And Martin, if you can find bronzit in a high temp paint, I say go for it. The growing trend in hotrod building as many know on the board is a matching engine/ accessory color with the outside body paint work. The great car builder Chip Foose says it well..you have two cars from an aesthetic standpoint...the engine and the body. If you notice, many of his impeccable hotrods have the engine bay tied into the body work. That said, If you want a real nice finish on your engine or car body for that matter, be prepared to polish out the paint...particularly if shooting from a can, even in ideal conditions...60-70 deg. F and 50% humidity to make the paint flow without graininess. Here is the paint I used and some general steps:

    BMW Engine Paint:

    -Intake Manifold: Duplicolor Cast Coat Aluminum DE1650
    500 deg ceramic

    -Exhaust Manifold: Plasti-kote Cast Iron Grey HP-17
    900 F – oven bake after application

    -Valve Cover: Duplicolor Aluminum DE1615
    500 deg ceramic
    Duplicolor Clear DE1636
    500 deg ceramic

    -Plastic Trim: Duplicolor Low Gloss Black DE1634
    500 deg ceramic

    Valve Cover Refinishing Method:

    1. Paint Stripper/Simple Green/Garden Hose/3M Abrasive Pads/Dawn
    dishwashing detergent.
    2. Alcohol – Denatured
    3. Spray Base coat…~1/2 can, let dry ~5 days
    4. Brush out BMW logo/bars…begin with 220 grit first, finish with 400
    grit to achieve just the right brushed texture.
    5. Spray Top Clear Coat also ~ 1/2can…let dry 4-5 days, then rub out. Spray generally comes out less than perfect. If you want a factory finish, be prepared to rub with progressively finer cutting media to remove
    orange peel and level the paint. Start with 1000 grit wet paper or a good cutting paste rubbing compound by hand, with damp cloth. Second: Fine Cut compound. Finish with Meguair’s no. 2 polish, SMR GEPC or equivalent to achieve a nice factory look high gloss. Shooting clear coat over the aluminum paint color really gives it some depth and warmth. You can shoot the clear right over the base coat right away but I wanted to brush the letters out and then shoot the clear over the whole thing to seal the brushed aluminum from oxidation. If you wait more than an hour, you should let the base coat cure for about 5 days.

    Note: Also rubbed out air-box cover which came out of the can a bit flatter than low gloss and a rougher texture than what I wanted. Rubbing it out smoothed out the paint texture and slightly increased gloss to make it look how I wanted.
    HTH's,
    George

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Posts
    868

    Default So what I gather from this..

    Quote Originally Posted by George M
    Rubbing it out smoothed out the... texture and slightly increased gloss to make it.....how I wanted.
    I have found similar results from similar actions George.

    Seriously, thanks for the extra tips.....I will probably spend (waste in some opinions) time doing similar things when I start taking mine apart. Good reference materials here.

    Scott

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    Eastern Tennessee USi
    Posts
    14,839

    Default

    George, do you ever drive this thing? Havent seen your engine bay for a while, figured it would be dirty or something by now. Damn thats nice!!!
    95 E34 530I V2.37
    ===========
    Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

    John F. Kennedy

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Posts
    1,171

    Default

    Hope it helps some that want to make the dive :-)..not for everyone as you say....only for the hopelessly possessed. As you know Scott...steps for refinishing are fairly standard...slight differences depending on paint used, type of surface etc. But will help those take some of the guesswork out that haven't been there before.
    I got one whale of an education from professional motorcycle painter John Borella who used to frequent this board....believe John still has his 535i 5 spd. He taught me a lot. Also learned a lot from refinishing my wheels...Jr gave me many great tips also.
    George

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