Oh Nooooooo... Please! Not the Crusher?

[BillionPa]

O_O

hold on to that till i consult with an associate.

im in the twin cities, and if he wants it we wil probably drive there to tow it.

[pawswish]

Works for me. It's a two owner local car. Previous owner put 240,000 miles driving to Rockford every day, and then it sat in his garage for over a year due to his health problems. It has some scratches and dents (more from his wife storing boxes on it and banging her damn SUV door into it, than anything else). I drive 80 miles round trip each day and it has been a great car. Too young to die.

Let me know. Am anxious to see it go to someone who will not route it directly to the crusher. Thanks for responding!

[genphreak]

Works for me. It's a two owner local car. Previous owner put 240,000 miles driving to Rockford every day, and then it sat in his garage for over a year due to his health problems. It has some scratches and dents (more from his wife storing boxes on it and banging her damn SUV door into it, than anything else). I drive 80 miles round trip each day and it has been a great car. Too young to die.

Let me know. Am anxious to see it go to someone who will not route it directly to the crusher. Thanks for responding!

If you need it, here's a neat list of all the **** you need to do a late M30B35 head- this is to replace every moving part, but a lot of it you don't need- my cam was worn so I just chose to do this. Not doing the rocker shafts & rockers makes it a lot cheaper... Nick

[pawswish]

Thanks Nick. If it's a blown head gasket that's pretty straightforward, however if it's a warped head, then I believe I'm correct in saying that the whole thing (head) has to be disassembled for heat treatment work. I'm also assuming that if it is a cracked head, disassembly is also necessary?

[winfred]

cracks are very rare on a m30, warped is usually easily fixed by machining the head flat again, i can't remember if you can leave the valves in during the cutting, you definatly need to pull the cam and rockers, if the valves are recessed far enough into the combustion chambers that they are enough above the deck surface they can stay in, but with the kind of miles you have id pull them and change the seals, if it's had good oil mantaince the guides are probably fine

Thanks Nick. If it's a blown head gasket that's pretty straightforward, however if it's a warped head, then I believe I'm correct in saying that the whole thing (head) has to be disassembled for heat treatment work. I'm also assuming that if it is a cracked head, disassembly is also necessary?

[pawswish]

cracks are very rare on a m30, warped is usually easily fixed by machining the head flat again, i can't remember if you can leave the valves in during the cutting, you definatly need to pull the cam and rockers, if the valves are recessed far enough into the combustion chambers that they are enough above the deck surface they can stay in, but with the kind of miles you have id pull them and change the seals, if it's had good oil mantaince the guides are probably fine

Ok... Here's the latest. She's been sitting dejected in the corner of the driveway for a whole week... not started... not run. It's cold here... snow Friday and yesterday. I checked the oil... not milky; checked the coolant level... ok; pulled the bleeder screw... coolant came out, no air. She started right up as always and I let her idle for 45 minutes with the system de-pressurized, keeping an eye on the temp guage (which stayed one needle width to the left of center, as always. Coolant bottle did not overflow, pisser worked just fine. Then I took her on a 10 mile drive around town and 65 MPH for a while, again with teh system depressurized. No white smoke; temp guage stayed right where it should. I was gentle and did not use high RPMs... 3,500 at most. Heater worked fine (on bypass setting since the regular setting is not reliable.

Got home and shut her down. A minimal amount of coolant had surged over the neck of the bottle, but no biggie. Consistent with prior observation and something which I think is extraordinary is that upon loosening the bleeder screw (remembner that the system is depressurized), bubbles accompanied by a minor boiling sound came out of the gaps between the threads of the bleeder screw and the housing that it screws into... not a lot, but a couple of tries after that, minutes apart, brought the same result. Clearly there's a hotspot in there somewhere.

The other thing I forgot to mention before... DUH! .... is that the time before when I drove it, I left it on a slope in the driveway in first gear, with the barely working handbrake on. Prior to all these problems I didn't need the handbrake when I left it parked on a hill and could leave it in gear. However, when I came back later, it had rolled downhill, coming to rest with the drivers' side tire resting on a tree in the yard... missing the fender by fractions of an inch!! Talk about luck!!! That tells me that there is a compression problem arising out of this whole overheating issue.

She continues to run like the stately lady she is, no missing or other dramatics, but it's time to move on. I'm going to collect her replacement, a 540i this afternoon, but still hope that some kind soul out there will save her from the crusher.

You guys are dynamite!!! Why didn't I do this chat room thing before!!!!

[Ross]

PM & e-mail sent

[winfred]

if it ran without puking or overheating or making **** loads of pressure it's fine, probably needed to burp. it's not too hard to misdiagnose a head gasket, i've fixed a ton of cars that the dealer and a couple high end shops in town said the gasket/head was toast for a couple hundred verses a couple grand, just a couple months ago a customer/friend of the shop that lives in dallas tx (we are in baton rouge la) thought he toasted his head gasket while in miami fl (auction driver, he travels a bit) he hopped a plane to here and had the car shipped to the shop, a set of plugs a thermostat a cooling flush and he was good to go

[pawswish]

if it ran without puking or overheating or making **** loads of pressure it's fine, probably needed to burp. it's not too hard to misdiagnose a head gasket, i've fixed a ton of cars that the dealer and a couple high end shops in town said the gasket/head was toast for a couple hundred verses a couple grand, just a couple months ago a customer/friend of the shop that lives in dallas tx (we are in baton rouge la) thought he toasted his head gasket while in miami fl (auction driver, he travels a bit) he hopped a plane to here and had the car shipped to the shop, a set of plugs a thermostat a cooling flush and he was good to go

No Puking... no overheating, but remember I ran it without the coolant reservoir cap on. Last time I did that it seemed to build a tremendous amount of pressure as the hoses swelled like . Ross suggested I have someone test it with a pressure tester, so if I can find someone here in town who works for an auto shop, and wants to make a couple bucks on the side... Also someone else suggested a chemical test of some kind to identify carbon monoxide in the coolant. Probably won't be able to get to it until next weekend anyway.

[pawswish]

I see you're a 530iA pilot. A friend has a '95 530iA.. beautiful condition... that he is very disenchanted with because it puked the tranny shortly after he bought it. He replaced that and it may be for sale. Anyone you know interested?