Leaking coolant on '95 530

[Paul in NZ]

I dunno I was thinking of replacing the water pump and t-stat alone. The o-rings on the front side of the engine as well I suppose. Whats the point of that pan? I don't see how it does anything. I am not very well versed on BMW V8s. Why would it be wet, and what does it do?

they are the valve covers arent they?

[Barney Paull-Edwards]

You're going to find two o-rings behind the water pump. Are you going to stop there?

Pulling the intake is not hard.

You don't need to touch the valley pan if it is dry. If you do, you can not simply replace the pan gasket. BMW no longer sells it. You need to buy a new pan. It has the gasket baked on.

Thats good ol` Sikaflex, $4 a tube with nozzle.

[Ross]

You stand a chance of disturbing the rear o-rings while doing the pump. they can be done w/o removing the intake.

[yaofeng]

Thats good ol` Sikaflex, $4 a tube with nozzle.

It came to my mind. Then I decided I wasn't going to dive in again for another 60k miles, perhaps more. Knowing how many times I screwed up DIY in the past even with kind replacement, the decision was easy.

[Ferret]

My question was - is there coolant under that cover? I dont understand what it is - I dont do V8s traditionally.

Yeah the V8 has a bath/galley that runs down the centre top of the block to cool the top edges of the pistons... quite common for the later M62s to spring leaks here past the 100k miles mark.

[Jon K]

Thanks Ferret - jeez thats a strange thing - leave it to bmw!

Her had an alusil block put in, so I suspect all the seals and such are newer than the chassis, which has probably 140k or so. So the motor is probably at 40 - 50k miles which is water pump territory. I am replacing that stuff first and if I have to I'll go back in for the valley pan. All in all, this stuff isn't nearly as daunting as what I've done to my car - it should go well.