New to me M3, sparkly oil, looking for impressions

[Pklauser]

The outermost layer is a dry lubricant that can practically rub off on your fingers. It's to add additional lubrication on that initial start-up to prevent wearing out the layers beneath. I think it's a dusting of molybdenum disulfide or something.

The way these are made and transported on conveyors they get little marks like you're seeing and it's normal. I bet even the plastic bag can cause some weird looking marks.

Dents/nick/scratched you can FEEL with your fingernail are NOT acceptable. In all likelihood they will get flattened out immediately into the soft underlayer, but you paid good money for these they shouldn't have gouges.

Based on your pics I only see 1 worth returning. In reality I bet they would all work just fine.

FWIW I purchased all my bearings on their own separate order so that they would be shipped in their own box. I had 2 shipments now from FCP with damaged items because they were banging around loosely in the box. They put some big heavy things in the same box as some delicate things. Kind of a PITA, but they will replace them and ship them quickly too. Good luck.

Appreciate that insight. Yep, these were in a box with front control arms. Went back through and I've got 5 that are suspect, one of which is the worst. The other 4 have nicks more on the outer edge than anything else, but I can still catch a nail on. I'll reach out to FCP and see if they can make this right. One thing that's odd, is that the BMW boxes themselves weren't damaged on the bearings that have these nicks, so I'm not sure if this is an FCP issue or a BMW issue...

Got me thinking about plastigage again, even just from a "make-sure-things-aren't-defective" standpoint.

[Pklauser]

Continuing on and on and on...Got three cylinder's rod bearings replaced this evening. M10 torque sequence is a pain, but I got one of these and it's been a tremendous help: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CP8E61E...roduct_details
I did some testing to verify that its angles were still accurate when the bolt wasn't perpendicular to the ground, and it appears it is, neat!

FCP is sending me some more bearings as well, so should be good there.

Another "is this hecked" question, I'm surprised to see what looks like pretty uneven wear on the outside and upper part of some bearing surfaces. Shouldn't the majority of the wear be at the bottom of the "half-pipe"? Not sure what to make of this

[cobra]

That is a bit odd but I don't know if I'd read into it too much. Does the crank journal look good?

All you gotta do is make sure the new bearings are installed properly and clean the backsides (and insides of the rod and cap) well, and hope for the best!

[sapote]

Another "is this hecked" question, I'm surprised to see what looks like pretty uneven wear on the outside and upper part of some bearing surfaces. Shouldn't the majority of the wear be at the bottom of the "half-pipe"? Not sure what to make of this

The bearings look like new.

[maupineda]

^^^ i was going to say that… those bearings look fresh, not even broken in

[Pklauser]

Time flies. So I got all of the rod bearings replaced, got the frontend back together with new engine mounts, trans mounts, control arms, gaskets, seals, random hundred-dollar-bills etc etc. Also chucked in a used oil cooler that I flushed out with solvent to make sure it didn't have any metal shavings in it, which it did not.

Took her low and slow for 1200 miles per BMW's recommendation, had some road trips to go on anyway so that wasn't hard to do. Car feels great and runs smooth. Just did my post-1200 mile oil change, and unsurprisingly there's still sparkle in the oil. Vast majority of it isn't ferrous. I'm hoping this is just a matter of slow dissipation of metal stuck in the engine from the previously busted chain guide. I've checked out the top and bottom ends, replaced the metal-on-metal chain guide issue, and wasn't able to find any other sources for the sparkle, so I honestly feel like the practical option at this point is to just send it, hope for the best, and keep track of the sparkle when I change the oil going forward. Otherwise I'm replacing parts hoping to fix this issue, an issue which only concerns me because it will lead me to replacing parts.

The only suspect thing from this teardown that I didn't address was the camshaft wear, but again that would be ferrous. I'm going to keep an eye on that as well, and for good measure I'm throwing in a magnetic drain plug. Went with a Dimple one, didn't see much feedback or options for the S54, but I've run other magnetic drain plugs on my old Volvos with good success.

Perhaps I'll be back in a thread shopping for an S54, or perhaps this one will give me many years of reliable service, hard to say at this point, but it's been an enjoyable journey so far! These engines really aren't terrible to work on other than the dang prices for everything.

Here's a picture of the problem child out on the road for the first time in months for good measure:

[R1pilot]

Any updates on this?

I went to do an oil change and it was like a glitterfest in my oil. Bearings have 50k miles on them.

I already started gathering parts.

[Pklauser]

I'm maybe 18K later, a lot of which has been track driving, and things are still chugging along. No new noises or anything of the like.

When changing my oil, if I'm holding a light to it, there's definitely still some glitter in there. Unclear if that's residual, or if there's still something in my motor shedding metal. I want to say there's less than there used to be, but quantifying this is challenging.

You got a picture of the "glitterfest"? I don't know if mine was quite a fest.

[R1pilot]

Here you go, along with my last oil analysis. I just sent a sample out overnight to Blackstone, hopefully will get results next week.

[R1pilot]

What makes me wonder is that lead did not spike like the previous time I had to do the bearings. I wonder if there is another source of copper in the engine.

I will start by pulling the valve cover and look around. I am at 151k miles and have never touched anything vanos related.

[Slideways]

What makes me wonder is that lead did not spike like the previous time I had to do the bearings. I wonder if there is another source of copper in the engine.

I will start by pulling the valve cover and look around. I am at 151k miles and have never touched anything vanos related.

You might want to ask someone with a low mileage engine to shine a bright light at their drained oil filter housing and oil drain pan to compare it to the higher mileage engines. You might see the same glitter in that oil and it could come from normal wear. I'm assuming most owners don't shine a bright light at their oil during every oil change looking for something. They just drain, fill and move on.

Fun fact - Blackstone said that their machine will not measure particles that you can see with your naked eye. Makes it a pretty useless analysis IMO unless someone is looking for coolant or excess fuel in the oil.

[R1pilot]

You might want to ask someone with a low mileage engine to shine a bright light at their drained oil filter housing and oil drain pan to compare it to the higher mileage engines. You might see the same glitter in that oil and it could come from normal wear. I'm assuming most owners don't shine a bright light at their oil during every oil change looking for something. They just drain, fill and move on.

Fun fact - Blackstone said that their machine will not measure particles that you can see with your naked eye. Makes it a pretty useless analysis IMO unless someone is looking for coolant or excess fuel in the oil.

I always look carefully and have never seen glitter like this. Last time I saw one big chunk of copper-like metal, about .04”x.04” (1mmx1mm).

I don’t see a problem as they can measure into ppm, much earlier than when you can see with your naked eye. By then, I will measure myself with a caliper lol.

As soon as I get the new report I will post it up if you guys are interested.

I wonder if its worth removing a couple of the mains. This exercise keeps getting bigger and bigger.

[Slideways]

I always look carefully and have never seen glitter like this. Last time I saw one big chunk of copper-like metal, about .04”x.04” (1mmx1mm).

I don’t see a problem as they can measure into ppm, much earlier than when you can see with your naked eye. By then, I will measure myself with a caliper lol.

As soon as I get the new report I will post it up if you guys are interested.

I wonder if its worth removing a couple of the mains. This exercise keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Before you start pulling mains, you might want to read this thread: https://f80.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1846117

And I would find it interesting if Blackstone reported that your oil analysis looked great even though you went panning for gold.

[R1pilot]

Before you start pulling mains, you might want to read this thread: https://f80.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1846117

And I would find it interesting if Blackstone reported that your oil analysis looked great even though you went panning for gold.

I just saw the first post. Will read the whole thing tonight.

Thanks for the link!

Will definitely post my results as soon as I get them. I probably should start my own thread and stop derailing the OPs thread.

[Pklauser]

You might want to ask someone with a low mileage engine to shine a bright light at their drained oil filter housing and oil drain pan to compare it to the higher mileage engines. You might see the same glitter in that oil and it could come from normal wear. I'm assuming most owners don't shine a bright light at their oil during every oil change looking for something. They just drain, fill and move on.

Fun fact - Blackstone said that their machine will not measure particles that you can see with your naked eye. Makes it a pretty useless analysis IMO unless someone is looking for coolant or excess fuel in the oil.

Yea this is interesting. I've started shining a light at the oil from other cars and on my 300k E30: nothing. But on my buddy's 150k 128i: little bit of glitter. I dunno. I'm with you on the value of Blackstone though, the fact they effectively ignore larger particles really hurts the value of the analysis imo.