Vanos now or later?

[Mainman857]

2006 M3 129k SMG

Car is going in for rod bearings, valve adjustment, and few drive line seals.
The vanos is unknown if ever done.
The guy brought up doing the bolts and seal kit. (Cost of $900) including parts He then brought up doing the exhaust hub(Beisan). As of now I have zero vanos issues. Waiting on the quote for the hub work.
Is doing bolts and seals worth it without the hub, shuld I do all the work, or shuld I do zero vanos work and wait till it starts being a problem?
Car is stock with just a exhaust. Car wont see a track and about 7k miles this year.
Havent looked into doing vanos myself but honestly looks over my head.
Thanks from Maine

[ATB88]

With that mileage and unknown history the answer is definitely now, it's just as essential and important as your valve adjustment (and arguably rod bearings).

If you do only one thing for your VANOS it should not be seals, bolts, or hub, but rather replacing the oil pump disk with the one from Beisan Systems seen on this page http://www.beisansystems.com/products.html

If your hub is not broken and has no cracks, then the oil pump disk will prevent any future hub failure. Period. This is the most important VANOS fix, as it is vital to the reliability of your engine.

But the VANOS has to come off to do that, and at that point, especially with your mileage, you should replace all of the seals and the solenoid coil pack. Your car's performance will very likely benefit from those if they've never been done.

If you want to go the whole nine yards, also do cam bolts, hub bolts, and the timing chain guide. But these will require re-timing your engine, which will probably add some labor cost.

Replacing your exhaust hub is 100% unnecessary and is a needless cost unless your current hub is already damaged. Don't let your mechanic convince you otherwise -- a local M specialty shop always absolutely insisted to me that I would be stupid not to have a $600 treated hub installed while doing the rest of the VANOS. But that's because they didn't really understand the source of the issue, nor were they familiar with Beisan's products (they said they prefer going the Dr VANOS route because it's way easier for them, but they still had a very high labor charge for doing it). This is unfortunately true of many shops out there that work on S54s. Bottom line is there has never been any record of a stock VANOS hub failing if a Beisan oil pump disc is installed before it gets damaged.

[Mainman857]

Ok so what ur saying is if everything is working and not broken now I can swap the oil disk out and shuld be all set. But shuld do solenoids and chain guide.

Would that still need new bolts or new seals?

I want it correct but also dont wanna buy unnecessary parts.

[terra]

You really should do the cam bolts too. But getting in there does increase the labor a lot.

[Mainman857]

Right now there quoting me
553 for cam bolts and labor
350 for seals and labor.

He then brought up doing the exhaust hub but hasent gotten me a price yet.

I know zero about getting into the vanos area. if your doing bolts to me it sounds easy to swap the oil disk out at the same time.

[Bostonbruck]

You might as well do a full beisan Vanos rebuild, but that could get pricey if you don’t DIY. If you plan on keeping the car for awhile then it worth it.

[ATB88]

Ok so what ur saying is if everything is working and not broken now I can swap the oil disk out and shuld be all set. But shuld do solenoids and chain guide.

Would that still need new bolts or new seals?

I want it correct but also dont wanna buy unnecessary parts.

It really depends on that you mean by "all set". If you just swap out the oil pump disk, you will be protected from the single biggest catastrophic failure mode that the VANOS has. You will still be vulnerable to the second biggest, the cam bolts, which requires more labor due to engine timing, as terra mentioned above.

But it's actually not so straightforward for you or your mechanic to fully assess if "everything is working and not broken now" for the other bits like seals and solenoids. In addition to exhibiting "hard" failures that would make it obvious that there's something wrong (very noticeable lack of power and/or VANOS related fault codes), they also exhibit "soft" failure where things won't be performing as well as they should, but things aren't going wrong enough for the engine to notive and throw a fault code. The car will still be performing "well enough" for you not to think there's something wrong, but it could be doing better if everything was fresh. I'd be surprised if a 15 year old 129k VANOS didn't see some improvement in response time in the VANOS test and feel better to drive after a full refresh.

So, even if your VANOS seems fine, I would still strongly recommend you get seals done, replace your solenoid pack, and also have your solenoid valve body thoroughly cleaned. This will likely improve your VANOS function, and even if it doesn't, it's just a matter of time before you'd really be forced to do these things anyway. Then you have to pay someone to dive back in there all over again. If you're doing the pump disc anyway, it really shouldn't be much more labor to do these things.

Timing chain guide is known to wear and break by your mileage. If yours is still hanging on, then it'll probably be gone soon. From my understanding, this won't cause big problems for your engine, but could produce an annoying rattle? Someone else should probably chime in here. In any case, definitely do it if you're going to have the cam bolts done.

I strongly suggest you read up on some good information compiled here: https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/m...os-info-thread , and ask if you have questions.

[ATB88]

Right now there quoting me
553 for cam bolts and labor
350 for seals and labor.

He then brought up doing the exhaust hub but hasent gotten me a price yet.

I know zero about getting into the vanos area. if your doing bolts to me it sounds easy to swap the oil disk out at the same time.

Yes, the oil pump disc is very easy to do if you're already taking the vanos off, which you do to access the cam bolts. Again, definitely don't pay for a new exhaust hub if yours is not cracked/broken. This is really the only part that can/should be left alone if it's not damaged, the new oil pump disc prevents any potential future problems with the exhaust hub.

$350 (3ish hours labor) sounds a bit high for the seals, but not outrageously so?

If you're paying the above quoted rates for the cam bolts and seals, you should be able to get him to throw in doing the oil pump disc, solenoids, and timing chain guide for just the cost of parts ($150, $150, and $80 respectively) as they are directly accessible/already being removed if you're already doing seals and cam bolts. Maybe another hour of labor to clean the solenoid valve body? This is an important thing to ask him to do: at 129k the valves themselves can get pretty gummed up and decrease performance.

[Mainman857]

Yeah there labor rate is 110 a hr. I told them I will call them in the morning. Because with this amount of work they shuld In my opinion be able to replace those 3 things cheep/free. Just checked a video out and like you said they are easy access after going this deep into the vanos.
looks like il be doing cam bolts, solenoid, seals, oil pump disk, timing chain guide, and make sure everything is cleaned. If a tab is broken we will get a new hub but shall cross that road if we get there.
gonna be pricy but then the car is pritty much "done" hahahs

[ATB88]

Yeah there labor rate is 110 a hr. I told them I will call them in the morning. Because with this amount of work they shuld In my opinion be able to replace those 3 things cheep/free. Just checked a video out and like you said they are easy access after going this deep into the vanos.
looks like il be doing cam bolts, solenoid, seals, oil pump disk, timing chain guide, and make sure everything is cleaned. If a tab is broken we will get a new hub but shall cross that road if we get there.
gonna be pricy but then the car is pritty much "done" hahahs

Yeah, it's a lot to swallow at once, but that's just the reality with this car. VANOS is really something you should do all at once and not have to worry about it. The car should feel awesome once it's all done :]

Don't forget about subframe reinforcement, though. That's easily the priciest thing to take care of and the longer you wait, the greater the potential for increased cost :/

[mrgizmo04]

Cam bolts are only needed to be replaced if yours are broken/sheared. If they are tight when removed and show no signs of damage they can be reused with threadlocker. If they need to be replaced, still apply threadlocker on the new ones. You won't know until you get in there (or the shop does).

If you are never going to diy vanos and have to have the shop do the work, start with work that requires timing tools which you likely dont have but the shop does - ask them to check/do cam bolts WITH threadlocker, Beisan chain guide and do the oil pump disc (only if your hub tabs are not intact, then you need the Beisan hub also).

The rest of vanos work - the seals in vanos unit, the sealing plate and the solenoid can be done later and are much easier to do. While you still need to remove the vanos unit from the head, you don't need to remove the hubs/splines and disassociate the timing.

[mrgizmo04]

The shop will probably question that you don't know what you are talking about and you should stop listening to forum wisdom (they are in the business of charging $110 per hour and doing things based on the tech's understanding and knowledge). This information doesn't just come from living room racers or forum wisdom, some actually work on these cars full time/part time/hobby and help others work on their cars and collaborate with those who make better solutions for the car (like Raj from Beisan).

[terra]

Cam bolts are only needed to be replaced if yours are broken/sheared. If they are tight when removed and show no signs of damage they can be reused with threadlocker. If they need to be replaced, still apply threadlocker on the new ones. You won't know until you get in there (or the shop does).

If you are never going to diy vanos and have to have the shop do the work, start with work that requires timing tools which you likely dont have but the shop does - ask them to check/do cam bolts WITH threadlocker, Beisan chain guide and do the oil pump disc (only if your hub tabs are not intact, then you need the Beisan hub also).

The rest of vanos work - the seals in vanos unit, the sealing plate and the solenoid can be done later and are much easier to do. While you still need to remove the vanos unit from the head, you don't need to remove the hubs/splines and disassociate the timing.

The cam bolt are such a small cost in the scheme of checking / locktighting them that I think it's asinine to not replace them. And for that matter, you really should just throw some class 12.9s or ARPs in there so you can safely torque them a bit more.

[mrgizmo04]

The cam bolt are such a small cost in the scheme of checking / locktighting them that I think it's asinine to not replace them. And for that matter, you really should just throw some class 12.9s or ARPs in there so you can safely torque them a bit more.

It's like $24 for the kit (iirc from Lang) because they also come together with hub bolts (which I don't think are needed), and they still require threadlocker, since the main mode of failure is bolts backing out and thus sheering, not that they are weak/low grade bolts to start with.

[terra]

It's like $24 for the kit (iirc from Lang) because they also come together with hub bolts (which I don't think are needed), and they still require threadlocker, since the main mode of failure is bolts backing out and thus sheering, not that they are weak/low grade bolts to start with.

Yeah, and in comparison to the rest of the cost, $24 is nothing. Other issues with stock bolts is that they're extremely easy to overtorque if you don't have a well calibrated torque wrench. Safer to just use stronger bolts (and they should be less likely to back out if you can torque them more anyway).