heinzboehmer's 2006 Some-kind-of-grey SMG ZCP Coupe

[Loveconvertibles]

I’m going through the same maintenance. 110k miles on my LSB and my bearings were toast. Like you, my clearances were all in spec. I went with VAC bearings and ARP bolts.

[heinzboehmer]

Beisan parts installed:





Engine retimed:




And valve adjustment complete. Here's a transcription of the notes I scribbled down while doing it:


The fact that only two were out of spec —combined with the crazy amount of RTV that I found when I first opened up the valve cover— makes me think that the valves were adjusted relatively recently. No complaints from me though! Made this a pretty quick job.

Car is put back together, but I didn't have a chance to take it for a test drive. Will do that soon just to make sure everything is working well.

[0-60motorsports]

Thanks! Excited to get this thing put back together and drive it around.

I bet! Love these restoration threads. I just did an individual E46 m3 vert for a childhood friend, Full paint, interior and mechanical. Will post pics soon as its completely done.

[heinzboehmer]

Nice update!

Thanks! Excited to get this thing put back together and drive it around.

[0-60motorsports]

Nice update!

[heinzboehmer]

Started on the last bit of engine maintenance today. First up was getting the VANOS off without dropping the tab into the oil pan. This is what the broken tab looked like when I opened the valve cover:



If you compare the orientation of the tab to the previous pic I posted, it's pretty clear that the thing was moving around a lot. I don't think it had enough space to fall out, but I'm glad I'm taking care of it now. Would have sucked if that thing fell out and got stuck in the timing chain.

Before removing the VANOS, I stuck a powerful magnet on the hub just to make sure the tab didn't fall down:



Worked great!



With that removed, I turned to the cam bolts. This is what they looked like:





Nothing out of the ordinary, really. All bolts were still torqued to spec and were showing no signs of failure. I did go ahead and replace them anyway, since I had the parts.

New torx bolts installed with 243 loctite:





This is what the old ones looked like. Completely fine:



Next came the upper chain guide. I just assumed it would be broken in half, so I ordered a Beisan one. This is what it looked like when it came out:






Pretty much exactly what I was expecting.

It was at this point that I realized I completely forgot to order a bunch of crush washers for when it came time to put all of this back together. Felt pretty good to dig through my stash of S54 parts and find everything I needed :



And lastly here's some close ups of the VANOS hub failure:





I'll be putting everything back together tomorrow. Will throw some more picture up on here showing how that goes.

[0-60motorsports]

Very nice

[heinzboehmer]

Both airbags replaced this morning under the recall. Feels nice to have a brand new driver's airbag:



Also replaced the old SMG trim. It was destroyed cosmetically and the tabs weren't holding it in place very well:




Still need to give this interior a much more thorough clean, but it's looking better than before.

[heinzboehmer]

Been slacking a bit on the updates (but not on the work!), so gonna try to catch up to the present day. Probably gonna be a long post.

Put the rest of the engine back together after swapping the bearings. Oil pump pickup had some wear, but less than expected for the mileage:



Mating surfaces prepped and gasket maker added to the points where the block meets the rear main seal housing and timing cover. Also, look at the condition of the screen on the oil pickup tube!





Oil pan cleaned and back on:



Yes, I know there's still a couple spots that have some back grime on them. I gave up on cleaning those after spending about half an hour scrubbing and using all the cleaning products in the garage to try to get them off. At least you can tell that it's silver now. When I took it off, the entire thing was black.

Engine mounts replaced. Passenger's side on the left, driver's in the middle and new mount for comparison on the right:



Driver's side was by far the worst one. It was so bad that the oil pan was almost touching the sway bar. It looked pretty terrible from up top too:



Next was filling the engine back up with oil. It was here that I realized the pan had been timeserted before. Looks pretty well done, so I'm happy with that. It did seem to be leaking a bit because the insert was slightly more recessed into the pan than it should have been:



Fortunately, I have the tool to mill the surface down from when I repaired the oil pan on the blue car. Would have been more convenient to do this when the pan was still off the car, but it wasn't a big deal either way. I did also forget to take a picture of the finished product, but it looks pretty much exactly the same, just with the insert flush against the pan. A week or so later and no leaks!

With the oil filter changed and oil back in the engine, I could assemble the rest of the car. Started by throwing in the steering rack from the blue car (more on that in the other journal). This car also got the blue car's inner and outer tie rods, since they were fairly fresh:



And yes, much like before, I cleaned up some things, but just didn't have the energy to do the rest. Few things under there are still pretty dirty, but I'll just have to get to them at a later date.

Blue car belly pan also made its way onto this car. It's had some repairs done over the years, but still fully functional and much better than having nothing on there at all:



Next up was the valve cover gasket and spark plugs. I was very pleased with how clean it was under the beauty cover:



Unfortunately can't say the same about the header heat shield (and the side of the head/block). This thing was absolutely pouring oil of of the valve cover. Smell of burning oil was incredibly strong if you weren't moving and everything below that passenger's side edge was grimy:



The cause of the leak was extremely obvious after the valve cover came off (it was like this on both sides of the gasket):



I did also find a nice little surprise in the VANOS area:



Only that one tab is broken and the broken part hasn't fallen out of the pump disc, so not a terrible outcome. Beisan hub and upper chain guide are on their way.

I was originally planning on doing a valve adjustment along with the valve cover gasket, but I'll just do it when I swap out the VANOS parts. I do have receipts for the VANOS seals, so I'm going to leave those alone.

Heat shield and other grimy bits cleaned up:



Mating surfaces prepped, gasket maker added in the appropriate spots and new genuine gasket installed:



Next up, the spark plugs. Looks like the correct type was used, but they were Bosch not NGK:



Was definitely time for new ones:



Put everything back together and replaced a couple other easy bits. OE cabin air filter installed:



Broken engine air filter removed:



And new Mahle filter to replace it:



Lastly, I went to flash the SMG ECU with the CSL software aaand bricked it during the flash. For some reason, the WinKFP install I was running on my usual BMW VM was dropping communications with the module halfway through flashing. I was still able to communicate with the module, but it would not control the transmission. I fired up another WinKFP install and was able to successfully get through the flashing with that:



Also modified the DME tune with the CSL tables by following this thread: https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/s...parameters-dme No issues there.

And since I had the laptop out, I opened up DIS and poked around to see what routines were available for the SMG. Did a bleed of everything, relearned the clutch bite point and checked the accumulator health:



Everything seems to be working well!

I also coded a bunch of stuff. Things like the new steering rack ratio, easy entry windows, triple blink turn signals, etc.

I do have a coupe things left to do before I can drive this thing around regularly. Hopefully they'll all get done in the next ~week:

1. Install Beisan VANOS hub + upper chain guide
2. Do a valve adjustment
3. Strip the car down for the airbag recall

Oh, I did also find this gift wedged between the front subframe and steering rack:



Always a fun surprise.

[heinzboehmer]

not the first high mileage S54 with otherwise healthy rod bearings!

any interest in a compression check? seems like head gasket is just as much a wildcard as rod bearings at this mileage

I will probably do one at some point, but I've got a decent list of more pressing things to work through first!

[usdmej]

not the first high mileage S54 with otherwise healthy rod bearings!

any interest in a compression check? seems like head gasket is just as much a wildcard as rod bearings at this mileage

[heinzboehmer]

Alright, here's the rest of the pictures I took. Starting off with an odometer pic, as I turns out that I was misremembering the mileage. It's actually almost at 184k!



Here's how I found everything when I took the oil pan off:





New bearings and bolts installed:





And here's the clearance measurements with the new bearings:








They all measured between 0.040 mm and 0.050 mm (roughly). Spec is 0.030-0.070 mm so they were perfect.

And that's all for now. I cleaned the oil pan (which was disgusting) and used a few bolts to temporarily install it just so the engine doesn't get dirty. I still need to clean up the mating surfaces and replace the gasket. After that it's just reassembly with new engine and transmission mounts and then I can drive this thing again.

[0-60motorsports]

Finished up the bearings today. Here's what the old ones look like:




Not bad at all. There's a couple showing a little bit of copper, but they mostly look great.

I went with ACL bearings and stock rod bolts for the replacements. I did plastigage them and they were all well within spec. I'll post up more details (and pictures) soon.

Nice one.

[heinzboehmer]

Finished up the bearings today. Here's what the old ones look like:




Not bad at all. There's a couple showing a little bit of copper, but they mostly look great.

I went with ACL bearings and stock rod bolts for the replacements. I did plastigage them and they were all well within spec. I'll post up more details (and pictures) soon.

[heinzboehmer]

Low RPM previous driver :P

Yeah, I think that's the most likely explanation. Well, that and also the fact that this car has lived in a mild climate its entire life.