I have spent about a week googling, searching all forums with M/S5x knowledge and can come up with nothing. Here is what's up.
Car: 86 325es with 94 M50tub25, ZF trans, M20 shaved flywheel with clutchmaster stage 2 clutch.
Issue: while driving along on a normal day, the car suddenly lost power and stalled out as if there was a new vaccum leak. There was an extremely loud air noise coming from the bottom exhaust side of the motor. After exhausting many other ideas, used a piece of paper to test for exhaust leaks. The piece of paper was sucked onto the side of the transmission where it mates to the motor.
Attempted fixes: Smoke test revealed a few small vaccum leaks. Fixed stripped valve cover bolts, snapped timing cover stud, replaced dipstick tube o-ring, replaced cam sensor o-ring. All of these were leaking oil as well.
Our only thought - the rear main seal was installed incorrectly and with the vibration caused by the poly mounts, it may have worked itself out. There was a high pitched whistle coming from the trans area that had developed a few weeks prior. The main reason I am reaching out here is that in order to drop the trans, obviously the subframe has to drop or the motor has to be pulled and right now, I am on shop time since we are waiting to close on our new house and I have no garage.
Thoughts are appreciated, experience with a similar issue is much welcome. Thanks in advance.
After fixing a lot of other small things we finally found the issue. Embarrassing as it may be, the cat was 100% clogged. Turns out the shop that installed it put it in backwards. Since it only had 3000 miles on it, it wasn't something we even thought about. I just went ahead and pulled the trigger on a new exhaust system and will be deleting the cat in favor of a resonator.
Car: 86 325es with 94 M50tub25, ZF trans, M20 shaved flywheel with clutchmaster stage 2 clutch.
Issue: while driving along on a normal day, the car suddenly lost power and stalled out as if there was a new vaccum leak. There was an extremely loud air noise coming from the bottom exhaust side of the motor. After exhausting many other ideas, used a piece of paper to test for exhaust leaks. The piece of paper was sucked onto the side of the transmission where it mates to the motor.
Attempted fixes: Smoke test revealed a few small vaccum leaks. Fixed stripped valve cover bolts, snapped timing cover stud, replaced dipstick tube o-ring, replaced cam sensor o-ring. All of these were leaking oil as well.
Our only thought - the rear main seal was installed incorrectly and with the vibration caused by the poly mounts, it may have worked itself out. There was a high pitched whistle coming from the trans area that had developed a few weeks prior. The main reason I am reaching out here is that in order to drop the trans, obviously the subframe has to drop or the motor has to be pulled and right now, I am on shop time since we are waiting to close on our new house and I have no garage.
Thoughts are appreciated, experience with a similar issue is much welcome. Thanks in advance.
After fixing a lot of other small things we finally found the issue. Embarrassing as it may be, the cat was 100% clogged. Turns out the shop that installed it put it in backwards. Since it only had 3000 miles on it, it wasn't something we even thought about. I just went ahead and pulled the trigger on a new exhaust system and will be deleting the cat in favor of a resonator.
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