Head Gasket, Agh!

[87_black_325is]

Backstory:
Car has been getting hard to start in the morning's and it's been abnormally cold here.

Yesterday:
Go to pull out of my apartment complex and blow a cloud of white smoke and had no power.

Did a leakdown and was pressurizing the expansion tank on at least 3 cylinders.

Monday I'll be pulling the head and tearing in to see what's wrong at school, had to borrow my dad's truck for the time being.

Hopefully not a cracked head, but I think 3 adjacent cylinders would be pretty unrealistic.

[jlevie]

With three cylinders involved the odds are that it is the head gasket (and a warped head). Unless the engine has experienced a really bad overheat the chances of a cracked head are pretty low.

[87_black_325is]

Well today I got the intake manifold and valve cover off. Then I realized that I would have to remove the drive belts on the front of the engine to get to the timing belt. Pulled the radiator out and began trying to get the belts off. The main drive belt left me absolutely stumped as to how to get enough slack to get it off, ended up cutting it since it was a good time to replace it anyways.

Tomorrow I have to remove the other, lower (I'm assuming accessory) belt, mark the timing components and remove the timing belt and hopefully get the head off and find out how bad this is.

Got my upper gasket kit from bma today so I'll have that ready if that's all I need to do. Will probably also replace the thermostat as it was looking kind of gunked up. Several rotten vacuum hoses will be replaced, as well as I'll have to do something about the windshield washer fluid system. It didn't work before (wouldn't draw fluid up and spray it onto the windshield) but today in the process of removing the hood, I snapped off the nipple on what I think may be the pump, while trying to remove the hose from the reservoir.

I must say under the valve cover looked great, I bought the car with sort of a shady history and was told it had head work and a larger lift cam but no specifics and I believe it now that I've looked under the valve cover(I've always known about the cam because of the sound of the motor idling). Here's hoping that the head is still in good shape underneath!

[jlevie]

Once you get the head off, take it to a shop to be checked for warp & cracks. If there is any warp in the head it will have to be surfaced. I hope you also ordered new head bolts as they are stretch bolts and can't be re-used.

Since you are pulling the head, there is no need to worry about timing until it is time to re-install the head. The align the marks on the crank and align the marks on the cam sprocket & head. Install the head and timing belt without disturbing the engine or camshaft and the engine will be in time. Remember to rotate the engine through two revolutions and re-check that the marks line up.

[87_black_325is]

Head is off, appears that it will need to be resurfaced. The number 5 cylinder was leaking the worst.

Can anyone tell me what the biggest cam you can run whilst keeping the stock i bottom is? According to the previous owner who had that cam put in, that is the cam that is in there now, and I would like to know, just out of curiosity.

While I was in there today, I removed the A/C condenser, dryer, and compressor and all of the engine bay lines, as well as deleted the power steering pump, reservoir and lines, because neither of them worked.

I have been doing a lot of research on the e30 power steering delete and the verdict that I seem to be coming to, is that you do not need to refill the rack with fluid because it is greased and the fluid chamber for power steering is separate. Could anyone confirm or deny this?

Also, I would like to wire up the A/C auxillary fan as my engine fan and am trying to figure out the best way to do so. Seems like there is a way to wire it so that I could use the A/C button in the car to turn the fan on. If I did so, I would just want it to run on high speed. I haven't been able to find any definite answers on the best way to wire it to do that, and may have to try and trace it down through schematics, but if anyone has done so already, please share and save me the trouble.

Last question, when you guys get your heads resurfaced, do you have to use a thicker-than-oem gasket?

Edit: Also, I was unaware that the head bolts were "stretch bolts." I'm assuming that means they are literally a throw away item now and should not under any circumstances be reused. I guess I will have to order those as well.

[jlevie]

I have been doing a lot of research on the e30 power steering delete and the verdict that I seem to be coming to, is that you do not need to refill the rack with fluid because it is greased and the fluid chamber for power steering is separate. Could anyone confirm or deny this?

The power steering fluid is the lubricant for the rack. Leaving some fluid in the rack and plugging the holes will work, but a better solution is to connect both of the hoses from the reservoir to the rack and keep fluid in the reservoir. That provides for expansion of the fluid or air in the rack.

Also, I was unaware that the head bolts were "stretch bolts." I'm assuming that means they are literally a throw away item now and should not under any circumstances be reused. I guess I will have to order those as well.

Correct. You can only use the bolts once.

When installing a head, only tighten the bolts to their initial torque (22ft-lb) until the timing belt, intake, exhaust, etc is all back on. If for any reason you find that you need to pull the head back off during assembly making the final tightening the last step will save the cost of a set of head bolts.

[87_black_325is]

Head was warped .0010 and had never been milled before. I was told that the stock size gasket should be fine and that it is allowable to machine up until .0016.

Picking up all new head studs, water pump and new timing belt/tensioner off a local guy tonight and then hopefully getting started on putting this beast back together tomorrow!!

[87_black_325is]

Since then, had sheared off both of the camshaft seal retainer bolts and had to get them out. Had to take it back to the machine shop for one of them. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get some real progress going again... It would be awesome at this point just to hear the car running again, can't remember what it sounds like lol

[87_black_325is]

Latest Issue: Valve-Piston Clearance

I have a aftermarket schrick camshaft that I've been unable to get a solid ID on. Only thing that I'm going on right now is after the number (which doesn't match any available schrick camshaft number) is 3 tally marks. Could that mean stage 3? If so it would be a Schrick 284 by my research.

At any rate, now that the head has been milled 10 thousandths, I have basically NO valve to piston clearance. Before it looked like it was just barely touching enough to scrape the carbon off but not enough to actually do damage. Now, it would surely start destroying the valves, pistons or both..

I bought a normal size reinz upper gasket kit. If I was to go to the oversize head gasket, how much would I gain in thousandths? I have read that it is .3mm oversize, wouldn't that be 300 thousandths? or 30 hundredths? If that is the case that should not only make up for the milled off portion of the head but also increase clearance over what I had before and allow me to continue running this camshaft. (Or, at least that is my current theory.) Can anyone measure there's and let me know (in thousandth's?)

Only other thing I can think is to swap my cam out for a stock one and see if I can clear it then. According to BMW, (At least this is what the machine shop's spec sheet said) you can mill 16 thousandth's off of the stock head. My head was never milled before according to the before measurement's that they took, so that should leave me with a margin of 6 thousandth's inside the safe zone, therefore meaning (I think, by my understanding) that with a stock camshaft I would not be having these problems.

Please help, Thanks in advance.

P.S. Cam says 204 on it

[87_black_325is]

Bump..

Help a guy out and measure your oversize head gasket if you have one!!

[jlevie]

The stock gasket is 1.75mm thick and the oversize gasket is 2.05mm thick (+0.3mm). 0.3mm is 0.0118", which is slightly more than has been milled off the head.

[87_black_325is]

Thanks, ended up ordering the oversize as well.

[AndrewBird]

Head was warped .0010 and had never been milled before. I was told that the stock size gasket should be fine and that it is allowable to machine up until .0016.

Picking up all new head studs, water pump and new timing belt/tensioner off a local guy tonight and then hopefully getting started on putting this beast back together tomorrow!!

You meant 0.010" and 0.016". 0.0010" is 10 ten-thousandths.

And to clarify, 0.3mm is 0.0118", 0.0018" more then was milled off the head, which is roughly half the thickness of a sheet of paper.

[87_black_325is]

Yeah I did, thank you for clarifying. Still waiting on my overnighted head gasket to show up..

[bimmershark]

hope it goes together smoothly man...cant wait to get my red coupe home and together