Burning oil bad on a fresh rebuild...

[JIMBOkye]

So once I had more light and wiped the gasket off, it looked fine..

Well here are some pictures of the valves, the valves on cylinders 2 5 and 6 have some pretty bad oil scaling

Head: http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/...729_194200.jpg

C1: http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/...729_194221.jpg

C2: http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/...729_194226.jpg

C3: http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/...729_194229.jpg

C4: http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/...729_194234.jpg

C5: http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/...729_194239.jpg

C6: http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/...729_194242.jpg

[crappycoco]

About the paint, I'm sure you used high-temp paint. But if you used primer, was that high-temp too? I made that mistake once =)

[Cabriolet]

I have always used VR head bolts and never had an issue with them, nor the head gasket failing in the chamber (or mixing coolant), BUT I have had two of them leak oil externally and had to redo a head job on my dime. Elring is marginally better than VR as far as the head gasket goes, OEM or Goetze is my say. BTW Felpro is VR, both Federal Mogul companies.

VR bolts are only about $5 cheaper than the BMW ones. I've seen them come bent, poor quality threads and even seen them stretch.
i've had 2 bolts fail on me, fail in the fact that they were loose after 5k miles. they had stretched. and i've seen many VR head gaskets leak oil externally. but the failures i've seen is from the VR bolts not holding up. so now with all my builds i just use the BMW bolts and BMW/Goetze head gaskets and have had 0 failures.

[JIMBOkye]

So I (Finally) got the engine out. The pistons are out, the clocking was definitely messed up. I'll re-gap them tomorrow and let you guys know what they were. Anything else I can check too? The rings were all right side up and look good...

[TobyB]

Measure the bores carefully, and measure the pistons carefully. It would SEEM like the
oil trail would tell the tale, but who knows... this has been a weird one. The clocking by itself
shouldn't be enough to make it THAT bad.

t

[JIMBOkye]

So I measured the ring gap again using instructions from this guy in this vid (FF to 7 min mark): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWzeVrVAE84

Which was super helpful. And so I realized I did it completely wrong when I did it before. first engine rebuild, I guess I was bound to make some n00b mistake

So my biggest feeler gauge is 0.035" and every single gap, compression and oil scrapper, on each cylinder was so big that there was daylight between the ring and the 0.035 gauge. I'm going to guess about 0.040" gap.

So then I thought... wut.

And then after that I thought, is my block bored out by a previous owner?? so I got a fancy bore caliper from my neighbor and all the bores were dead on spec. Pistons were right on spec. So no, I guess I bought the wrong rings? So I opened my previous order on Pelican and it looks like they no longer carry that piston ring set. But it is specifically for "325i 87 thru 91, 525i," ...?

So there yah go. I'll contact Pelican and see what is up... I'm gonna guess these rings are for a 323 or 320 or something, I have no idea.

Anyone got a recommendation for rings and head gasket?

Thanks again guys. sorry this turned out to be something so sophomoric.

LESSON LEARNED.

[TobyB]

Try BavAuto. They carry Deves, and I've had decent luck with Deves...

I'm still not convinced, though- 0.040" end gap's not right, I agree, but
did the rings expand enough to seal up properly in the bores? If they weren't
sitting loose in there, the 3 in conjunction SHOULD have sealed better than THAT...

and I have built a dozen or so engines, and only measured end gap on 2. So
this is a good reminder to pay better attention...

t

[JIMBOkye]

They did seal up against the cylinder. Idk, that is a big gap. If it isn't that, what else do u think it could be? It's apart so I can check anything

[JIMBOkye]

So, it has been awhile, but here is an update. The bore is actually about 0.020" too big. I noticed that the cross hatching I had put on was gone on each bore, then I felt it with my finger and there was an obvious ridge in the bore. So i measured again and found the bore was way too big. It still doesn't explain what happened. The bore was in spec before I rebuilt it the first time, then something went wrong with the rings and now it is trash... So looking for another block now... boring it out doesn't seem worth it, seems very expensive.

The junkyard near me told me they had an M20 engine with a plastic intake manifold. So I won't be going there. If anyone has a lead, let me know! I'm in Eastern PA

[digger]

a month ago the bores were in spec and now they arent? 0.02" is heaps, i guess you mean 0.002" ?

also the rings rotate in the engine so they wont come out the same as you put them in but you want them clocked for initial breakin process

[Reichart12]

Try talking to BimmerBuddies just outside of Hershey if youre looking for another engine. They have a huge collection of parts and are a cool group of guys.

[boogle2]

I would be super curious in someones professional post mortem of this engine.

[JIMBOkye]

Digger, yeah I guess I got over excited about the clocking...

No I meant 0.020" over. Like, serious wear. You can feel the ridge with your finger very easily. So the first time I measured it I measured at the top and the bottom of the cylinder. Which was dumb because the bore only wears where the rings rub....

Reichart12 Thanks for the tip! I left them a VM. Hopefully they have something.

Boogle2 Yeah you're telling me! If anyone in the Allentown PA area wants to take a look, I'd be more than happy to show them.

[JIMBOkye]

I got a good block from user dsphil. He had several e30's and some interesting projects going on, I wish him luck and thanks!

I'm going to get the block hot tanked this week and then start rebuilding. I bought a bmw head gasket, glyco bearings, and goetze rings this time.

One question on hot tanking, should I remove that little ball bearing for the oil pump?

Also, I'll keep track of my build on R3V and post what is going on. Do you guys recommend I continue this thread, or start a new one?

[redlightpete]

Careful with the hot-tanking. Supposedly this ruins the intermediate shaft bearings which are a big pain to replace, requiring machining before and potentially after installation. Maybe just go at it with a couple cans of brake cleaner and some razor blades if the current intermediate shaft bearings still look good.