Hello all, I am a new member that recently bought a 1988 325ix. Previous owner has already replaced the crank sensor, timing chain and water pump. The car runs but has terrible problems idling and after doing some checking here is what I have come up with.
Did a vacuum check on the car and when you start it up it goes to between 15-20 then will drop back down to close to 0 on first start up, but when you do another check it goes to around the same start number then goes down to around 10 and then jumps back up then back down. We tried checking for leaks with carb cleaner and there may be a small one in the center intakes.
Compression test found cylinders 6,5,3,2 around 120# and 4 was around 100 but came up to 149 after adding the oil and redoing the check. Cylinder 1 is about 100 but does not come up after adding the oil, which from what I can tell may indicate a blown head gasket. Checked the oil dipstick, can't really see any moisture but the oil seems pretty thinned out to me and free flowing.
What should I do first? I have a new head gasket but is it worth pulling and replacing with the 4th cylinder only hanging around 100? The car runs once you get it up to speed but spends so much time searching when it is trying to idle, but once you get it to speed it lacks "get up and go power". The plugs seem to have a bit too much oil on them for my comfort but that could be from a blown head gasket if that is the case.
Goal - to get the car running and usable without spending a fortune. Any thoughts or help would be appreciated, I have read through the forum and see you guys are pretty good at this stuff. So any help is great :).
Did a vacuum check on the car and when you start it up it goes to between 15-20 then will drop back down to close to 0 on first start up, but when you do another check it goes to around the same start number then goes down to around 10 and then jumps back up then back down. We tried checking for leaks with carb cleaner and there may be a small one in the center intakes.
Compression test found cylinders 6,5,3,2 around 120# and 4 was around 100 but came up to 149 after adding the oil and redoing the check. Cylinder 1 is about 100 but does not come up after adding the oil, which from what I can tell may indicate a blown head gasket. Checked the oil dipstick, can't really see any moisture but the oil seems pretty thinned out to me and free flowing.
What should I do first? I have a new head gasket but is it worth pulling and replacing with the 4th cylinder only hanging around 100? The car runs once you get it up to speed but spends so much time searching when it is trying to idle, but once you get it to speed it lacks "get up and go power". The plugs seem to have a bit too much oil on them for my comfort but that could be from a blown head gasket if that is the case.
Goal - to get the car running and usable without spending a fortune. Any thoughts or help would be appreciated, I have read through the forum and see you guys are pretty good at this stuff. So any help is great :).
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