Emissions in Cooling System

[BobbyZ]

So the overheating problem that I could not figure out has been traced down to blown headgasket/cracked head (one or the other, no way to tell yet). My dilemma is in which road to take for repair.

I have decided to take the car off of the road for the time being, I will buy a $1000 Honda to get me to work and back :(

This means I can leave this thing on jackstands for a little bit to be repaired. I want to know what the general consensus is for a headgasket repair. Should I go ahead and pull the whole thing apart, replace the gaskets, machine the head and spend the few hundred dollars its going to cost to refresh the top end of the M42? Or should I just keep an eye out for an M42 engine on craigslist to swap in? Option #3 is the most expensive route, I don't have a lot of free-time (or money) on my hands but I would love to buy a salvage E36 M3 and do that swap.

I realize this post is kind of all over the place but I just want to get a general feel of whether or not the engine refresh is going to be worth the time/money. And how much work is really involved in the M3 engine swap.

[ck_taft325is]

A OBD-1 S50 conversion done moderately right will run you around $2,000-$5,000. I'd replace timing gear, timing case profile gasket, head gasket, intake gaskets etc etc. More than likely, (IMO) it's the TCP Gasket (timing case profile gasket). It's a known flaw on the M42 as the gasket itself is made of crap materials that BMW even recognized as a wide spread failure point. While you don't *need* the car on the road, check your upper oil pan bolts via removing the lower pan and seeing if you have any bolts floating around. Loctite them if you do and torque them to spec.

[BobbyZ]

Thank you, I guess I will go ahead with the engine refresh.