Part out or repair, advice?

[superman62283]

If you are going to do this on your own pay someone to check the head due to cracks or other damage I have a shop here in Portland and I see about 2 to 3 motors a year that some one has done a head gasket job and put it back togeather to find that there was cracks.

[turbospeeder]

When driving an older car, it is in your best interest to start learning. If you can handle college, you can easily repair a car. Don't be intimidated and start getting your hands dirty. As you complete projects your confidence level in working on your car will increase exponentially. In addition, as other things go wrong you will be able to diagnose things more accurately and be more willing to dig in and fix it. These cars are not complicated at all and with the exception of a tight working space, are an excellent car to wrench on for beginners. Use the folks in your area for assistance and get started on being a shade tree mechanic. Good luck.

^ great advice. I'm 20 working pt and a full time student, and I still knock projects out on my car weekly. The comment about gaining confidence is absolutely true. Take a saturday, get a set of sockets and torx and get to work. 1700 is absolutely bonkers, you can buy like 8 running m20s or two of my cars for that price.

Thanks! The bentley's guide is great and folks on r3vlimited are very helpful. I guess the head gasket job should't be super hard but time consuming. I will try to do it myself with help of local mechanics. Hope it goes well.

here are some pictures of the leak.



A leak if coming from the top of the third cylinder. It's right behind the exhaust manifold and oil filter.


The leak spread to other places.




This is between the radiator and the engine. Some leak down there, I'm not sure if the oil comes from the head gasket or not.


first cylinder, driver side


Engine oil 15w50 mobil1 synthetic. it's like a mix of oil and water now. chocolate milk shake?




my interior. ic 3 spoke steering wheel, z3 short shifter with momo weighted shift knob. everything works in here except the obc bulb went out.


rear seat.


Here's a video of my E30. Cold start. Some white smoke came out of the exhaust at the beginning. After a rev, maybe no more than 2500rpm, the white smoke disappeared.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/2wI9dsGWCVo

Thanks guys.

[turbospeeder]

After some research, I made a list of thing that I need to buy.

Reinz head gasket set. from bma auto parts.

http://www.bmaparts.com/item.wws?sku=BMW010265&itempk=71250&mfr=Reinz&weight=1.810

Reinz torx head bolts x14

exhaust lock nuts x12

oil filter/ drain plugs

I'm gonna do a timing belt change at the same time. So these are also on the shopping list.

Behr 71 degree thermostat/ water pump/ timing belt / tensioner

do I need any other things?

Thanks guys!

[lostatoll]

how is this going? I'm curious. I'm about to do my timing belt tomorrow, and after a compression test yesterday I'm worried I might have a bad head gasket.

[Julien]

how is this going? I'm curious. I'm about to do my timing belt tomorrow, and after a compression test yesterday I'm worried I might have a bad head gasket.

did you do the compression test cold? if so your numbers will be off

[charlescho]

I am really suprised only one person mentioned doing a leak check through a machine shop :)

get a leak check done so you dont do the job twice :) its worth the 100 dollars-

[beybedba]

also check your oil filter housing... the gaskets are blown most likely