1995 e34 540i/6 *m60b44* - Return to Some Kind of Glory

[Dj Buttchug]

wide nose keepin it real.

[pandaboo911]

He mentioned you possibly having a blown headgasket because coolant system parts keep failing. That could be a result of a cracked block as well. If you start seeing oil in your coolant or that foamy milk on your oil filler cap you'll know for sure though.

[marshallnoise]

wide nose keepin it real.

Its funny, I had to google the difference. Now that I have, I am partial to the wide. The narrow reminds me of the e23 from the front.

[marshallnoise]

He mentioned you possibly having a blown headgasket because coolant system parts keep failing. That could be a result of a cracked block as well. If you start seeing oil in your coolant or that foamy milk on your oil filler cap you'll know for sure though.

Fair enough. I never let it get into the red. I'll check the oil tomorrow.

[marshallnoise]

Oil was perfect. I don't have a head gasket issue. I still have a coolant system leak somewhere though. When the car is running at freeway speeds for 25 miles or so, it starts to loose a bit of coolant and temps rise. I am going to go to Vatozone and try to rent their cooling system pressure tester and see if I can find the culprit.

Once I have figured that out, I will make the fix and then see about running 100% Sierra Propylene Glycol coolant instead of Evans NPG+ initially. It has a boiling point of 312 degrees which is MUCH higher than water and what the m60 system is designed for. If that stuff works well, then I may give Evans NPG+ a shot when my ship comes in.

Evans NPG+ is essentially Propylene Glycol and Ethylene Glycol mixed together. Sierra is 94-96% PG with some water and that makes it essentially the same as the original Evans NPG (non-plus).

Here is some good reading: http://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generatio...oolant-945513/

EDIT: And this is the answer I was looking for.

Your thermostat and cooling fans control the coolant temperature.

You will only have a raised coolant temperature if your cooling system can't handle the added load of the lower thermal transfer properties of Evans or 100% PG coolant.

If this is a problem you can increase the size of your radiator or cfm of your fans.

My Volvo fan setup (which is working perfect) will just kick on more if the car needs it. I can also put in a lower temp theromostat if for some reason the fan can't cut it. Most of the e39 guys who are running NPG+ have the stock viscous fan. As a result their oil temps are 10 degrees or so higher. I am not 100% worried about it. If I can lower the PSI of the system which saves stress on the hoses and plastic parts, then I am far ahead of where I am at now.

[marshallnoise]

I couldn't rent the tester at Vatozone so I did the next best thing and bought one at Horror Freight. What a wonderful tool to own!

I pressurized the system to 20 lbs and didn't get any leaks or sounds. But once I bumped it to 30, which the m60 is documented to reach, that's when leaks everywhere began to show.

For a normal cooling system like on my 4runner or my wife's Jetta, you don't need to crank down on the hose clamps super hard. Just snug. Most cars run between 10-15 lbs of system pressure. The idea is to not destroy the rubber in the hoses, right?

Well, that works fine on an m60b40 if the system were to never exceed 20 lbs of pressure. But no, not the m60b40. It took 25 miles of highway speeds to build up that kind of pressure in the system and that is where I would begin to see the heat rise on the dash and have to add 1/3 of a gallon of water/coolant. It would just barely seep out of the main radiator hoses connections and then the vent supply line.

Either way, this is entirely too much pressure for any car to practically run, especially one such as a BMW with plastic components everywhere. e39 guys have popped many radiators and expansion tanks due to the higher pressures BMW designed into the motor. It is too bad that BMW decided to run those high cooling system pressures but not beef up the components to support it. The cynic in me thinks that BMW didn't mind the problems because it makes dealerships money with incessant repair costs.

I will continue with my plan of running 100% Propylene Glycol and see how the system handles it. Now, where to find it since Vatozone nor Wal-Mart carried the stuff...

[Dj Buttchug]

interested in the outcome of the propylene glycol

[marshallnoise]

interested in the outcome of the propylene glycol

:)

[pandaboo911]

I would run 50/50 water Coolant since we aren't in an Arctic climate. Water is much better at heat transfer than any coolant.

I run 100% distilled in most of my cars since they'll never see snow anyway

Also run distilled + water wetter on my lemons car but I haven't seen any benefit from the water wetter other than making the coolant pink.


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[marshallnoise]

I would run 50/50 water Coolant since we aren't in an Arctic climate. Water is much better at heat transfer than any coolant.

I run 100% distilled in most of my cars since they'll never see snow anyway

Also run distilled + water wetter on my lemons car but I haven't seen any benefit from the water wetter other than making the coolant pink.


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I appreciate the feedback. My main goal is to lower the psi of the system though. The more water, the more pressure. So maybe 80/20 might be better.

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[marshallnoise]

I had another leak last night after Thanksgiving. A friend of mine gave me a block testing kit (the one that detects exhaust fumes in coolant) and it came back clean. No head-gasket leak.

I put on the pressure tester at 30 psi around 12:30 and came back 2 hours later and it is down to 27 psi. I believe this is very acceptable based on what I read. I am going to leave it on for another couple of hours and see what happens.

In any event, I did manage to find Sierra Pet Friendly coolant at NAPA for $16.99 a gallon. Not the greatest price, but its what I could muster up. I may drain the block tomorrow and pour in 100% or 80% and see what gives.

[marshallnoise]

My buddy Mike came over on Saturday to see about his 4Runner's hard core shaking going on at startup and at about 50 mph. Bad motor mounts. We are going to order a set of them for his truck and I should probably order a set for mine too considering my truck has more miles than his. Since he didn't have any cash and we weren't in a huge hurry to get them done, he stuck around to fiddle with my car.

First ting we worked on was the pressure testing of the cooling system. I had already swapped back to the original expansion tank that came on the car. We pumped it up and it had a pretty steady leak, while on the car. So we tested the expansion tank that came from the 735iL I parted out off the car and it held great. Then we took the original tank off the car and tested it, shot it with soap and water mix and tried to locate a leak. We couldn't find it initially. But we finally figured out it was coming from the overflow valve. Since I have a new tank on order and I can't figure out which of my old tanks is the good one, I decided to just can the cooling system work until it arrives.

So we decided to just fark around with the left rear window roller and regulator work. Bad picture, but it shows where we had to cut off the mount that originally held the factory plastic wheel and then open a hole for the install.
20151128_141156_zpscbv7cy0v by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

Here is the wheel that I bought off Amazon.com that has a brass insert and a screw.
20151128_141207_zpsn4xufywl by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

I did have to modify it a bit so it would roll smoothly in the channel. First, the wheel was too tall by a millimeter so that was shaved down. And also on the back side, there is a flange that needed to be reduced too.
20151128_141337_zps56uokdij by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

That fit beautifully and the regulator functioned as intended now.

We decided to go ahead and try to get rid of the remainder of the tint on the back window. The clear plastic layer came off already so all that was left was sticky crap and actual tint. If you have removed tint before, then you know how shitty of a job this is. Below is a list of methods we tried.

• Windex and heat gun
• Purple power and heat
• Goof-Off and heat
• Dawn & water mix plus heat
• MAPP gas torch - It works, but obviously tons of heat on glass isn't great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP8Y7rKe2QA

We got about two thirds the way done and were just tired of farking with it so we turned our eyes to the quarter glass in the door. The picture below is after I pulled the glass from the door to make my life easier today.
20151129_134825_zpsnvcogbz5 by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

The rear door quarter is a ginormous pain in the ass. There is no info on the web that I could find that details how to remove the rear quarter glass from the car. Someone paid a lot of money to have this car tinted because the tint was way below visible parts of the windows.

I will show the proper order of removing the rear quarter glass on an e34 in pictures. Then I will comment on what is such a huge pain in the ass about the window.
20151129_160706_zpsvmrgqe3h by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

20151129_153423_zpsul9nfz3p by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

20151129_153318_zpsehduh5qy by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

20151129_153233_zps0otj33kl by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

20151129_153010_zps40r97ra9 by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

20151129_150730_zpsy1u4i0pk by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

20151129_150340_zpsmlplndn5 by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

20151129_150035_zpstf7fnode by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

20151129_150049_zpsfluvxwkx by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

Now, there are four clips that are holding in the window once you strip the door of pretty much every single seal. These clips are VERY well hidden and really, all four should be pushed in and pressure applied to the glass to get it to pop out. You need a thin tool and press up from the inside with the tool and with pressure applied outward.

The wrong way to do this is what we did. Do not try and pry on the glass from the top or pry the clips off from the outside. The problem for us was that we had no idea how to remove it. We did tear the outside edge of the window and then the clips were visible. The passenger side should be much easier for me.

Here is my new URO Parts hose that caused one of my leaks and the big pop sound and subsequent off gas under the hood in the video above. You can see the slit right along the mold marks.

20151129_065757_zpskas25c00 by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

[marshallnoise]

Spent some time not working on the car because of some family stuff and Thanksgiving. But I managed to get my new expansion tank installed and the block blown out to prepare for the Sierra Propylene Glycol coolant swap.

I don't have any pictures because this stuff is boring. Sorry.

In order to do the swap over to Evans or Sierra or Prestone Lowtox, you have to purge the whole block of water. Water is the one chemical that boils at a lower point than any of the three above. The idea is to have 97% to 100% coolant to effectively raise the boiling point way above a 50/50 mix. When you do, the liquid doesn't pressurize until it reaches its boiling point. For Prestone or Sierra, that's 319F and for Evans that is 379F both at 0psi. For straight water under 15psi it will boil at 250F. At 30psi, 273F. Since the system runs at 29psi from the factory and my car was boiling out, I decided to do the swap if only to lower the psi necessary to keep the car cool.

On the m60 there are two coolant plugs on the engine block that are difficult to gain access to. I was desperately avoiding trying to do this. LOL! I was successful because I did more research and found out that Evans recommends using a high volume, low pressure air source to blow out the engine block via any of the hoses accessible. Enter the leaf blower! Sure as shit, even after I drained the block and the radiator via the conventional methods, strapping a leaf blower to the system produced probably a gallon of water out of the car. It was crazy. I just left the leaf blower on for about 20 minutes until it was nice and dry. Then I swapped it the other direction and did the same thing.

Before installing the expansion tank, I wanted to swap out my throttle cable (which was clearly the original). Its a weird fitting that mounds to the firewall. When brand new or maybe 10 years old, the plastic that clips into the firewall remains pretty pliable. Well, not so after 20 years. I had to use a sawzall to cut it as close to the firewall as possible. Fortunately that worked and I got the new one installed. However, the throttle arm that attaches to the pedal simply was not even installed. I can't believe it. Haha! So I ordered new bushings for all three points on the arm. I will pick them up tomorrow after work.

In between working on my buddy's 4Runner's engine mount install, I fitted the new expansion tank and figured out how to read it. It uses chambers to indicate how full or empty the expansion tank is. It confused me for a while. until I could examine the new one. But I filled it up with 2.8 gallons of Sierra and fired it up. It ran for about a half hour and got nice and warm. The thermostat opened up as planned, then the 80c side of the coolant temp switch triggerd the Volvo fan and cycled three times before I shut her down for the evening. Other than a commute to my office, I am pretty darned confident in the system. To make sure that any excess pressure is just vented to the atmosphere, I removed the two o-rings from the stock expansion tank cap. That means no pressure at all will build up!

That wrapped up yesterday's efforts.

Today I managed to get a new shifter installed along with a new shifter cup. It was a bit of a challenge since it was my first time doing it on any BMW. But it made sense once the installed cup gave way and the shifter came out. I went with an e60 545i stick and wow, what a difference that makes. I also installed an e39 shifter weight that makes the throw even more effortless. I will take a picture of that tomorrow I think. Pretty pleased with that even though I haven't driven it yet.

One more purchase will happen while at the dealer tomorrow: The rubber shifter surround was simply trashed. It was in two pieces right before it became 500 pieces. Ha! No wonder I was getting immense heat and noise through the shifter hole.

[marshallnoise]

Test drive last night went well. Such a fun hooligan-in-a-suit car.

Drove it to work today and it went well too. Stop and go was perfect with the cooling fan coming on when needed. The only issue I had was when I was up to speed. The needle would go from dead middle to the first hash to the right and back to the middle about 4 times in my hour commute while at speed. The longest it would take is 10 seconds to go back down.

Drove back from work and didn't have any issues at all.

I was shuffling around in the garage tonight looking for parts for my for sale thread. Then I went back out when my wife came home and I saw it peeing coolant. Turns out the feed line into the heater matrix decided to let go. I tightened it up and it is good.

Here is the shifter setup. EDIT: Turns out the thing that looks like a weight that I bolted to the stick shift is a vibration dampener according to realoem. Looks like all BMWs after 96 had them.
20151215_182440_zpsbrpif9rw by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

And for some reason, there is a light that was buried under the shifter console. Any ideas what the heck that is for?
20151215_182454_zps23fcoulr by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

I now have an account at Mossy BMW. New shifter rubber isolater is on order and will be in tomorrow. While there, I checked the price for a new key. $210. Fuck. Me.

[marshallnoise]

I think I need a new thermostat. Fuuuuu.