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

[TimeMachinE30]

Congrats on the account a your local parts desk. I just did the same.

Get wholesale pricing? I linked the parts manager to Tischer/Silver Spring BMW and they honored their prices for me locally.

[marshallnoise]

Congrats on the account a your local parts desk. I just did the same.

Get wholesale pricing? I linked the parts manager to Tischer/Silver Spring BMW and they honored their prices for me locally.

Nice! Yeah, my discount is about 20% off retail. I doubt it is wholesale. But having a local source is nice when I don't want to wait. Plus, Rob is an e21 freak. Its nice to talk with folks who know about these older cars.

I often think about trying to become a service writer. Depends on how much they get paid.

[marshallnoise]

Got out there today and replaced the thermostat with a cheap Duralast brand thermostat from Autozone. Its a 185 degree model (85c) and drove around all day with it. Not once did the car go past center. I think I have the cooling system licked.

As a recap, I am running 100% Sierra Pet Safe coolant which is propylene glycol and virtually identical to regular Evans NPG. The system is zero pressure (well, very low) and I have de-oringed the old cap I had. Plus I leave it cracked and not fully tight. The thermostat is an 85c model 4188 from Autozone and the temp switch triggers at 80c/88c hooked up to a Volvo fan relay and fan. I will provide updates to how it performs over the coming months. Judging from everyone elses' experience, I am feeling good about this.

[marshallnoise]

Got out there today and replaced the thermostat with a cheap Duralast brand thermostat from Autozone. Its a 185 degree model (85c) and drove around all day with it. Not once did the car go past center. I think I have the cooling system licked.

As a recap, I am running 100% Sierra Pet Safe coolant which is propylene glycol and virtually identical to regular Evans NPG. The system is zero pressure (well, very low) and I have de-oringed the old cap I had. Plus I leave it cracked and not fully tight. The thermostat is an 85c model 4188 from Autozone and the temp switch triggers at 80c/88c hooked up to a Volvo fan relay and fan. I will provide updates to how it performs over the coming months. Judging from everyone elses' experience, I am feeling good about this.

Gahhh! It's not fixed! Same thing is happening as before. I am posting over on Bimmerforums since they have a larger e34 forum setup over there.

The gauge is more or less doing what it did before. In the streets, it will stay at middle on the gauge. No issues. When on the highway, it will play normal and then all of a sudden creep up to the first hash mark and sometimes a little beyond. Then it will come back to center all on its own.

To add to the weird gauge issues, I am having strange things happening with the expansion tank. I will fill it to where it should be. Go for a drive. Check the level and then it is empty. I top it to where it should be. Go for a drive, and now it is full and overflowing. Then I park it, and it is empty again. Top it to where it should be. Go for a drive. Check it, and it is right where it should be. It is maddening.

Gonna re-bypass the heater valves just in case.

[sublimation]

Even though the block test you did turned up negative, it still sounds like you have HG issues.

[marshallnoise]

Even though the block test you did turned up negative, it still sounds like you have HG issues.

I know you say that, but I guess I am not understanding what that means. If I pulled plugs, are you thinking I would see coolant in the cylinders?

Here is a video I just shot for S&Gs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9uJ7HwtqOI

[marshallnoise]

I did some more research on the block tester I used. I don't think I did it right so I may have another go with that. I also may try a leak down test at some point. I will see how it goes tomorrow though after driving it to work.

EDIT:

Per this webpage about using the block tester, I did have coolant mix with the liquid, but it did not change temperature.

1. With the radiator cap off, the engine should be warm and allowed to idle during the test. The coolant must be warm and circulating while the test is in progress.

2. Remove the rubber bulb from the test instrument and proceed to pour the test fluid into the instrument to the “fill to here” line. Reinstall the rubber bulb into top plug with the metal valve end up.

3. Either siphon off or drain the coolant so that the level is 2 to 3 inches below the neck of the radiator. This will prevent antifreeze from being drawn into the test instrument, causing a false positive reading. Should coolant contaminate the bromothymol, remove the test instrument and clean the unit before attempting the testing process again.

4. Insert the tester firmly into neck of radiator, so that a seal is formed with the inner neck of the radiator. Squeeze the bulb to draw air from the radiator through the test fluid.

5. If the fluid turns yellow, a combustion leak is present. If the fluid remains blue, your engine is healthy and good to go.

[marshallnoise]

Here is the coolant level when I came out this morning. It was super full when I shut it down last night.
20151223_072952_zpsdvvc4epq by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

Then a 2 mile drive to the grocery store this morning.
20151223_073656_zpsjlimgjbw by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

When I drove a mile back to Vatozone to get the block tester.
20151223_074925_zpsncwvdr3f by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

And when I drove 32 miles all highway to work.
20151223_084256_zpsyu7uuaor by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

[marshallnoise]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSWl05PXxGI

I performed a block test and it came back clean. So I am not having head gasket issues that are revealed by the block tester.

Before I did this test, the car had been at rest for about 2.5 hours. The level dropped to square in the middle of the tank.

[Jb325is]

I tried to read back through this to get an idea of whats going on, but how are you bleeding this thing?

[marshallnoise]

I tried to read back through this to get an idea of whats going on, but how are you bleeding this thing?

According to BMW, its self bleeding. The heater should be going full blast. It's really confusing because there are so many different theories on how to bleed them.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

[Jb325is]

Yeah my 540i was not that easy, my 535i never required any bleeding though (with same firewall resevoir), so go figure. Smelling coolant ever when driving? Make sure your return/vent line from radiator back to resevoir isn't clogged

I went through some stuff when I have mine, but it was a really long time ago so I can't recall what I did.

[marshallnoise]

Yeah my 540i was not that easy, my 535i never required any bleeding though (with same firewall resevoir), so go figure. Smelling coolant ever when driving? Make sure your return/vent line from radiator back to resevoir isn't clogged

I went through some stuff when I have mine, but it was a really long time ago so I can't recall what I did.

It is such a strange car in respect to this cooling situation. Did you ever have big fluctuations in the coolant levels in the tank of either your 535i or 540i?

The return/vent line itself is brand new. I will clean out the reservoir vent just in case. I have parked it across the street from my house which points the nose down about 20 degrees. This puts the tank way higher than any other point in the cooling system. I am going to let it cool then see if the expansion tank empties again.

After bypassing the heater core circuit, the car now fluctuates on the temp gauge even when going slow or sitting there idling. When cruising on the highway, it stays dead even. So the symptoms have flipped! And there is plenty of coolant in the tank mind you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68a6-AYBP9E

There are three more scenarios that I can come up with that explain this phenomenon.

1. There is a broken piece of plastic water pump impeller somewhere in the cylinder heads or the block.
2. The water pump while looking good and sounding fine (no bearing noise) is actually bad.
3. The coolant temp sensors in the coolant manifold are swapped causing strange readings.

Regarding the third in the list above; there is a white and black temp sensor. And there is a white and black plug. I have plugged the white plug into the white sensor and likewise with the black plug into the black sensor. Is this wrong?

[marshallnoise]

My thread at Bimmerforums really is helping a bit. I think the idea that these cars are self-bleeding is a bit of a misnomer.

This is what it takes to self-bleed a BMW.

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

You have to have the ass end of the car significantly higher than the front (to make darned sure the expansion tank is the highest point in the system), rev the crap out of a hot engine with the cap off and watch for air to pass through a tiny ass hole in the expansion tank. Still don't know if I am out of the woods yet, but I did this for a good 15 minutes.

[marshallnoise]

I ain't got no heat

While I am waiting to drive the car tomorrow to see how the bleeding I did tonight worked, I decided to mess with my heater valves since I had no idea if the valves were stuck or if I wasn't getting 12v at the plug. Since the setup was off the car as it was, I decided to bring it in the house and use a 9v battery to actuate the valves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr-I5Lwk64U

Since you can tell one of the valves seemed a little weaker than the other, I decided to rip it apart and clean the plungers et cetera. I lied in the video (or just thought better of it).

Here is a video of me playing with the thing after I cleaned the plungers up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNkj3pKvBfQ

The moral to this story in my particular situation is that I need to figure out why the car is not getting 12v to the module which should allow heat. I believe it is at the control module where my problem is. I could do what Vivek had done and just wire up a manual switch that has 12v always to it and then ground it out to turn heat on. We'll see.