Maintenance Day for a fellow Z4-Forum Person

S

Shipkiller

Veteran
Fellow member 'Reach' brought is Z down from the DC area this morning and we performed the Vano repair on is Zed.

Never met the guy but I am always willing to help a driver out....

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Some of the neigbours thought I bought another Zed... :rofl: :rofl:

Not yet is my response....

After driving his SMG, the only thing I can say is: I like it...

Of course I am not use to driving a SMG, but with some pointers from him, I really got into it.... That is a good gear box...
 
Damn man, beat me to it! I'll have to get the pics off my SLR. shipkiller's engine knowledge was a great help, and his steady set of hands that had performed this procedure before was very helpful. Pretty much all I had to do was man the hacksaw. Brute force is usually my forte.

BlackSapphireZ, it doesn't matter what year its from, if its an M54 with over 30k miles, its ready for the vanos seal repair. On the way home I achieved 32mpg, total sustained, as calculated from a fillup and reset as I left shipkiller's house, to filling up back by my house. I haven't even reset the ECM yet to let it re-learn. The theory is, with another 500 miles of city-type driving, efficiency will get even better. Of course, 32 is tops, thats all highway, but I was already getting ~25mpg true/mixed driving a tank, and if I can eek another 1-2mpg out of that, it would be fantastic. I'm not exactly light on the go pedal either, this isn't granny footing it.
 
Quick question, is there an easy test to see if my vanos is bad? The site just basically says all of them are bad.
 
Some engine pics (more later). We were impressed with how clean it was internally for 32k miles. Click the pics for uber-sized.







 
Defy said:
Quick question, is there an easy test to see if my vanos is bad? The site just basically says all of them are bad.
Click to expand...

They are all bad. Or if it isn't yet, it will be. Symptoms generally start to appear after 30k miles. I had just started to notice the bogging when shipkiller informed me about this via his original thread.

Read this for a primer and the procedure: http://www.beisansystems.com/procedures/vanos_procedure.htm
The first 3 sections, "Introduction" "Symptoms", and "Diagnosis" specifically.
 
DIY?

i may need to do this then... although my car runs perfectly fine :)

i do have 81k and get average of 28 on the hwy on a GOOD day... for 32...I'll spend few hours on some rubber O rings lol
 
yeah mine just rolled 50k, but i bought it at 40 so it might have already been bad. I am trying to get one of my buddies to bring his Z down so we can do 2 at a time. i figured 4 hours on the first one and 2ish one the second one! Side note: The first pic looks like shipkiller's car ate a can of shaving cream :D
 
Defy said:
yeah mine just rolled 50k, but i bought it at 40 so it might have already been bad. I am trying to get one of my buddies to bring his Z down so we can do 2 at a time. i figured 4 hours on the first one and 2ish one the second one! Side note: The first pic looks like shipkiller's car ate a can of shaving cream :D
Click to expand...

Shaving Cream... :rofl: :rofl: I was replacing my B1S1 and B2S1 O2 sensors.....

Two hours my arse....

It's a four hour job. No matter what... This was my second job and it still took four + hours.

The problem is that on the Z4, you only have three, maybe four inch clearance between the vanos and the front cross piece.
Then on 'Reaches Zed', we could not get the vanos out of the car. We ended up cutting three threads from one of the vanos mounting studs. I was not happy with this but it was the least invasive way to get enough room to get the damn thing out of the car. :headbang:

I hate doing crap like that.....
 
Now you could go to Dr. Vanos (http://www.drvanos.com/index2.html) and order a new vanos with the new O-rings already installed for $350+$150 Core charge but that only reduces your total tool time by about 30 to 40 mins.

It only takes 30 to 40 minutes to disassemble the vanos assemble, pull the old O-rings out, install the new ones and put it back together...

All the other time is just getting it out and back in.... Properly.
 
Shipkiller said:
Two hours my arse....

It's a four hour job. No matter what... This was my second job and it still took four + hours.

The problem is that on the Z4, you only have three, maybe four inch clearance between the vanos and the front cross piece.
Then on 'Reaches Zed', we could not get the vanos out of the car. We ended up cutting three threads from one of the vanos mounting studs. I was not happy with this but it was the least invasive way to get enough room to get the damn thing out of the car. :headbang:

I hate doing crap like that.....
Click to expand...

So thats how bubble heads fix cars, buy cutting them up :poke: :fuelfire: being the son of a BT and growing up with wrenches in my hand i would normally challenge you, but seeing how you are the one who has done this i guess i will have to :bow: out.

na, for real though i hope i don't have to cut anything!
 
I did not have to cut on mine.

It could be that when the drive train is mounted to the car, there is a little slop in the chassis so the engine could be 1/8th to 1/4" further forward compared to my car...
 
Shipkiller said:
Fellow member 'Reach' brought is Z down from the DC area this morning and we performed the Vano repair on is Zed.
Never met the guy but I am always willing to help a driver out....
Click to expand...

:thumbsup: You would make a very good neighbor!

Best!
Jack
 
Not after next weekend.

Next Tuesday, I get to spend 70+ days in sunny New London, Connecticut.

Without my Zed.......... :thumbsdown:
 
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