Waauuuuw my 1000th post, so I suppose I'd better make it a meaningful one!
With that said, maybe a quick close-out, rounding off, conclusion to this epic thread perhaps?
Not sure how many of you stuck with me through this one, I've had a lot of support and encouragement and that's been instrumental in enabling me to get back up and running with Betty. But, for those who stumble accross this thread in the hope of finding a solution to similar problems you might be having then I hope it helps in some small way!
In summary, this all started out in September when I was out for a walk in the woods in Arnhem - the throttle body, as correctly identified by MachineMonkey, failed. Sourced a second hand one for 60 quid off ebay and it fixed the problem
However, it seemed to spawn a few more issues, whether as an effect of the TB issue I'll never know but I notced a really bad idle and also oil smoke coming from the vicinity of the rear of the cam cover.
After a bit of research it seems that a leaky, hardened cam cover gasket and a failed CCV valve were the most viable suspects so I set about replacing these. And there's where the fun started; a huge amount of time was wasted in not speccing the correct parts and this was partly my fault and partly the shambolic description of the online parts retailer i used, namely autodoc.nl and auto-onderdelen24.nl. These are both associated retailers and part of a much larger international concern and as such, even though their prices are pretty keen the delivery times were lamentable to say the least! The lesson here maybe is to go for a retailer with a guaranteed delivery time even though they may be a tad more expensive. Your local BMW dealer could also in fact have the parts available for the best price too!
As a keen amateur, the most exotic procedure I'd ever carried out previously on any car I've owned was an oil change and let's face it, next door's cat can do that! So it was with a fair amount of trepidation countered by an equal degree of motivation to save a few quid, plus the chance to learn some new tricks that I started researching how to do these fixes.
The cam cover was fairly straight forward. Loosen a few bolts, remove coilpacks, undo harness, pry off the cover and bob's yer mum's brother! Sure enough the existing gasket was probably the original one and was hardened, especially around the spark plug holes. On with the new one after carefully cleaning all surfaces and a few dabs of Permatex aircraft gasketmaker in the corners. However, there was still burning oil smoke emanating from the same area. The gasket was re-seated and after a few whiffs of smoke it seems to have setled down. Whether this was oil that had collected on the exhaust manifold that was still burning off I won't know. Maybe the re-seat wasn't necessary, but it's always a good idea to check and double check your own work.
The CCV system replacement was a bit trickier. I ordered the cold climate version which comes with thicker insulation. I'll be doing some trips to Norway and Poland possibly in the winter months so a bit of winterizing when the opportunity arises is always a good move. The caveat however was that even though the existing CCV system was easy to remove, the new one, coupled with the limited amount of space to work with required the inlet manifold to come off to give some room for manouvering during the install. You need to factor in at least a day if you're a novice like me. Maybe half a day for experienced mechanics, if not less.
On breaking open the old valve I saw a small rupture in the rubber diaphragm which confirmed the rough idle issue and confirmed that replacement was necessary.
Another painful lesson I learned was not to overtighten fasteners or bolts as I stripped the heads from a couple of torx bolts holding the DISA valve in position. What a chew that was and it's documented in a separate thread.
So barring a few twists and turns and notwithstanding a few remaining electrical issues including a potentially failed airbag module everything now seems to be hunky dory from a mechanical perspective. Had some wonderful spirited drives subsequently and life with Betty once again is all good
Next on the list is to tackle a leaky oil filter housing gasket and as a bit of preventive maintenance I'll be swapping in a new stat and waterpump and belts at the same time as theyre all located very close to each other.
Concluding, the devil most definitely is in the detail! Doing the research, sourcing the parts and tackling the issues has been hugely rewarding and I certainly may have done things a lot worse if I hadn't had this amazing forum to fall back on for advice. Hence, if you're thinking about diving in and trying your own repairs I'd say go for it!
Hope this post helps/motivates anyone with similar issues in the future...!
Many thanks once again to all who offered words of encouragement and advice!
