
Apologies for teaching you to suck eggs, but you do know they're a left-hand thread?TheDan said:Hey all,
Been trying to remove my VANOS this morning and it appears I have managed to round the 8mm allen bolt for the piston caps.
As there is such limited space, I can't get a typical bolt remover on it.
What would you guys advise?
Aren’t the covers, with 8mm allen, just ordinary right hand threaded? And the plastic caps just pull out, and underneath them the splined shaft piston bolts Torx 30 left hand threaded.enuff_zed said:Apologies for teaching you to suck eggs, but you do know they're a left-hand thread?TheDan said:Hey all,
Been trying to remove my VANOS this morning and it appears I have managed to round the 8mm allen bolt for the piston caps.
As there is such limited space, I can't get a typical bolt remover on it.
What would you guys advise?
My mistake. Didn't realise which bits you meant.TheDan said:Yeah the covers are normal thread and the bolts underneath are LH thread. I heard the covers were tight to crack off, but damn!!
I think I'll have to grab a good set of bolt extractors (my set is too small) and try again tomorrow.
Thanks for the advice though guys!![]()

TheDan said:Yep, lucky the X8R kit comes with spare covers (phew!).
Thankfully I managed to get it off with a combination of breaker bar + hammering in a larger Torx bit.
I was in the process of removing the front end so I could get a drill at it, but fortunately I got it off before having to remove the front cross brace entirely. The extra space meant the VANOS just slid off with none of the normal Z4 VANOS access issues!!![]()
Replacing the seals and needle bearings (why not since I've come this far) now and will put it all back together in the morning.
PXL_20220709_173105273.jpg
"Perseverance is stubbornness with a purpose."
bigwinn said:Well done mate- that’s working the problem in action
Why not have a beer to cool off
TheDan said:Thankfully I managed to get it off with a combination of breaker bar + hammering in a larger Torx bit.