Spring maintenance PLUS

Welcome back to the 14th year since the build started. 

The intention this time was simply to get the car ready for the new season, oil and filter change etc. thinking things would be straight forward. Well, I ended up leaving it until the beginning of April, which in hindsight wasn't a great idea. 

I took a quick drive around the block and back in the garage I found a smallish oil leak at the joint between the left corner of the lower camshaft housing, the upper housing and joint between head and block. This meant a lot more time to strip down, replace gaskets etc.

At the same time I also wanted to finally fix the issue with changing the oil filter. 

Difficult to see the leak but it's in a very awkward place.

Seems to be a common problem with this engine.

First thing, strip away as much as possible starting with emptying the radiator, pipes etc. 

Off with the crankshaft bolt. Luckily I have the long tool I was given by a Scania friend to lock the crankshaft to the garage floor.

Water pump needed to be pulled out by using screws (see BMW manual) Should have taken the pump off before taking the lower timing chain cover off as there was still water in the system.

Everything off, ready to put back new gaskets.

Change coolant pump gasket.

Pump bolted back in place.

New crankshaft seal

New lower timing chain cover gaskets. Also replaced upper timing chain cover gasket and profile gasket

.

New head cover gaskets

Coolant connector flange bolted back. Thermostat was only cleaned.

Cylinder head cover bolted and torqued.

Oil Filter Solution

I should have solved this a long time ago. The fact I had to remove the whole of the inlet manifold including the supercharger and mountings to be able to unscrew the top of the housing to get to the filter.

No space left to remove the oil filter.

The filter cover hits the mounting bracket of the supercharger.

The only option I could see was to file off part of the supercharger bracket to allow the oil cover to be fully unscrewed. Then I checked RealOEM to see if there was another oil filter holder that could be compatible. I first looked at the gasket part number and clicked on the associated link.

To get this:

Then I chose the 5 series E34 518i

The gasket (6) on the E36 318is is the same (same part number) as gasket (9) for the E34 518i and a few other BMW engines eg. E30 316i. So I basically assumed the engine block was compatible with both. The E34 filter holder looks shorter and with a center bolt fixing. So this could be the perfect solution, if it's totally compatible.

My oil filter housing removed. The same green gasket.

Shout out to Per, owner of Bil & Motorteknik who checked to see if he had one available. Well he did and (long story short) I got hold of one!

Side by side a perfect match.

A quick check with the inlet and supercharger in place to see if it actually fitted.

It did hurray!

Cleaned up, a new gasket and bolted in place.

Alternator bracket back on.

Fits perfectly.

Back together, only the radiator to go.

Note to self: When connecting the fuel in and out pipes it's a great deal easier to remove the whole fuel rail!

Okay don't look at the weeds! Out for a test drive. All working fine apart from a small radiator leak.

to be continued ....