1997 BMW M3 coupe

I am off today. It's a very nice day except for the Sahara dust storm that makes the sky all hazy. I have not driven the S2000 since October of last year, I need to drive it more. 

Went to Wawa, topped off the gas tank and aired up the tires. Only took 4 gallons

Drive it some more and stopped at an Advance Auto for some valve grinding compound:

I then swung by a buddy of mine's to check this

Four of us chipped in and bought it about 6 years ago as we had some injectors that needed cleaning and it was going to pay for itself. 

Plenty of spares to rebuild and clean the Bosch EV-1 on the e36:

We'll take care of the injectors later, going to lap the valves first.

Started with the intake valves, the exhaust ones are going to be a bear. 

Got this suction cap doohickey from Harbor Freight, I believe. 



Smear some of the valve compound on the valve near the seat. 



and go at it with the doohickey spinning it back and forth. Make sure each valve is lapped in the seat it came out of. 

Wasn't so bad. 





Make sure the valve is seated all the way around and that the seat is properly cut as well. Once you are finished, clean everything thoroughly. 

After a few valves it became evident that I needed to find an easier way to do this. Found a 3/8" aluminum rod and cut a small piece out of it. 



Chucked it on the drill and placed the suction cup on the other end. 

Much easier. All intake valves done. 

Did not do much this weekend. 

Finished lapping all the exhaust valves. They cleaned up much faster than I anticipated. 

I ended up taping up the headgasket surface just in case. The last thing I need is to drop something on it and scratch it.

I ordered a few dremel tools on Amazon to try and clean the chambers and intake/exhaust ports. Nothing major, just want to remove the carbon build up. 



I am also contemplating drilling an extra port in the water jacket for an aftermarket gauge. It looks like there is an unused spot from the factory. 

I also got off my butt and put a list of parts together needed to finish this. There is probably about $200 of extra parts there that are not needed, but might as well as I am there and everything is easily accesible.

Order placed, it said that it should arrive between the 17-21 ... so hopefully in a couple of weeks we finish this off!

Not much to report except that I received confirmation today that the parts are shipping tomorrow. Hopefully they get here before the weekend, not sure of VA to FL takes two days or three, we'll find out soon. 


 

This morning I did some more work on what I had here. 

I first took four old head bolts and machined the heads off. Most likely I will be putting the head myself and these will help me guide it onto the block. I will use them as head studs and then remove them once the head is on.

I basically turn the heads down to the same size as the major diameter on the threads. That left me with some of the e-torx features in order to unscrew it using the wrench. 

These things are made of some hard stuff. I chucked them deep into the chuck so that the first threads would not be in contact with the jaws, but even then they are hard enough that nothing would have happened.  







I then used an assortment of these pads and the Dremel to clean the combustion chambers and all runners as best as I could. 



There was A LOT of caked up carbon deposits, they did easy work and the head came out looking quite good. 









After I was done cleaning and happy with the results, I quickly lapped the valves once more. A couple of times the tool slipped off and hit the sealing area. I don't think any damage was done, but lapping them again make me feel good. 

Then onto the scary part. These cars were OB1 up through 1996 and 1997 on they became OBD2. Sometime in that time frame the cars went from using 2 temperature sensors to a single sensor that replaced the 2. That means that the head has only one port for a temp sensor but the feature where the second sensor was is still there. I wanted to drill and tap a 1/8-27 NPT for an aftermarket water temp gauge. 

I marked a centerline with a Sharpie and then took a center punch and located what I though was the right spot. 



Off to the drill press with a -Q- drill to give it a shot. I mean what is the worst that could happen. 

And drill until you hit the water jacket. A small chamfer was added right after drilling. 



Got a tap and a few different handles and off we went to tap this thing. 

I have a thread gauge but used the sensor to make sure I got 3.5 turns of engagement on it. Tapered threads are easy to mess up. Luckily everything worked out as planned. 

Yellow is the factory sensor, red is the new sensor and green is the throttle body coolant supply. This was just for testing, Teflon tape will be used on the sensor as NPT threads should always use it. 


 

Looks like Saturday is the day I get the parts.

In the meantime maybe I install a set of Bimmerworld GrpN replica motor mounts that I've had for a few years now. They are easily accessible without the head in the way. 



I also saw while looking for the mounts that I have a whole bunch of parts to install in the car, most of it is clutch related. Maybe I should have pulled the whole engine/transmission. 



I want to drive the car a bit and then pull the transmission and do the clutch and shifter detents. The clutch is ok but the throwout bearing makes a racket. Will see if I can get a track day in between. 

Parts finally arrived today. 

I started by installing the valve seals. These just push in by hand. I bathed them in oil one by one before putting them in, not sure its needed but it will not hurt. 



These are part of the headgasket set:

The little red caps are placed on the valve tips to protect the seals. Like so:

I decided against using those red caps as the valve would have to go in first and that would make installing the seals by hand more difficult. I thought about using a socket to push the seal in but I did not like how they fit over it. 





All in

Next I put the valve in the proper spot, the spring seat, spring and retainer. The keepers go next to keep it all in place:

Installing these keepers proved to be a royal pita. I don't know if its because these BMW ones have 3 ridges, I am getting old or a combinations of both. I tried them dry, and then started placing some assembly lube on the tip of the valves. It kind of helped but it's still a pain.

Might also be my cumbersome spring compressor. 

Cylinder 1 done:

I did two cylinders and stopped for the night. It's frustrating and I don't want to scratch anything, I am in no rush. 

I machined a new spacer for the valve compressor, the one I had was too short and was driving me insane as the "window" was too small and made it difficult to place the keepers on the valve.

Chucked a bar on the lathe, cut the OD and then drilled it.  





I then cut it and brought it to the Bridgeport to put a slot on it.

The result:

Made it way easier to see inside and install the keepers:

Results, I put in three valves and it is still a major pita. It takes half the time now, but its still difficult and cumbersome. 

I installed a total of 11 valves out of 24. Contemplating buying another spring compressor on Amazon. Or maybe I will just install 4 each day. I feel like I need one more hand. 

I was looking at maybe ordering one of these, not sure its worth spending $50 for 13 valves ... that's $4 a valve lol. 

Does anyone have any experience with them?

My main problem I think is the stress of scratching the freshly decked surface with the stupid C- clamp. 

Ignore the previous post:

24/24 done. 

See?  That wasn't so bad?  Did you just get into a 2 hour groove?

I had a bunch of thoughts, but now I guess those are moot.  I'll ask anyway, since it's mostly conjecture on my part:

Would masking tape protect that shiny new head surface?

Could you put a dab of grease on each of those valve-stem retainers?  So that they would tend to stick to the valve during assembly?

BTW, I like the new adapter - simple milling project that makes a huge different.  So satisfying.

In reply to TVR Scott (Forum Supporter) :

I did! I got frustrated and started watching TV, then at around 10 I went back and did all the remaining valves with problems. 

Tape would have definitely helped, but I did not have any. I used all I had before when I cleaned the chambers. 

I used grease on both the valve and keepers, it helped. Main problem is that I was using a small flathead screwdriver to install the keepers and at some point it became magnetized and it was difficult to release them in the right place. 

Today I will install the cam trays, cams and hopefully finish most of it off. Might take the day off tomorrow and stay home to finish this. 

SilverFleet said:

I look forward to more installments. Good story so far.

 I'm looking forward to the rest of the story and the track prep

Tell me more about the shifter detent mod you referenced earlier. 
 

I have a 98 m3 and wonder if it is something I should be aware of

In reply to jfryjfry (Forum Supporter) :

That affected all these cars with the ZF manual transmission. Basically if your shifter does not center itself in neutral then you need to change the detents and springs. 

I have only done it with the transmission on the bench, its easy that way as long as you have the tools. Not sure how much of a pain it would be with the transmission on the car. 

Look at this shifter while in neutral and how it stays where you put it:

Trying to pick up where I left. Been busy but made quite a bit of progress. 

One of the things I did before putting the head back on was to change the motor mounts for the Bimmerworld GrpN knock offs.

The process is quite simple. Undo bottom and upper nuts, raise engine, remove and replace mounts. 

It turned out to be a royal pain in the ass as I could not get the bottom nut out. I spent a good 30' trying to get to it until I realized the top nut is 16mm and the bottom is 17mm. Once I figure that out it was a cake in the park. 

With the head off both of the top nuts where a cake in the park to remove:

To get to the bottom nut, you have to go through the holes in the control arms. Once you realize its a 17mm its a simple task. 

A deep socket would not work for me, had to use a shorty as it would not clear the crossmember otherwise. 



Lift the engine, making sure to use wood between the jack and oil pan:



Neither of the mounts was compressed, but the driver's side was completely ripped off. 



Make sure you reinstall the heat shield on the passenger mount and torque them to the correct spec, 33 ft-lb for the 6 cylinder engines.