M42club.com - Home of the BMW E30/E36 318i/iS

DISCUSSION => General Topics => Topic started by: e30work on June 24, 2011, 07:08:54 PM

Title: engine teardown from overheating
Post by: e30work on June 24, 2011, 07:08:54 PM

picked up another project that had issues with over heating, heres some info on the car.

- 270k milage
- bubbles in coolant revisor and a lot of smoke and hot pressure out of bleeder
- loosing coolant i think (filled it up two gallons)
- no white smoke i think (just let it idle didn't what to risk damaging the head)
- car idles but has symptoms of bad misfire
- milky residue on oil cap and dip stick
- oil seems watery but no positive
- coolant seems clean

i just assumed it had a bad gasket or a cracked head so i pulled it. tell me what you think. what can cause the bubble and pressure in the coolant system? head gasket and profile gasket look perfect. cylinder 2 exhaust port are a little opened and cylinder 3 intake port are opened. could be lifter or??

(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0356.jpg)
(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0358.jpg)
(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0360.jpg)
(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0366.jpg)
(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0368.jpg)
(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0370.jpg)
(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0372.jpg)
(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0374.jpg)
(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0376.jpg)
(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0378.jpg)
(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0380.jpg)
(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0382.jpg)
(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0384.jpg)
(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0386.jpg)
(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0388.jpg)
(http://i338.photobucket.com/albums/n440/PaperMATE9999/IMG_0390.jpg)

Title: engine teardown from overheating
Post by: dakon on July 11, 2011, 12:27:48 AM

looks like you had a blown head gasket at cylinder #4 on the intake side of the block. look at the back of the head gasket looks like coolant on the gasket to me from the photo you took... from what i have learned, the most common place for the M42 head to crack is the large coolant channel next to cylinder #2...


I would also tell you to take a roloc pads and clean the bottom of the head, and check it very carefully for cracks, from the photos you took i can not see any cracks. However the head was not perfectly clean when you took your photos.. I recently rebuild my head, including 2 cracks, all new lifters, 4 new exhaust valves, all new exhaust valve guides, and new valve seats cut. my bill was right at 800$...


You can take the cams out to check the lifters, if they do not rebound after being compressed they are shot.. a set of new lifters is right at 200$ from blunttech, and he was the least expensive i could find.

Good luck on your adventure, i went though the same thing last December......