Awesome post - thanks for your diligence in photographing your progress for the rest of us.
Eric
Others have posted pics of their work, and it has helped me immensely. I figured I would try to return the favor!
You haven't done the delete under heater plate mod? Any reasons? Maybe I missed it.
I thought about deleting the stuff. However, after 11 years of E30 ownership, I have found that it is best not to second-guess BMW engineers. Although I doubt that I will ever have throttle icing problems, I do like ot go to the mountains and backpack/climb a lot, so it could happen someday, in a very remote & inconvenient location!
That is great work, especially since you've already done some of the things I was considering. Thanks for the warning about RTV on the profile gasket...I'd definitely have made that mistake.
I'm looking forward to seeing if your methods for sealing the gaskets perform as expected.
Yeah, the RTV seemed like a good idea, but it made things difficult. I think that some heavy silicone assembly lube is what you want to put on the bottom of the head and the top of the gasket. Still seal the bottom of the gasket to the timing case with RTV though (Permatex Ultra Black seems like quality stuff).
You should also put a heavy blob on the ends when you go to install the cover & its rubber gasket so that oil won't leat out of the junction. The inner gasket had stretched in my case, and I had to cut the ends off to get the outer gasket on, so I worked RTV in with my fingers to get it in any possible breach at the ends of the inner gasket. Then I added a blob for good measure & installed the cover + outer gasket.
I do seem to be getting some oil leaking into the center runner of my skid plate (OEM one), but it seems to be from the back of the engine. I have yet to get under there & determine the source. I thought I found oil a couple times, but it turned out to be coolant+water mixed with the old oily grime on the plate. It might just be more run-off from bleeding mixed with residual oil on the plate. I HOPE it is anyway!
If it isn't, then my guess would be the rear main seal since I haven't replaced that. I do not see anything coming off of the front of the engine where I was "working."
Oh, and if anyone in the Bay Area needs to borrow my crank locking tool, feel free to ask. I won't ship it though. The thing weighs like 40lbs!
