TwoAndAQuarter
Member
Hi all,
I've been suffering from excess pressure in the coolant system over the past few weeks on my 98MY DSE, which, a few days ago, culminated in complete loss of power, the temperature gauge fully in the red and a blown top hose. Driving with the expansion tank cap off allowed me to get home relatively unscathed. Evidently the head has cracked, or at the very minimum the head gasket has let go.
As such, I've now stripped down the motor to allow the head to come off. However, I've reached quite a substantial hurdle whilst using the Laser copies of the BMW special tooling:
When the engine is roughly timed at Cylinder 1 TDC compression stroke (cam lobes both pointing up), I locate the flywheel hole using a borescope, the engine rotated very slightly on the flywheel pulley to perfectly align, and then I can insert the flywheel locking tool to prevent the crank from moving. No problems there.
However, I then move to using the camshaft retaining plate to lock the camshaft, but reach a problem. The plate does not correctly line up with the camshaft in this position. It wants to be rotated clockwise to allow the bottom of the plate to be flush with the top of the cylinder head. However, this is of course is not possible with the flywheel locked in place.
It looks like my engine timing is out and that the camshaft is several degrees behind the crank, however I can't see how this is possible as the engine ran very smoothly, despite the overheating. I am assuming the plate needs to be flush with the top of the head to secure the cam properly?
If so, I am either inserting the flywheel locking tool into the wrong hole (it contains plenty of holes, but the small hole I am using is the perfect size for the tool) or my timing has indeed skipped. I am always cautious of turning an engine backwards, but perhaps I did this whilst working on it and this allowed it to skip a tooth? The engine completes a full cycle without any binding, so it doesn't feel like valves are hitting pistons.
Suggestions welcomed.
I've been suffering from excess pressure in the coolant system over the past few weeks on my 98MY DSE, which, a few days ago, culminated in complete loss of power, the temperature gauge fully in the red and a blown top hose. Driving with the expansion tank cap off allowed me to get home relatively unscathed. Evidently the head has cracked, or at the very minimum the head gasket has let go.
As such, I've now stripped down the motor to allow the head to come off. However, I've reached quite a substantial hurdle whilst using the Laser copies of the BMW special tooling:
When the engine is roughly timed at Cylinder 1 TDC compression stroke (cam lobes both pointing up), I locate the flywheel hole using a borescope, the engine rotated very slightly on the flywheel pulley to perfectly align, and then I can insert the flywheel locking tool to prevent the crank from moving. No problems there.
However, I then move to using the camshaft retaining plate to lock the camshaft, but reach a problem. The plate does not correctly line up with the camshaft in this position. It wants to be rotated clockwise to allow the bottom of the plate to be flush with the top of the cylinder head. However, this is of course is not possible with the flywheel locked in place.
It looks like my engine timing is out and that the camshaft is several degrees behind the crank, however I can't see how this is possible as the engine ran very smoothly, despite the overheating. I am assuming the plate needs to be flush with the top of the head to secure the cam properly?
If so, I am either inserting the flywheel locking tool into the wrong hole (it contains plenty of holes, but the small hole I am using is the perfect size for the tool) or my timing has indeed skipped. I am always cautious of turning an engine backwards, but perhaps I did this whilst working on it and this allowed it to skip a tooth? The engine completes a full cycle without any binding, so it doesn't feel like valves are hitting pistons.
Suggestions welcomed.
