E30 318i M40: Camshaft and valve condition

I whipped the rocker cover off to check if there was a dropped valve or broken spring that might be contributing to the poorly idle, but no such defect found. In fact, this has to be one of the cleanest top ends I have ever seen. Nice!

E46 318i Touring: Oil leak fixed! Rubber rocker-cover gasket was the culprit!

It's about time I got back to wrenching on some Beemers after a busy hiatus, so where better to start than with the massive oil-leak on my E46 318i Touring. The car hasn't seen much use over the winter months, but as I start to need it again for its cavernous load-lugging functions, I figured it was time to spend a bit more time getting it right.

I was going through about a cupful of oil every 100 miles or so (I think that is a pretty favourable estimate to be honest, more like half a litre!) and worse than the cost of all the topping-up, smoke continued to billow from not only the sides of the bonnet (hood) while stopped at traffic-lights, but also straight into the cabin with the blowers turned on. This meant for the last 12 months I have had the climate-control set to full recirculation mode and on low, making de-misting the windscreen a nightmare on colder days.

I could see the oil-leak was coming from the rear left side of the engine, as it so often the case with N42 engines and assumed it to be the vacuum-pump (like with my E46 318ci in this this post), but after removing the rocker-cover (cam-cover) I found it was actually the rubber gasket itself. The thick rubber gaskets tend to harden and go brittle over time and almost completely down the left side of the cam-cover there was noticeable leakage, primarily at the back corner, next to the vac-pump of course. The gap at the rear-left corner was so pronounced I feel you could have slipped a credit-card through with a little force and touched the back of the cam-shaft! This was allowing a constant drip of oil out onto the heat-shield and down onto the exhaust-manifold, as shown by the arrows in the picture and causing most, if not all of the smoke.

Luckily, I suppose, I have been working through the Covid epidemic, so I am classed as a 'key worker' and had a day off, so I managed to blag Euro Car Parts that it was essential work and instantly collect the new Elring gasket (£22, but eBay alternatives are as cheap as £9.50 if you can wait!) and some Corteco White instant gasket-sealant (£7), though they still had me waiting for an hour outside!

Knowing how prone the top-end seals of the N42 are to leaks and not wanting to take any chances of removing the rocker-cover again anytime soon, I slapped on a liberal bead of the Corteco sealant over the vacuum-pump ring and along the entire left-side (lower) surface of the cylinder-head top edge along with the new rubber-gasket. The job does not take long at all (I will post a guide soon), with removal and refitting of the cam-cover only taking around 30 minutes each and that's taking your time...

Needless to say, this has stopped the major part of my oil-leak in this area! Not only has the oily steam stopped from the sides of the bonnet while stationary, the smell/smoke from the climate vents has now ceased and the car is no longer consuming oil at a silly rate, so I would say job done! There is still a tiny weep of fresh oil coming from around this area, but nowhere near like before and, after a run where the engine is warm, there is no dripping pool on the under-tray! For the money I spent, the difference in convenience is worth vastly more! I would have spent the ~£30 I did in oil in a couple of weeks using the car daily, so if you have this problem, it's safe to say this is the culprit and get it sorted!

E46 Clubsport: Nathan's split rubber + other issues.

More big spending as the Clubsport gets back on the road with a new MOT, starting with 4 new Maxxis tyres for the refurbed split-rims. It's been running a bit rough, but as he started it for the first time in a month it ran a bit worse and began producing a lot of white / blue smoke from the exhaust. Fearing the head-gasket he started dismantling and found it was just one of the profile-gaskets in the rocker-cover [16 in the bottom diagram] was split and hadn't seated in the head properly the last time it was replaced and was allowing oil to spill down into the chamber and was causing the smoke. This, he assures us, is a common problem in 6-cylinder BMW petrols and had nothing to do with any 'engine-weld' products he may have also added. Never the less, with a new rubber-gasket the smoke has ceased. During the job he found the rubber intake hose was also split in two places, clearly contributing to the lack of smooth acceleration suffered since he got it, so he treated the 330 to a new one of these as well.

The MOT threw up borderline high emissions, which was waved, and both front lower ball-joints were knackered. These are usually replaced as a whole control-arm, so that's what was done and finally the Clubsport is back on the road, looking and sounding as it should with better pull and a really raspy vanos exhaust note. Next up comes replacing the lower bumper splitter sorely missing from the front end.