740Li smoking problem - decision time

galwaytt

unkel wrote: »

Your 996 came from them? Small world

How is it going?

It did. SORD'd it til Mar 1st due to fubar with paperwork (which suits me tbh). But I can testify that it ticks over wonderfully in the garage. https://www.dropbox.com/s/v748gq0cnt7pcbl/20140131_190213.jpg

Voodoomelon wrote: »

Was the 996 in the showroom over December/January? Think I saw it, great looking car.

'Twas, you did, it is

Ahem:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/87w47hwjbsxylne/20140111_144255.jpg

MetzgerMeister

Holy shiza that's a nice Porsche

noelf

unkel wrote: »

See my post



And my car was originally Irish. Very, very rare! I doubt even 10 E34 V8s were sold here. Remember the M5 only had 6 cylinders!

The first owner of my car was the Ambassador of Finland to Ireland

Sir unkel !!!!

Matt Simis

I didnt think that symptom was indicative of valve stem seal failure. My E31 has failing stem seals on one bank (its effectively two engines) but its 20 years old. It burns oil when its sucked down the valve stem (as the seal is dry and old).. but to be sucked down it would have to be high vacuum scenario, ie lift off accelerator pedal (gear shift) during hard acceleration. Its quite hard to get it at idle, you literally need to redline it and hold the release then redline it again.

You video looks like it smokes when blipping the pedal.


I tried some smokeless oil, its basically a very thick oil with a really really high smoke point (as in it wont burn at normal exhaust temps, just carried out). Somewhat successful but not all that cheap (smells funny too) and you likely wont want to diverge from normal Oil types to something so niche.

Voodoomelon

Mine smokes at idle all the time, something I should have included in the video. Just sitting there, past say 2 minutes it starts smoking very noticeably. Then blip the pedal and it smokes badly.

I'm paranoid now sitting at long lights, looking at my mirrors and seeing smoke pluming up. Just reading around the forums for a few minutes and you can see all the N62s with the same symptoms.

Clungewellies

I bought my car off Beshoff's about 2 years ago, can't fault them for a single thing. Got a good deal on my trade in and they were happy to haggle. Best of luck with the repairs!

Voodoomelon

Thanks!
Parts are in, job due to be done next week. Will get some pics up of the job if they're good enough to take some.

Voodoomelon

Got the car back today from Perfect Car in Dundalk. Took them about 4.5 days, which considering the size of the job and all their other jobs was pretty good going.

The stem seals are the black hat-shaped objects below. The hat shape is actually all metal, the seal is just the tiny bit at the top that contacts the valve. They were definitely hardened. Again, 69k miles, unbelievable!























The red plastic sheaths below are temporarily installed on the stem tips, just before the stem seals are slid over the top to prevent damage to the seals.
The sheaths are then discarded.
32 seals in total, 2 on intake valves, 2 on exhaust per cylinder.





New crankcase breather valves and breather hose were also installed.



New VC gaskets.


They idled it for 30 minutes with no smoking (it used to smoke on idle after 3-4 minutes) and no smoking the short bit I've driven it.

There doesn't seem to be a thing these guys can't do, highly recommended.

To give Behoffs Motors their due, they paid for the repair in full and gave me an SLK for the week as a replacement. I suppose any dealer will give you a bit of a run around to start with, with any potentially large bill, but once the problem was identified they were very forthcoming and straight forward to deal with.

Critical oil seals failing at 69k miles is a joke from BMW. Feels good to have a very common fault rectified for vastly less money than reported online. All round a good result!

toastedpickles

Today has been a good day for the motors forum

That's great news it's all good now

Alanstrainor

Fantastic news Voodoo. Great seeing that this was resolved.

mickdw

Nice bit of work there for the figures quoted.

You will certainly be happier with this repair knowing for sure that it had been carried out compared to the situation where the dealer would have taken it in for repair.

Fabritzo

Think we need one more revving vid just to be certain. When she's had a few heat cycles perhaps

Seweryn

Great result at the end, fair play.

BTW, did they replace the seals with the same type?

Voodoomelon

mickdw wrote: »

Nice bit of work there for the figures quoted.

You will certainly be happier with this repair knowing for sure that it had been carried out compared to the situation where the dealer would have taken it in for repair.

For sure, these guys seem to do engine swaps just for the fun, i'd believe this work was easy enough for them, just time consuming.

I asked him if they were the same seals and he said they were, but they may have been improved over the last 8 years. They're used in 4 cylinder models with no problems.

power pants

Can start enjoying your car properly now!

Big Nasty

Don't hate me dude, you know I'm a Bimmer lover but the E65 / 66 does nothing for me.

I'd be happier in an A8 Quattro or an S8 if budget could allow.

L-M

Brilliant, happy days!

Voodoomelon

Big Nasty wrote: »

Don't hate me dude, you know I'm a Bimmer lover but the E65 / 66 does nothing for me.

I know where your loyalties lie!
I'll be gloss-blacking out/body-colouring all the chrome and giving it a Sport level drop in the front, you might prefer it then.

The E66 is all about the interior, no one had gotten out less than amazed!

L-M

Voodoomelon wrote: »

I know where your loyalties lie!
I'll be gloss-blacking out/body-colouring all the chrome and giving it a Sport level drop in the front, you might prefer it then.

The E66 is all about the interior, no one had gotten out less than amazed!

You're doing what now? O.o

Any links to what that may look like?

Marty McFly

Voodoomelon wrote: »

The E66 is all about the interior, no one had gotten out less than amazed!

Although I'm not mad on the exterior styling although do think it will look much much better when you de chrome it like the pic you showed.

The engine and interior is why I would quite happily drive that car all day long every day of the week.

unkel

Great news and thumbs up to Beshoff motors for playing nice

Big Nasty wrote: »

Don't hate me dude, you know I'm a Bimmer lover but the E65 / 66 does nothing for me.

You'll hate voodoo in a few years time when he'll no doubt own an immaculate F01

Voodoomelon

Limerick man wrote: »

You're doing what now? O.o

Any links to what that may look like?

Basically making it into a Sport model. Just about impossible to find a Sport E66 with my spec.

Big Nasty

Voodoomelon wrote: »

I know where your loyalties lie!
I'll be gloss-blacking out/body-colouring all the chrome and giving it a Sport level drop in the front, you might prefer it then.

The E66 is all about the interior, no one had gotten out less than amazed!

I won't - sorry man.

My E38 has moved upwards and onwards and I'm currently in an E39 as you know. I'm only luke warm on the E60 and considering an A6 Quattro as an alternative when it's time to change. I can safely say I'll never have a 65/66. BMW started drifting off the track with the 60, worse with the 65 but tightened the wreigns a bit with the 66 - a fantastic but not pretty car. They're back on track with the F10. The F01 still has a bit to go but is getting there.

For the 03 - 10 period I gotta admit I'd go Audi.

mullingar

That model is only now starting to grow on me but it's the electronic gremlins that would put me off them.

Anyway, looks great, time to LPG her now

L-M

Looks very bland without the chrome does it not? I think it looks much better as is...

Voodoomelon

Just not a fan i'm afraid. Everyone is split on chrome, I fall onto the non chrome side of the fence! Some angles it looks good with chrome, most don't though. Strips over the roof are gack.

L-M

Just look through a few more pics on that website... Maybe it's the scenery but it's winning me over!

daRobot

So pleased that it worked out well for you in the end.

Happy Luxury motoring from now on

Voodoomelon

Hard to believe it's just over 4 years since I had this stem seal job done.

The shocking thing about this is that the replacement seals have ALREADY failed, after only 30k miles. Actually less, the car has been burning oil for the last 10-12 months, so the seals likely started failing about 20-25k miles since they were replaced.

This has no bearing on Perfect Car's in Dundalk's work, it's completely down to the SH1TE BMW stem seal quality. You would think going with OEM would ensure longevity and quality, quite the opposite. The car was burning about a litre of oil every 1500km, tipping about town. A spin down to Dublin and back would cost me about 300ml of engine oil and streams of smoke around the city by the time I got there, shocking stuff.

This is a car that gets constant attention, servicing, proper spec oil on time etc etc. So i took a punt on having the valve covers stripped again and Perfect Car pulled the BMW seals out with the AGA tools. I supplied Elring stem seals, cover gaskets, spark plug tubes and new plugs. This something of a stab in the dark, as we couldn't believe the seals could fail again so soon. Compression was perfect and CCV system was recently replaced and doing fine.

The Elring seals have a much higher quality rubber and a different shape, meaning pockets of oil can't form underneath.









I also wanted the guibo/flex disc on the driveshaft replaced as these are known to deteriorate.



So everything out again:





Look at the absolute state of the BMW seals, rock hard and shriveled to nothing:









Here's the old flex disc:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTmY6xwIurg

Back in action:



Have the car back today, not a puff of smoke.

This was all on the back of talking to a mechanic in the States who travelled all around North America doing these seal jobs, he's done over 700 replacements and if the original seals are used, they just fail again.

I'm firing off an email to BMW, doubt i'll get anything useful back, but anyways. Kudos to Perfect Car in Dundalk for turning this around in 4 days for a bargain price, delighted to have it back.

HappyAsLarE

BMW use rubber that turns to plastic, so many issues caused by hardened seals in them - valve stems, valve covers, oil filter housing, dipstick tube seal.