2001 BMW 325Ci - All the maintenance

[Adam]

It needs everything.

The plan is to do all of the required maintenance to make it run correctly, plus all the other stuff that these cars are known for.

Making it run:
- Upper and lower intake boots
- All of the failed vacuum lines. And all of the non-failed vacuum lines.

General maintenance:
- Various filters, oil change

All the other stuff:
- Cooling system overhaul (rubber and failure-prone plastics)
- This includes the thermostat housing, overflow bottle, water pump (plastic impeller), water pump pulley
- Fun fact: all the hoses have quick-connect fittings
- Belts
- PCV nonsense
- Oil filter housing to block gasket (leaking)
- Headlight service
- Front marker light
- Grill inserts
- Trunk lift struts
- RH mirror
- Wipers
- Cowl (plastic is disintegrating)
- Reverse lights (reflectors fell off) 'cause ultimate driving machine

[Adam]

Oh yeah, and probably a battery and tires. And the brakes are covered with rust.

Some observations so far:
- The cheap rubber also carries over to other things like: headlight gaskets, grill gaskets, window weather stripping, the steering wheel
- If "German Quality" is putting the maximum number of things in a given amount of space, this has that.
- In order to do any repairs on anything, many parts need to be removed. This works out as I am fixing everything this time.
- Sitting in a driveway hasn't ruined the body, but has ruined most of the under-body fasteners
- The foam backing has separated from the floor mats
- Various interior plastics are broken
- The cloth covering is separating from all the pillar trim
- Various sun-exposed plastics are discolored

Various pictures:

My filter has a filter. So fancy.

Failed rubber. No wonder it ran so poorly.

Cowl is disintegrating.

Taking things apart.

[Adam]

The A/C belt is terrible. The main one is not. Also, this car had an alternator replaced so the belt was probably done at the same time. You have to pull the fan to gain access to this stuff.

Notice how rusty all the bolts and pulleys are.

First potential real issue. This is the upper alternator bolt. Looks like it was replaced by a jerk with a breaker bar. The threads go all the way through, so it might be ok. If not, I can try welding it. Worst case, I'll need to find a replacement oil filter housing. Also, this is the oil filter housing. It is a whole bracket down the driver's side of the engine which serves as the mounting point for the power steering pump and reservoir, the alternator, the idler pulley, and the tensioner assembly. It's hydraulic because of course it is.

Pretty much all of the needed parts have been ordered (except the cowl). The next step is to pull the intake manifold. That will allow easier access to: vacuum lines, PCV assembly (wait until you see this nonsense), heater hoses, and heater pipe.
I pulled the front splash cover off to access the drain for the radiator and overflow bottle. It's held on by 6 screws which are almost completely rusted away. Need to find these.

[kevm14]

Man some of that looks like it's been sitting for 20 years. Most of the rubbers remind me of the evap hose on my Roadmaster.

[kevm14]

This is the official car of "I over torqued my alternator bolt so now I need a new oil filter housing."

Do you think that engine bay is tighter than a FWD Northstar?

[Adam]

Pretty close with the Northstar, but with the GM you don't need to disassemble half the things under the hood to do any specific repair.

I priced the oil filter housing and you can get a new one for between $250-280. Not terrible, but not $20 either.

I'm probably going to end up spending about 30% of my time on this car cleaning. Everything is a mess. Good news, if you are replacing the part, you don't need to clean it off.

[Adam]

Took the lower alternator bolt out. Sigh.

Some good news: I got the upper bolt removed without breaking anything. Lots of PB Blaster over several days seems to have helped. Notice the hydraulic tensioner thing. It doesn't compress as easily as it should, so I will probably replace it. Also the rubber is dry rotted because of course it is.

Here is the oil filter housing removed. The rubber gasket wasn't broken, but was shrunken and hardened. Regardless, it was leaking.

Also, there is a high pressure oil line that runs from the oil filter housing up to the VANOS solenoid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VANOS
I've also ordered the hose, as it looks like it is also in pretty rough shape.

[kevm14]

Lots of labor which seems to be a common trend for you with cheap used cars (the cheaper the more labor, so free must be all the labor). But unlike other cheap used cars, you won't end up with a mechanically solid rust heap afterwards. Unless you use it in New England.

[Adam]

Time to repair the DISA value. This thing is essentially an electronically-controlled, vacuum-operated flap in the intake. This is used to switch between short and long runners at some RPM for racecar performance. These units are known for premature failure on these cars, so I've ordered an upgraded rebuilt kit for mine. Even though it actually appears to be in great shape.

The flap.

Side cover pops off to uncover the mechanical mechanism.

Pop off the clip to remove the arm from the vacuum actuator.

The "removal tool" is actually just a large lag bolt that you screw in and pull out with some pliers. Notice the twist tie holding the arm out of the way. The twist tie is included in the kit along with some lube and threadlocker.

Side by side comparison of stock and replacement parts.

The stock stuff is held together by friction. The failure mode seems to be the plastic components wear out and there is play between the flap and the pivot arm. Eventually it breaks and sends shards of plastic components into the engine. The replacement flap and arm are machined aluminum so that wont be an issue. Also, they are held together with the long bolt (inside of the flap is threaded) so it is not "friction fit" like the factory components. Fixed forever?

One other thing to note, there is a noticeable amount of baked-on carbon debris on the interior of the intake. You can see some of it on the factory flap in the photos. Not sure what this means. Failed PCV system? Low quality fuel used? Lack of maintenance?

Back to addressing these things...

[Adam]

My parts funnel is overflowing. Time for some quick stuff. One grill was missing. The other one was broken. So I ordered some from Rockauto from "various manufacturers".

Fixed!

The parts that showed up were some Keystone-branded units. The fitment is not great.

The outer edge fits better.

The lower grill rubber is coming off more. I'll probably try to use some RTV or something to reattach it.

Ran a die over the alternator bolt. Cleaned up nice. I also ran a tap through the threaded boss on the alternator. Threads in nice now.