[old grey steve]

Ah you'll recognise this car I trust.





Well its in for some mechanical TLC. Must say that on 335i's a lot of the stuff covered here is very common. The cars seem to suffer various issues mainly annoying leaks. Josh's cars suffered the same issues as mine its anoying common and frustrating. But it can be dealt with as you'll see

Firstly oil leak, bottom cover off



cover as somewhat expected coated in oil. Took a close up



as you can see oil is fresh. The result ws a known rocker cover gasket leak. We done the ususal checks we do for these now(run the car up covers removed and look for a rocker cover split, but thankfully nothing was present)however with everything exposed noted another bubbling leak. This time the leak was from the oil filter housing gasket, oil was noted as dripping down and back and with the air flow in assistance the oil was coating the keft hand side of he block and various pipework as you may be able to make out from the moody B&W shot below



This leak was in its infancy so to a degree lucky we caught it now. So that was delt with with a £13.00 gasket and some time...

Therefore the rocker cover gasket was attended too.




Sadly missed some of this activity but came back some ttime later to see that all the necessarywork was done. Afterwards the filter housing gasket was attended too before moving on to something that for 335i's is a must.

Walnut Blasting. Josh's valves are as you can see are rather gummed up



Everything ready to go








The pictures kind of tell their own story. Very sommon with these direct injection engine. Post work though different story.







and a moody B&W shot



Put all back together added the PCV valve and the ever popular catch can



Finished off with a oil service we managed to spark the car up just after 6 this evening tick over noted as smoother straightaway. To finish off brake pads tomorrow and Josh will pick up sometime tomorrow afternoon..

Enjoy

[AWBimmer]

Excellent write up Steve love these kind of threads - bodes me with full confidence when ever I need to get myself booked up I know who to go to but shame you're a little far for me although for the service I will happily make the trip up!!

Do you guys offer a walnut blast for Diesels yet? I'm getting anxious my car's reaching 75k any minute now.

[old grey steve]

Originally Posted by AWBimmer

Do you guys offer a walnut blast for Diesels yet? I'm getting anxious my car's reaching 75k any minute now.

We do thing is on a diesel it's far more intense and labour wise your doubling the workload on diesels as you've got to not only clean the inlets but you've got to re be the rocker cover and clean within the head aswell but we opted to buy all the kit to do diesels as well as petrols meaning we are one of a select few that can do both even a fair percentage of the main dealers may well struggle due to not having all the kit.....if any of it

[AWBimmer]

Tempting for when funds permit!! I'll be looking to book it in this year for sure by or before October.

[Ess]

Really good to read you as always Steve. Interesting stuff.

[SO8]

What sort of miles does this start to need to be done on the N54 engine ?

[AirAndre335i]

Thanks for the pictures Steve! Love seeing the before and after pics!

That is some pretty bad carbon build up! Looking forward to seeing how smoothly she runs now!

[old grey steve]

Josh all being well you should notice a difference different people pick up on different things from smoother tick over to more linier acceleration but judging by the muck in the ports one thing is for sure it will be able to breathe better

[old grey steve]

Originally Posted by AWBimmer

Tempting for when funds permit!! I'll be looking to book it in this year for sure by or before October.

Cool, feel on a Diesel it will be worth looking at for sure as they really do get bunged up got a picture of a Mercedes C320 engine we've got out I'll post a picture up re that

Originally Posted by SO8

What sort of miles does this start to need to be done on the N54 engine ?

Seen noticeable build up from as little as 35000 miles, every single one we have opened up as shown the same symptoms any one there for who says they've done 100.000 miles and feels that it isn't an issue IMO will get the shock of their life once the manifolds removed

[old grey steve]

Originally Posted by AirAndre335i

Thanks for the pictures Steve! Love seeing the before and after pics!

That is some pretty bad carbon build up! Looking forward to seeing how smoothly she runs now!

Collected last night.. question is does it feel any different?

[AirAndre335i]

I will report back after a long drive down to Players Classic on the weekend.

But initial thoughts on the Walnut Blast…

I had some hesitation where revs would drop and jump whilst accelerating slowly. Not noticeable to anyone apart from an owner that pays close attention to their own cars behaviour. That is all gone now.

Cars noise has quietened down quite a bit on idle

It revs a lot more freely at a standstill and whilst accelerating.

Don't think i have noticed a power increase or anything.

I haven't sat in enough traffic to check how smooth my idle is, but it used to be lumpy especially when the engine got hot.

This is what i am most curious about

OTHER THAN THAT
I picked up the car from Steve late yesterday.
Car was looked after well. My Rocker cover gasket was taken care of, and they spotted another small leak at my oil filter housing gasket. So had that sorted too.

Hopefully no more leaks for a while hahah

Time to drive the car again and get my meth installed at some point asap

CHEERS STEVE AND TO THE LADS AT A1BN!!!!

[old grey steve]

Originally Posted by AirAndre335i

I will report back after a long drive down to Players Classic on the weekend.

But initial thoughts on the Walnut Blast…

I had some hesitation where revs would drop and jump whilst accelerating slowly. Not noticeable to anyone apart from an owner that pays close attention to their own cars behaviour. That is all gone now.

Cars noise has quietened down quite a bit on idle

It revs a lot more freely at a standstill and whilst accelerating.

Don't think i have noticed a power increase or anything.

I haven't sat in enough traffic to check how smooth my idle is, but it used to be lumpy especially when the engine got hot.

This is what i am most curious about

OTHER THAN THAT
I picked up the car from Steve late yesterday.
Car was looked after well. My Rocker cover gasket was taken care of, and they spotted another small leak at my oil filter housing gasket. So had that sorted too.

Hopefully no more leaks for a while hahah

Time to drive the car again and get my meth installed at some point asap

CHEERS STEVE AND TO THE LADS AT A1BN!!!!

No worries

You should notice a difference on a long run, it'll be nothing night'n'day but it will be noticeable.

Right going back to looking at a rather sick E60 M5

[SO8]

Originally Posted by old grey steve

Seen noticeable build up from as little as 35000 miles, every single one we have opened up as shown the same symptoms any one there for who says they've done 100.000 miles and feels that it isn't an issue IMO will get the shock of their life once the manifolds removed

That is great, thanks. I am only on 5K on a 2 year old Z4 35iS but wanted to know roughly what to expect.

I have just used some Forte stuff to hopefully clear out anything (that it can - I know not inlet) where the car sat for 15 months before I owned it only doing 2450 miles !! I haven't used it much but have more than doubled that in 7 months.

[old grey steve]

Originally Posted by SO8

That is great, thanks. I am only on 5K on a 2 year old Z4 35iS but wanted to know roughly what to expect.

I have just used some Forte stuff to hopefully clear out anything (that it can - I know not inlet) where the car sat for 15 months before I owned it only doing 2450 miles !! I haven't used it much but have more than doubled that in 7 months.

No worries the N55 spec for example suffers less from gooey deposits than the N54 we've done several everyone seemed to be coked up yet the coking wasn't the shiny treacle visual state that you've seen in the pictures above.

But when the few N55's we've done were finished all performed as expected.

N55's look like this as we've found





Caboned up but no where near as oily as you can see

[Raymonndo]

Steve, can I ask how much this process is?

[old grey steve]

Originally Posted by Raymonndo

Steve, can I ask how much this process is?

Rulessay not in public

[Raymonndo]

Fair point! I'm going to send a query via your website!

I have a family in Hertfordshire so I'm going to arrange this and stay down there!

[ArsE92]

Hmm. I must get this done. I'm down in Herts for a wedding in July so it might....just.....work

[old grey steve]

Originally Posted by Raymonndo

Fair point! I'm going to send a query via your website!

I have a family in Hertfordshire so I'm going to arrange this and stay down there!

Or PM

Originally Posted by ArsE92

Hmm. I must get this done. I'm down in Herts for a wedding in July so it might....just.....work

Lovely it's a worthwhile exercise I've been banging on abiut it for ages and bee questioned about it dozens of times but it does help.

In terms of Josh's comments re extra power it won't pull any tricks out of the hat it can only help restore lost efficiently due to the coking issue itself therefore the aim is to get the intake side as near new spec re efficiency as we can.

Running will be smoother, tickover usually and as Josh has stated is a little quieter, some report better fuel economy but all report responsiveness is better and as a power plant the engine seems to rev more freely and seems more willing to perform

It's labour intensive tye way we do it anyway you can cut corned to a degree and walnut blast this cutting time and therefore reduce costs we chose not to do this as it allows us to remove inspect and advise re what we find some may chose to whip off the manifold and get on with it leaving other issues undetected. We don't

[Raymonndo]

Got it thanks Steve.

I will get this done, just need to arrange the 300 miles travel haha!

[old grey steve]

Originally Posted by Raymonndo

Got it thanks Steve.

I will get this done, just need to arrange the 300 miles travel haha!

No worries

[old grey steve]

Originally Posted by ArsE92

Hmm. I must get this done. I'm down in Herts for a wedding in July so it might....just.....work

Its a weekday only operation but can be done in a day providing the car is with us no later than 9am on a given day