[JonEQuest]

Originally Posted by JonEQuest

Malgyver, I guess your post sounded worse to me than what is was meant to. I know I must look crazy just opening up everything in such a short amount of time. But the windage tray is a great example of what I experienced with this whole car so far. Things that should be OK I find are not. I have literally found a few things held together with shoelaces. This car (an E93) came with sedan headlights, things like that. The engine came with a cracked water pump and it was 3.5 quarts low on oil. The oil it did have was as thin as WD-40 and as black as Wesley Snipes. I have found the left motor mount bracket and the transmission mount brackets cracked into multiple pieces. Of course the right motor mount was OK but BOTH bolts broke off in it during removal. On a different topic I found hidden frame rail damage under a replaced rear bumper (that was another Easter egg). So now I trust absolutely NOTHING about this car. I bought it and quickly spent thousands on parts so as the saying goes, I am "Balls Deep" in this thing and have to just fix it. At least I now feel the internals of the motor are probably fine, but I still need to pull the other 4 rod bearings and have a look after work tonight.

My oil pickup actually was clear. That combined with the fact I found no belt pieces in the bottom means someone (probably BMW) was in here before and cleaned out the other belt parts and fixed the front main seal. I guess when they put back the oil pan maybe they tapped the windage tray and it was able to be hit by the rod bolts. That rod (#3) was as tight as #4 so it wasn't sticking down further. The bolts are also all the same size. I have new factory bolts on the way since I know I cannot reuse these. I will probably not replace the bearings if they all look good since they are already worn to match the crank, etc.