[pjr710]

1. When the valves are shut .. is there any possibility of accidentally pushing them open? Are they shut tight?

2. Using something like this will be helpful to rotate the engine right? https://www.bavauto.com/bmw-cta3012

3. Am I going to have any issues using this blaster? https://www.harborfreight.com/portab...kit-37025.html

4. I will probably be running this compressor https://www.aircompressorsdirect.com...or/p79690.html

5. Are the 3d printed vaccuum adapters very fragile? I see people say they break. Are there alternatives? (I saw a guy make one out of PVC). Or am I better just buying the aluminum OEM one?

6. Are there any other words of wisdom or advice or pitfalls you can share?

This is my DD, so I like to prep as much as possible, do the job and get on with my life.

I'm trying to avoid a situation where I may experience some downtime (for example I read that a guy had his 3d Vaccum Adapter break and he had to wait for a new one.

[BashShah]

Look at 9:52 time of this video for turning the engine.

Use this blaster with a 20% discount coupon. 30 dollars more is not going to kill you.
The portable blaster works differently, i think....don’t know.
https://www.harborfreight.com/20-lbs...ter-68994.html

Use the OEM aluminum one will save you a lot of time, don’t cheap out there. This will make sure that your media is not scattered all over the engine bay.

Your compressor is fine.......more than fine.

Words of wisdom:
Now don’t get me wrong, just trying to help:
Walnut blast reg driving interval is 50k miles.
If you have a N54, your car is already 10 years old or older.

I read and read and preped as much as you are:
In the end, I just found someone local to do it, who does it more than me.
It took him 3 hours total with a lot of talking.
I did not have to hold on to the equipment for 50k miles.

Time was more valuable to me than $300 total saving.
Pay it and move on.

[slinkygn]

1. As long as they're shut, they'll almost certainly stay shut. You get a good deal of vacuum pressure ensuring that.
2. Because of said pressure -- yup, that's handy. Of course, you can do the same thing with two wires with spade ends -- just short them briefly and you're doing the same thing as a pushbutton. Or you can go low-tech and just turn the crank. (Which is what I did.)
3 & 4. The reason I started writing this up, really -- if you use that blaster *and* that compressor, yes, you'll have trouble. There are folks that had to blast valves for 5-10mins each. It should take about 30-60 seconds per. You either need a compressor that can give you double-digit CFMs to do that, or (again, what I did) use a pressure blaster like BashShah suggests. Makes a HUGE difference. If you have shop air fed by a compressor for the building -- use that cheap gravity blaster and knock yourself out. Otherwise, spend the extra Jackson and Hamilton and get the pressure blaster. (I also got an inline dryer -- not sure it was necessary, but it's generally good practice when using compressed air.)
5. I actually 3D printed my own, and a spare in case the first broke. I don't know if the quality of the "commercial" 3D printed ones is just poor or if I got lucky, but the one I printed lasted the whole job and I never really even had reason to be concerned that it'd break. YMMV, of course.
6. Some tips that helped me:

I verified each valve was closed by spraying some brake cleaner in there and seeing whether it stayed pooled in the valve. Blew it out with compressed air and let it dry before actually blasting it, of course -- you don't want to get combustibles in your vacuum. (I also used noncombustible brake cleaner, but still, I wasn't about to test out how noncombustible it was!)

Pull the filter out of your shop vac before you do this. Seems obvious, but hey.

If you start with a fairly clean shop vac, you can reuse the spent walnut shell media. Just find an appropriately sized filter for it so you're not throwing big chunks of carbon back in your pressure blaster.

You'll naturally want to make sure you get into both valve chambers and clean them out well -- but also remember to pull out the wand some and get the top end of the chamber, or you'll have a lot of scrubbing to do afterward to finish the job. (Might want to close your blaster, figure out how far you can pull out the wand, and then hit that top part -- if that wand comes out you'll have a mess on your hands.)

I think I had the media valve about 3/4 open and the air at 1/2... I think. You'll want to play with that as that'll probably vary based on your compressor. There is such a thing as pushing too much media. Too rich or too lean and you're slowing yourself down.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I did mine three or four weeks ago, so I may be forgetting something in there.

[pjr710]

Originally Posted by BashShah

Look at 9:52 time of this video for turning the engine.

Use this blaster with a 20% discount coupon. 30 dollars more is not going to kill you.
The portable blaster works differently, i think....don’t know.
https://www.harborfreight.com/20-lbs...ter-68994.html

Use the OEM aluminum one will save you a lot of time, don’t cheap out there. This will make sure that your media is not scattered all over the engine bay.

Your compressor is fine.......more than fine.

Words of wisdom:
Now don’t get me wrong, just trying to help:
Walnut blast reg driving interval is 50k miles.
If you have a N54, your car is already 10 years old or older.

I read and read and preped as much as you are:
In the end, I just found someone local to do it, who does it more than me.
It took him 3 hours total with a lot of talking.
I did not have to hold on to the equipment for 50k miles.

Time was more valuable to me than $300 total saving.
Pay it and move on.

I took your advice and got it done this weekend, I found a shop in NJ which was an hour from me .. he did it for $380 cash.

[BashShah]

Originally Posted by pjr710

I took your advice and got it done this weekend, I found a shop in NJ which was an hour from me .. he did it for $380 cash.

Glad it help in your decision making process.
Now you don’t have to do it for another 50k miles.
That’s like 2 to 3 years for some people.

What car do you have?
When did you buy?
Why did you consider a walnut blast, was it missing?

[pjr710]

What car do you have?
2007 e92 335i

When did you buy?
July 2012

Why did you consider a walnut blast, was it missing?
Well you originally mentioned it to me, then I was overhauling my vehicle, and decided I should probably get one done. I thought my gas mileage was suffering slightly, and didn't want my engine to strain to breath.

[BashShah]

Originally Posted by pjr710

What car do you have?
2007 e92 335i

When did you buy?
July 2012

Why did you consider a walnut blast, was it missing?
Well you originally mentioned it to me, then I was overhauling my vehicle, and decided I should probably get one done. I thought my gas mileage was suffering slightly, and didn't want my engine to strain to breath.

Go get the following looked after:
1) all Vacuum lines
2) plugs and coils
3) full adaptation reset.

Get a laptop with bmw tools loaded and K+DCan obdii to usb cable from eBay.
Let me know if you want sources of the above.