Procrastinated changing VCG and now Eccentric Shaft Sensor codes!

bluewater328 · 10-12-2018, 04:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by greenberet123

Today is a bad day

.

The valve cover came out and I cannot see any visible cracks on it ..... but a little piece of plastic in the center has come off and has been hurled somewhere in the car. Doesn't seem to be in the engine. I think its this piece: https://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1392808

Is there a spot where dropped things accumulate? Just left like lots of things dropped when I removed the valve cover, I hope I have accounted for everything

Might want to pull the shield on the bottom, thats where a lot of things end up. Glad it didnt end up in the engine, but hopefully yours just popped off vs cracking off like his.

greenberet123 · 10-13-2018, 01:53 PM

Thanks! I pulled out the shield and there it was, in perfect shape! I will stick it onto the other side

. But omg, my lower shield is bathed in oil. My oil pan might be leaking but I'll leave that for another time (or maybe never

)!

So I was inspecting the valve cover to find out what created the sounds when I was forcing open the valve cover and discovered this crack near the ESS

View post on imgur.com

It's pretty snug though, do you think this is a big deal? Perhaps I can apply some JB and it will be fine? Would be pretty bad if I have to replace the whole valve cover just for this.

bluewater328 · 10-15-2018, 02:04 PM

I dunno, that's your call. I am a bit more paranoid and usually try to prevent doing large jobs more than twice my car's lifespan. VC on most cars are not as much of a pain as it is on the e90 -- that said, the world is changing and I swear the current automobile engineers get paid by how much of the usable space in the engine bay they take up. My old sentra looked like a 80's pickup truck in the engine bay...headers, VCG, alternator, cams, even ECU; all those were easy to take care of and swap frequently for upgrades and inspection (which was necessary back then). I could see all the way down to the bottom in numerous places with plenty of arm room to have one guy on the bottom and one on the top handing over parts -- I could look that guy in the eye in some cases as well.

Anyway, bottom line, with all the minor breaks and issues you're having, a new VC would have been much easier to deal with. But seeing as you've had your setup open for that many days, it's up to you how fast and expensively you want to button it up. Best case scenario, it holds and you start losing efficiency a few years later. Worse case scenario, you're doing the job over again. I don't think either way is catastrophic when it begins to fail, just as now. More about whether you want to do it again during your ownership (and how soon).

10-13-2018, 01:53 PM	#24
greenberet123 Private First Class 39 Rep 155 Posts Drives: E93 Join Date: May 2017 Location: Seattle iTrader: (0)	Thanks! I pulled out the shield and there it was, in perfect shape! I will stick it onto the other side . But omg, my lower shield is bathed in oil. My oil pan might be leaking but I'll leave that for another time (or maybe never )! So I was inspecting the valve cover to find out what created the sounds when I was forcing open the valve cover and discovered this crack near the ESS View post on imgur.com It's pretty snug though, do you think this is a big deal? Perhaps I can apply some JB and it will be fine? Would be pretty bad if I have to replace the whole valve cover just for this.
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10-15-2018, 02:04 PM	#25
bluewater328 Colonel 626 Rep 2,100 Posts Drives: 2011 bluewater 328i LCI sedan Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Hawaii iTrader: (0)	I dunno, that's your call. I am a bit more paranoid and usually try to prevent doing large jobs more than twice my car's lifespan. VC on most cars are not as much of a pain as it is on the e90 -- that said, the world is changing and I swear the current automobile engineers get paid by how much of the usable space in the engine bay they take up. My old sentra looked like a 80's pickup truck in the engine bay...headers, VCG, alternator, cams, even ECU; all those were easy to take care of and swap frequently for upgrades and inspection (which was necessary back then). I could see all the way down to the bottom in numerous places with plenty of arm room to have one guy on the bottom and one on the top handing over parts -- I could look that guy in the eye in some cases as well. Anyway, bottom line, with all the minor breaks and issues you're having, a new VC would have been much easier to deal with. But seeing as you've had your setup open for that many days, it's up to you how fast and expensively you want to button it up. Best case scenario, it holds and you start losing efficiency a few years later. Worse case scenario, you're doing the job over again. I don't think either way is catastrophic when it begins to fail, just as now. More about whether you want to do it again during your ownership (and how soon).
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