Oil Pan swap not the most fun experience!

[Jon K]

So I drive down to Spring Garden & Front Street tonight around 6 pm to meet up with a couple E30 turbo friends Jay and Donovan - one has a M20 2.8L making ~409tq, the other has a S52 with a GT35R and zero compression on cyl #5. So we pull the head from the S52 and find the ring seat cracked off on #5 and coolant in #4 and #3. So, yeah he detonated the crap out of the motor :(

That started the night off - that was around 6pm. The night goes on we remove the power steering pump, the oil pan bolts, the fan, the shrowd, the dipstick (Major PITA and I had done it once before to tap it for oil return for supercharger!) and I remember that my wastegate for the turbo wont clear the AC compressor bracket so we decide to take the crank pulley off in order to remove the AC Bracket. Everything is going fairly well we take a couple brakes go for some test drives in donovans monster and then get back to work more or less. Some crazy ass old guy comes by saying he wants our trash and then comes back for money. So odd. We press on, new gasket, silicone in the corners, yadda yadda... pan came right off with no movement of the subframe or engine! Dropped the oil pick up tube and all to clear the oil pan out. Anyway, everything goes back together. The test of manhood comes and we crank the car over - oil pressure light on for a couple secs then right out as per bentley manual, then all of a sudden a KNOCKING.

Sounded as if someone were in the engine bay pinging the end of the crankshaft with a small metal hammer - real messed up. My buddy had cranked it over so i said to rev it a little to fluctuate the rpm to see if it matched and it did. All sorts of messed up thoughts were going thru my head. Was going to pull the drive belt and fan and all that thinking maybe something was messed up. Then for some reason he put the clutch in and it went away. So we tried again, yeah the noise went away with the clutch in. Then I was frustrated and told my PT to just take the car around the block while I collected my thoughts with Donovan thinking **** over. He came back, same freaking insanely loud noise only when the car rev'd to like 3,000 the noise turned from a KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK/SQUEAL to SCHREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAK as he drove off. Man I was so pissed I wanted to kick the damned car.

It was about 11:50pm and we were all tired and Donovan had a long ride home so we just left and hoped it was something stupid like a throw out bearing (which is what Donovan suggested). My throw out bearing has made a little chachink chachink chachunk noise in neutral for the last like 2 years but no big deal. So I am at the very first traffic light from Jays garage and I am talking about how pissed off I am and all of a sudden SILENCE. The noise stopped! The whole time the car made the noise the clutch was fine, it drove fine, it just made noise and now it didn't! So I threw the clutch in and out a few time, nothing. I was so freaked out by it I didn't want to think the noise was gone just to have it start up again. Drove like 50 miles all the way home high way speed and then traffic lights and what not and no noise... FREAKY..

Donovan said throw out bearing - I am thinking so too maybe some oil got on the clutch surface or throw out bearing and triggered this noise. At first it sounded like the engine had no oil and was freaking, then we discovered it was based on the clutch being fully out, and then it went away.... Any ideas?

I don't really care what it is/was, its gone. I need a new clutch to hold ~550 ft/lb of torque anyway, but I wasn't planning on it just yet. Anyway, my 2nd E34 M50 oil pan is now in the car which is tapped for 5/8" oil return line :) This was the hardest step remaining with the turbo install and it is now complete!

[Espen]

Well Did you replace the oilpan with a different one? In that case you might have gotten a wrong one, so that the crankshaft is touching it. I read about it just a few days ago on a norwegian bmw forumt, didnt pay to much attention to that topic, and now i cant find it back...

[Jon K]

I replaced the oil pan yes - the oil pan is off of a '92 Non vanos M50, I hvae a '92 Non Vanos M50

The noise went away. We pulled down the street and the noise went away - also, while the niose was there, if we put the clutch it, it stopped. I think it must have been the throw out bearing.

[Bill R.]

some thrust play on the crank , not much but it does move back and forth a small amount when you put pressure on the clutch pressure plate from the throwout bearing. If the crank is moving forward and backway just a slight amount and the new pan is slightly closer to the crank counterweights you could have been hitting on the pan. I'd drain the oil and see if its all glittery looking just to be on the safe side.. It will look finer than glitter more like the finely ground silver powder used in metallic paints. If you drain the oil in a shallow pan and then hold it under a light you should see it, if thats what happened.




I replaced the oil pan yes - the oil pan is off of a '92 Non vanos M50, I hvae a '92 Non Vanos M50

The noise went away. We pulled down the street and the noise went away - also, while the niose was there, if we put the clutch it, it stopped. I think it must have been the throw out bearing.

[Jon K]

Now you've got me scared bill - going to drain the oil - or can i pull the filter, it'd show up there too right?

Bill I checked, and for once I wish you were wrong. ****. Theres very fine glitter in the oil....


what do I do now

[Bill R.]

get the die grinder out and grind the needed clearance until it doesn't hit.
Hopefully the small amount of material was caught by the filter and didn't pass through the rest of the motor. You may get to use that heliarc to add some material to the outside of the pan so you can grind the clearance needed... of course thats a last resort. Hopefully the pan is thick enough that no added material is needed. I've welded up more aluminum pans than i care to. Some of them are very hard to get spotlessly clean so that you can get a nice clean weld.

Edit, Sorry I'll try to be more wrong in the future.:)




Now you've got me scared bill - going to drain the oil - or can i pull the filter, it'd show up there too right?

Bill I checked, and for once I wish you were wrong. ****. Theres very fine glitter in the oil....


what do I do now

[Espen]

Pull of the pan, grind away some metall where the crank rubbs.. If I only could find that thread i read about this.. It was a common problem i think.

Ill do some more searching.

[Jon K]

This is pretty much the worst feeling ever

Bill, you definitely suggest pulling pan even tho there is no longer any noise being made? I could flush it out with a bunch of cheapo oil... what do you think. Pulling valve cover now to check cams, that should show if it went past the oil filter or not

[Jon K]

Here are some pics - the cams don't look weird in any way to me - they just show ~189k miles worth of wear... they look similar to the cams I have from the other m50 non vanos

http://e34.digital7.com/Oil%20Pan/1.jpg

http://e34.digital7.com/Oil%20Pan/2.jpg

http://e34.digital7.com/Oil%20Pan/3.jpg

This is the oil I sucked up with a straw (thankfully none in mouth!) from hydraulic lifter area to see how clean/dirty it was. Theres very very very little "dust" in it. I compared it to the pre-filter oil and the pre is worse obviously.

http://e34.digital7.com/Oil%20Pan/4.jpg

[632 Regal]

eeek...did you pull the pan yet? make sure the thrust bearing isn't shot by measuring the crank play front and back with a big screwdriver or similar.

[Jon K]

Didn't pull the pan off. Jeff why would the thrust bearing be shot since I did my oil pan? Like, it never hit the oil pan before, and this is the same oil pan from the same model car..

Where do you measure thrust bearing

Also, is it absolutely necessary to drop the oil pan again? I have 12 qts of **** oil and 10 quarts of good oil and a good oil filter. Think I can flush the pan out? The crank is no longer hitting as there is no noise it must have shaved the small area enough, or should I drop it and make clearance

[632 Regal]

you should take it off and see where and what it was hitting.

[Jon K]

Joy joy joy - ok, over to the shop I go!

[Booster]

If pulling the pan again is the only surprise you find in this whole build....I'd smile big. The crank has marked the area of concern for you to trim.
Take a good strong magnet and place it inside a paint strainer filter and pour all the used oil into it ( changing paper strainers afew times) and then reuse it if you must.
No money out of pocket.:)

[632 Regal]

jon is rich by my standards.

Take a good strong magnet and place it inside a paint strainer filter and pour all the used oil into it ( changing paper strainers afew times) and then reuse it if you must.
No money out of pocket.:)

[Bill R.]

any good to put a magnet on it.



If pulling the pan again is the only surprise you find in this whole build....I'd smile big. The crank has marked the area of concern for you to trim.
Take a good strong magnet and place it inside a paint strainer filter and pour all the used oil into it ( changing paper strainers afew times) and then reuse it if you must.
No money out of pocket.:)

[Jon K]

Bill R - is this something that you've heard happen before? I don't understand why it happened and quite honestly I am relatively upset that it did as there wasn't any real test I could to do make sure it wouldn't happen - it just sort of happened!

Now that I think about it, I switched from a stock paper gasket to a smaller rubber/metal gasket... perhaps the gasket is thinner and brings the pan closer to the block? I have no idea.


Yeah guys no magnet trick here.

Ok, i took the pan off, I got it down and you know what? I could BARELY see any issue! However, then I looked closer and it looks like the crank counter weight or crank rod bolt or something came down to it. If looking at engine head on, it spins clockwise - in the pan, there is a baffle in the shallow part and on that baffle (long straight part) there was a ~1/4" knick about ~1/16 or 1/8" deep. The knick has the metal in such a way that you can tell something came down at it, across, and away, basically the same positioning as the crank turning. There was a couple other scuffs on the baffle too but they look of older age SO my conclusion is that the baffle must have been bent up slightly from a previous hitting or installing (its hard not to knock the pan aroudn when removing) issue and it cleared that motors crank and mine didnt clear so perfectly. That's all I can tell from this. I ground down that edge all the way across even though the crank already made its "clearing mark".

Another question - can i bend the baffle downward at the edge there to give even more clearance? Or is this a no no for some odd reason?

[Jon K]

Bump?

[Bill R.]

somehow and thats what made it hit, especially if you see old damage that was done to it before. I wouldn't get too concerned , just make sure you have plenty of clearance before you put it back together. As the engine heats up the aluminum block and the pan go through some expansion and its possible that it can get either closer to the crank or further away as it goes through this cycle , so a little extra clearance never hurts unless your gapping rings





Bump?

[Jon K]

somehow and thats what made it hit, especially if you see old damage that was done to it before. I wouldn't get too concerned , just make sure you have plenty of clearance before you put it back together. As the engine heats up the aluminum block and the pan go through some expansion and its possible that it can get either closer to the crank or further away as it goes through this cycle , so a little extra clearance never hurts unless your gapping rings


And you feel comfortable in saying that there shouldn't really be any issue with the engine afterward? It did maybe 20 miles post-"noise" and then it got oil flushed twice pan dropped and now I am putting it back together hoping to God I do not hear that noise again.