535i Overheat - Runs like sewing machine - help

[Konica]

Hey guys, I had my 535i overheat last week, I was driving out of the bank parking lot last week, it was about 6 degrees above 0, warm for this time of year where I live, and I noticed my temp gauge, just out of the corner of my eye, was in the RED. I have no idea how long it was sitting on the RED - but I would say not long as I would have probably noticed it otherwise. As I pulled out, BANG, smoke, and a hissing noise. The radiator hose going from the top of the rad, the big fat one, had a 4 inch long, break in it. About a litre of rad fluid on the road and around the engine comp.

* I have been driving this vehicle for about 5 months now, and put several thousand clicks on it, mostly in below zero temperatures, with no overheating problems, ever.


They spent several hours today bleeding the car, topped off the fluid, and replaced the hoses. It passed the pressure leak test.


I picked up the car, and it runs like ****. I mean, it ran fairly shitty before in that the engine was a bit loud, but now, the engine sounds like an industrial sewing machine on over-drive as opposed to a regular sewing machine. The engine takes it's time to start up - not any worse than before - but it's probably worth mentioning. It takes about 4-6 seconds to start the engine. Battery is fine.

The noise is tick tick tick, but fast, coming from the front of the engine, and as I get progressively closer to the back of the engine, it's quieter...the noise seems to becoming from the area near the water pump?

There is also a similar tick tick noise coming from the exhaust. Actually, now that I think about it, sometimes when I accelerate, my exhuast makes this horrible noise. Cat is broke?


The engine is also hesitating from stop more than usual. It hesitated before, but now it seems slightly more pronounced.Temperature gauge is staying constant at just SLIGHTLY past the halfway mark, regardless of whether the heat is on or off. Outside temp was 6.5 Celsius.


The following things have NOT been done on the car, and I doubt they've been done in a long time judging by the condition of the car when I picked it up:

* Valve Adjustment
* Injector Replacement
* Oxy Sensor Replacement
* Cap + Wire Replacement

I don't want my engine to blow up. This car has 227,000 Kilometers on it, by the way. It's had an oil change, I use 91 octane gas, and the plugs have been replaced.

[Adnan]

Hi,

Sorry to hear about your mishap. The M30 is rather unforgiving when it comes to overheating so the first thing I'd check is whether the head gasket has blown. This may be causing compression loss and associated problems.

Even if there is no coolant in the oil or vice versa, the gasket can be blown. I had it do that in six places once when my fan belt broke. In the few seconds it took to pull across five lanes of freeway and come to a stop, the damage was done. Engine ran just fine actually but wisps of steam were coming off the head/block interface in six different places.

Run a compression check as the first step.

Regards,
Adnan

[BigKriss]

I would guess the headgasket also. It hates overheating but since it's not losing coolant and it's not overheating again then maybe it's something else. Is the idle rough now when initially starting? If it is, then its a good chance its the headgasket.

[Kabuto]

Hi,

Since you mentioned that you haven't had a valve adjustment job done for a while, I'd suggest you to get it done first, the ticking sound from the front of the engine is most likely from the loss valve and it could damage the camshaft so I'd get it adjust fast.

Check your exhuast, does it have white or black smoke coming out from the exhaust? If it does, then, your head gasket is blown. You should find someone who really know about the car and have them to work on it.

If you happen to live in the NYC area PM me, I do know someone who worked at the BMW dealer for over 20 years and now he works as an independence mechanic who has done excellent work on my car ('89 535i) and the price is very reasonable.

Goodluck!

[Ross]

I'm guessing that coolant went everywhere including your distributor and belts. The clicking could just be the belts slipping, try spraying some carb cleaner on them with the engine running, if that eliminates the noise change the belts they were probably old anyway.
Your rough running might be ignition misfire from coolant in the cdistributor cap and on the wires. From what you've said about the car it probably needs a tune up anyway.
Passing a pressure test doesn't mean you don't have a blown headgasket, but overheating doesn't mean you do either. The M30 isn't as bad as the M20 or 50 in that regard so you could be okay.
If the cooling system begins to pressurize or it refuse to purge all the air then start looking for a failed gasket. Meantime check the above, the sky isn't necessarily falling.