What did you do to your car today?

[pdxmotorhead]

Dye and a UV light are easiest way to find the leaks.

the 3/4 mark is dang high on these engines....

Dave

[zoner]

Originally Posted by cooljess76

FWIW, I had a hairline crack in my radiator right behind the expansion tank. The crack was so small, you couldn't even see coolant leaking because it would evaporate as soon as it reached the atmosphere. Eventually, I'd lost enough coolant to cause vapor lock. It happened right after I bought the car and was driving it home from Michigan to Cali. That's when I learned how to bleed the system. I ended up driving the car like that for several thousand miles, filling and bleeding the radiator daily until it got so bad I was adding a gallon of water a day, lol. Never once did I ever let it overheat though, the very first time I caught it at the 3/4 mark and shut her down. If I were you, I'd pressure test the radiator/cooling system. You can rig up a fitting to a bicycle pump and a cap that will fit the expansion tank. Pump it up to about 5psi(don't go much higher than that, the radiator cap is designed to relieve @ about 15 psi). It helps if you do this in a quiet garage. Listen for hissing and hopefully you'll find your leak. If you suspect a blown headgasket, the only way to know for sure is to do a cylinder leakdown test. Autozone sells a leakdown kit for about 30 or 40 bucks.

A little off topic for the thread, but ever since I've owned my ti, whenever I top off the radiator, after a day or two the level in the expansion tank drops about 3-4" from the filler neck, but never any further. Is this normal? I've always thought that maybe my radiator cap was not holding correct pressure, since I don't notice any leaks in the radiator or expansion tank (or the rest of the cooling system, for that matter) and I've never seen any indication that there is a head gasket leak. Temp. gauge always rides at 12 o'clock where it should. Besides, if there was a leak somewhere, I would assume that the level would continue to drop, not hold steady after dropping a few inches in the expansion tank.

[cooljess76]

Originally Posted by pdxmotorhead

Dye and a UV light are easiest way to find the leaks.

the 3/4 mark is dang high on these engines....

Dave

I've heard of people using that method for A/C system leaks, but in my situation it was easier to track down a hiss and watch the pressure gauge drop. Especially since the leak was between the expansion tank and the radiator, wouldn't of been able to see it anyway.

Anything over 12 o'clock on the temp gauge is bad. Imagine buying a car sight unseen 1500 miles away from home. Driving the car a couple hundred miles on some unfamiliar highway and then noticing the heat getting weaker and the temp needle climbing. I sat on the side of the freeway for about an hour, poured a couple bottles of drinking water in the radiator, limped it to the next exit where I spent the night in an autozone parking lot, lol. As soon as they opened the next morning, I bought a haynes manual, two gallons of antifreeze and a few tools. Bled the system, car ran fine with plenty of heat through one of the worst ice storms in decades. Every time I stopped for fuel, I let it cool, topped the radiator off and bled the system.

Aside from running over a block of ice and breaking off my post cat o2 sensor, another chunk of ice taking out my lower grill slats, about a dozen near death spin outs on the I-40 which was then covered in about 3 inches of compacted ice, both windows falling off track, my buddy burning a hole in my headliner de-ashing a joint out of the sunroof since the windows didn't work, we made it to the west coast in one piece. I was so traumatized from almost spinning out so many times, I found myself driving 50mph on dry roads through Arizona.

I was well aware of the cooling issues with these cars as this wasn't my first ti and just prior to purchasing this one, a member on here "jflip2002" tried to screw me over on ebay by listing his alaska blue ti sport as having a "bad spark plug" when in fact he posted here that it had just blown it's second headgasket in less than 6 months. That's how I found this forum. I was searching the net for "318ti blown headgasket" when I stumbled across a thread posted by the guy that was trying to screw me on ebay. Needless to say, I sent ebay a link and they ruled in my favor, revoked his account and I didn't have to purchase the vehicle.

[cooljess76]

Originally Posted by zoner

A little off topic for the thread, but ever since I've owned my ti, whenever I top off the radiator, after a day or two the level in the expansion tank drops about 3-4" from the filler neck, but never any further. Is this normal? I've always thought that maybe my radiator cap was not holding correct pressure, since I don't notice any leaks in the radiator or expansion tank (or the rest of the cooling system, for that matter) and I've never seen any indication that there is a head gasket leak. Temp. gauge always rides at 12 o'clock where it should. Besides, if there was a leak somewhere, I would assume that the level would continue to drop, not hold steady after dropping a few inches in the expansion tank.

Perfectly normal. in fact, when you bleed the system, you usually have to pour coolant all the way to the top of the filler neck before you even see coolant starting to come out of the bleed hole. IDK where the extra coolant goes, but it always levels off to the "kalt" mark on the expansion tank.

[kuleinc]

Thats how the S52 in my red car is and the M44 in my black car, I'm ALWAYS having to add coolant, it doesn't seem to leak anywhere and they both hold pressure... Very wierd....

[cooljess76]

The coolant level should go down to the "kalt" mark on the side of the expansion tank when the engine is cold. There's no need to fill it all the way to the top unless you're bleeding the system, in which case it'll level back off once you drive the car.

[Freak1]

I just wanted to ask a quick Q about aE46 318Ti Compact N42 motor. I'm in the process of changing the cylinder head gasket as it was messed up and i lost compression thus the car refused to start. Using the cylinder head bolts do you have to keep the bolts and washers together use the exactly the same washers that it came with our can you mix it up?......

[zoner]

Originally Posted by Freak1

I just wanted to ask a quick Q about aE46 318Ti Compact N42 motor. I'm in the process of changing the cylinder head gasket as it was messed up and i lost compression thus the car refused to start. Using the cylinder head bolts do you have to keep the bolts and washers together use the exactly the same washers that it came with our can you mix it up?......

Whenever you R&R a cylinder head, you should always use NEW head bolts. Bolts can stretch ever so slightly over time, once they are torqued and for the $15 or so that it costs for a new set, it's more than worth the peace of mind and much cheaper than having to do it over because you didn't do it right the first time.

[Freak1]

Thanks much appreciated.......is the washers bolt specific?

[bullmand]

According the parts diagrams at bmwfans.info there are three different bolts used on your cylinder head and two different part numbers for the washers. IIRC the new bolts don't come with washers, but assuming the washers are just plain, flat washers and are undamaged you should be able to reuse them. It looks like the bolts may be three different lengths and the shortest ones have the different part number for the washers. If that's correct you should be able to separate them out that way and keep track of which washers go on the short bolts. Check out the pretty picture.

http://bmwfans.info/parts/catalog/E4...ched_parts/#08

[familytruckster]

Found a few of the squeaks and fixed them. Seems like I have one more to go. The other ones were the rear swaybar bushings and the spare tire was rubbing on the muffler heat shield. Greased the bushings then bent the heat shield back into place.

I need to order some polyflex swaybar bushings.

[Kaliimc]

Last night I cleaned all 4 ABS wheel sensors due to an ominous glow on the dashboard. Didn't change the glow, but boy were they dirty!

Spoke with a local Indie shop owner and he said it is most likely the ABS pump? near the master cylinder and no one replaces or tries to repair them as they are costly. He also indicated that the car will not fail a safety inspection if the ABS "glow" is present (Hawaii).

Checked all fuses related to the ABS, reseated them and looked at the ABS relays. No testing has been conducted due to an equipment and knowledge deficiency. Still no change. . . At least now I'm not going to worry about the safety inspection!

[vsonix]

It's been nearly a year to the day since I bought my 318ti and this little car has stolen my heart in that time, haha. It's been an expensive month though; road tax/registration came in, and then 2 of the stock springs broke after I hit a massive pothole, so I had to replace all four, I picked Kilen lowering springs, so she's now riding nearly 2cm lower but a smidgin higher at the back than before and IMO her stance is much improved. Also ditched my worn Firestone Firehawks off the front and rotated my Kumhos from the back to the front and added another pair so I am now running on fresh/nearly fresh Ecsta SPTs all round. Also had the front bumper reattached as it was hanging almost an inch low on the driver's side... car is now in much better condition than it was when I got it this time 12 months ago. Also sucks that the insurance is due very soon as well...

[ti-billy]

Filled up the gas tank....$55

[kuleinc]

I spent 30 minutes trying to adjust my new rear koni shocks before I realized you have to remove the bumper in them or they don't collapse enough to adjust when you turn them...