Z3 2.2 journal ft engine replacement - 'Okus'

[mrscalex]

I'd always intended to get another project after the Terd-Mobile was completed. Little did I know the right opportunity would present itself literally on the same weekend I finished the Terd-Mobile. In fact the transporter turned up 30 seconds after I got the driver's seat in and had moved it out of the repair bay!

It's another 2.2. It's a non-Sport but with a number of Sport options like seats, front & rear lights, staggered alloys and a virtually mint chrome gear knob. It's in pretty sound condition but has got a bit of rust in the usual suspect places.



There's just the small matter of swapping the engine out as it's seized. It will also be loosing all it's Sport fittings to finish the Terd-Mobile off properly. All the same it will be a nice, useable car (hopefully) when I'm done. I'm a little bit concerned at the surface rust as you never know what's lurking underneath but I'll get the panels off to check before committing any further time or money to the project.

I'd rather fancied having a 3.0 as the next project. Preferably with a blown engine as I fancied giving that side of things a go. Well I got my blown engine and all those Sport goodies on a sound enough car was too good to turn down. I feel a bit guilty robbing the Sport bits as I like to keep things factory. But a) finances have to enter things somewhere and b) the car could by now have ended up with someone who wanted to break it and I'm saving it just minus a couple of bits.

I won't be doing much work on it until the autumn. But I'll start planning the work in the interim period and looking out for spares.

We also have one challenge I do want to complete now. The bonnet is jammed down. I reached up and pulled the inter-latch cable but it was all locked up solid. So I figured we'd have to take one or both grills off to get in. Now I think some people might cut the grill but I wanted to see if we could get it out in one bit. And we did! I whipped my belt off, threaded it under as many fins as possible with the help of some stiff wire and gave it a short, sharp yank. Result - clean out with just one broken tab! It was late at night when I had the thought so we'll tackle the bonnet release itself tomorrow.

[mrscalex]

Bonnet opened by dismantling foot-well trim, unbolting handle and getting an extended yank on it.

Took all of about 30 seconds to find out why the engine seized. Just followed the oil drip...



One lovely hole in the sump. There's no sign of any other damage in the area so either this was a precision rock etc strike or is it just possible something has punched through from the inside? It does look like the metal is distorted inside to out.

Anyway, the engine is certainly knackered. Following a catastrophic loss of oil like that is there likely to be anything salvageable from the engine itself? Have to think about getting some pennies back for this project Certainly won't be attempting a repair so on the look out for a 2.2 engine with <75k miles.

[Southernboy]

Most valuable part of the entire engine is the cylinder head... if you clean it up well and re-seat the valves you'll get a tidy sum for it complete with cams etc..

[mrscalex]

Most valuable part of the entire engine is the cylinder head... if you clean it up well and re-seat the valves you'll get a tidy sum for it complete with cams etc..

Wouldn't the oil starvation have wrecked it? Or is that what you mean by tidy up?

[Southernboy]

I think you'll find it's OK. The pistons will lock up in their barrels long before the head is damaged. As you can imagine, the heat inside the pots will rapidly increase without oil to lube the movement of the pistons, and they will lock up. Check the water content in the block (if any) - if there's water still there, your head should be good.

[mrscalex]

Well there's certainly water in the expansion tank still if that counts. Any loss of water in the block would be reflected in the tank?

So hopefully up to a couple of hundred quid in the pot for that The more I can put back in the pot the more Z3s I get to rescue

[mrscalex]

Not sure whether I've got some weirdness going on. I noticed the air box and a second black box that bolts to it had been forcefully ripped from their mountings, although the jubilee clips were undone properly. Presumably this was done post engine seize! Can anyone think why that assembly would be dismantled to inspect engine damage? Nothing else had been touched. I thought it might be to rob the MAF while it was in the salvage yard but that's still there and in fact the car appears to be completely unscavenged.

I always try to learn as I go rather than just follow a script so I was interested what the second black box was. This image shows it sitting up in the top right attached to the hose.



And here it is loosely back in situ tucked under the outlet of the air box, next to the engine.



Now when I looked up the part number of both the black box and hose they came up as 5 Series parts not Z3. In fact the Z3 doesn't seem to have the same part (Resonator). Here's the part numbers.





I no longer have the benefit of having the Terd-Mobile on-site to compare as it has gone to live elsewhere.

So what do we think this is all about? Is realoem wrong? Is it a small-scale production variation? Is there some sort of mod using 5 Series parts? I'm guessing it's some sort of silencer to reduce noise.

[mrscalex]

A plan is starting to emerge for the project. On the presumption the engine is seized and will need a full rebuild I consulted a local engineering company recommended by my independent long-time garage.

Very nice guy I spoke to. Kevin at KMB Engineering in Cirencester near Swindon. https://www.facebook.com/kmbengineering/

It turns out he doesn't rebuild engines, he only does engineering services, machining etc. But take a look at his Facebook page and the wonderful stuff he gets involved in eg Ferraris, Bentleys & F1 engines! And my local garage have switched to him as he's cheaper than the usual workshop in Swindon!

Long and short is Kevin said the parts alone to rebuild the engine properly would be in excess of £500. So without hesitation he recommend getting a replacement from a reputable salvage yard. I'm taking that advice and starting a search with a budget of up to £500. For that money it would need to be low mileage (<50k miles) and I'll happily take anything up to 75k miles at the right money. The vehicle/current engine has done 93k miles.

The plan is I'll hire an engine crane and get my sea legs back removing the 1.9 engine from the breaker. I've done engines before but 30 years ago as a teenager! Then I'll have the 2.2 out of the project. I'll take the sump off and find out more about what caused the issue - just in case it's something simple . And hopefully I can salvage the cylinder head to resell. That will probably occupy me enough over the course of one weekend and I'll hire the crane for a second time to put the replacement 2.2 back.

The prep work to remove the engine will be done a couple of hours a week as will the reinstatement. I put too much of my life on hold restoring Trudy

Predictions welcome on what caused the hole in the sump! Bearing in mind the hole appears to have been made inside to out.

[colb]

Maybe con rod bolt let go or crank web fractured and tried escaping?

[peter2b]

10 mm socket some one on face book lost thiers
peter2b

[mrscalex]

I'm treating all predictions with equal validity. Besides, I lost a 10mm socket from my Halfords Professional set too

[mrscalex]

I'm getting my act together now for the engine replacement. Lots of reading up on how tos etc.

I've also spent some weeks already looking for an engine with no success. They are either too high mileage and/or too expensive. I've also decided I want to keep things very simple and find a Z3 2.2 rather than a 3 Series or 5 Series 2.2. In theory the 3 Series at least has identical everything according to realoem apart from sump and oil pickup, even the exhaust and inlet manifolds are suggested as the same. But I really do want to keep things as simple as possible so really I want that Z3 engine and to keep both manifolds in place and as many ancillaries as possible. Pull-out, drop-in as one mass and no fiddling apart from reconnecting bolts, cables and pipework.

Bentley suggests both manifolds have to come off to remove the engine. But I don't see why? I will have plenty of clearance as I intend to remove the front panel (and bonnet if required). Can anyone confirm if I can leave the manifolds on?

So I'm planning on buying a written-off Z3 2.2. I'm looking at getting something that's beyond viable repair to a) keep the cost down and b) as I don't like breaking repairable cars. I'm looking at a £1,000 budget. This all makes sense bearing in mind the engine was looking like it was going to cost me £500+ landed and I should get the rest of my spend back from breaking the rest of the car.

In the meantime I'll be disconnecting as much as possible. I also need to finish breaking the 1.9 to make room for the donor 2.2.

I'm tossing up whether to buy an engine crane and sell it on afterwards (no room to store) or hire one. Unless someone local to Swindon (or Swansea) could lend me their's for a small consideration? I might well get an engine stand too as I do want to strip the old one down to see what I can learn.

I am planning on doing another photo journal on here as internet guides are pretty non-existent and it may help someone in the future. So stay tuned to this thread if you'd like to see me stumble around with this project

[Boosh]

Count me in to follow your progress. I used to live in Salisbury, almost down the road...

Boosh.

[mrscalex]

Progress is slow as I have so little time to work on it but I'm getting there.

Everything is disconnected from the engine apart from the fuel line and heater hose. Air box and radiator removed. Fan off to avoid breakage during lift. It might be a scrap engine but I want all the parts off it.

I started out intending to label each side of the disconnection point and take photos along the way. But I got carried away and just pulled everything off in the end. It was all simple enough on reflection but at the time I didn't want to slow myself down with the little bit of time I had.

Plus, I now have an identical donor cart sat next to it so I can do all the proper note taking when I pull the donor engine out from that one. I'll try and put it all together as a step by step tutorial for the Knowledgebase.

This Saturday I'll be doing the crawling around. The car will be going up on stands and the exhaust and gearbox will be unbolted.

Sometime over the following 2 weeks the front end will be coming off to make engine/gearbox removal as simple as possible. Then at the end of the month I have 3 days leave when at the very least I want to physically remove the engine. And with any luck get the donor engine out and dropped in too.

But there's no rush. I've set a target of end of November to complete the job before the weather turns. I have to juggle this project with keeping 2 others on the road and breaking 2 more to pay for it all . Ultimately the back stop is towards end of Feb when the MOT runs out. I don't want to be driving it for the first time on the way to the MOT station!