Sunday 5 July 2015

E46 Clubsport: Nathan's split rubber + other issues.

More big spending as the Clubsport gets back on the road with a new MOT, starting with 4 new Maxxis tyres for the refurbed split-rims. It's been running a bit rough, but as he started it for the first time in a month it ran a bit worse and began producing a lot of white / blue smoke from the exhaust. Fearing the head-gasket he started dismantling and found it was just one of the profile-gaskets in the rocker-cover [16 in the bottom diagram] was split and hadn't seated in the head properly the last time it was replaced and was allowing oil to spill down into the chamber and was causing the smoke. This, he assures us, is a common problem in 6-cylinder BMW petrols and had nothing to do with any 'engine-weld' products he may have also added. Never the less, with a new rubber-gasket the smoke has ceased. During the job he found the rubber intake hose was also split in two places, clearly contributing to the lack of smooth acceleration suffered since he got it, so he treated the 330 to a new one of these as well.


The MOT threw up borderline high emissions, which was waved, and both front lower ball-joints were knackered. These are usually replaced as a whole control-arm, so that's what was done and finally the Clubsport is back on the road, looking and sounding as it should with better pull and a really raspy vanos exhaust note. Next up comes replacing the lower bumper splitter sorely missing from the front end.

No comments:

Post a Comment