BMW using oil.

"Dave Plowman (News)" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Really silly question - he did re-check the level after starting it and allowing the filter to fill...?

Try

A 91 330T? Eh? Wassat then?

Sounds to me like a rings / bore problem. Oil can't just vanish, it's either being burnt or leaking. I had something that did this, used about the same amount of oil but you couldn't see it being burnt unless you gave it full beans whilst looking in the mirror - that's not something I do often as it's a tad dangerous.

Plugging it into an emissions tester revealed the awful truth...

I assume so since he's been doing his own oil changes for 40 years. ;-) And see below anyway.

Estate car. For a very small estate.

I asked on another group and it seems problems with the oil separator is common leading to crankcase pressurization. In some cases blowing off the rocker cover. ;-) It happens most in cold climes and when the car is used for short journeys. Both of which apply - the SIL takes it 1/4 mile to the shops and 1/2 mile to walk the dog. Often.

It did pass an MOT recently.

Pete M gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

T-for-Tourer, not T-for-Turbo.

They made 330s in '91? That's what got me.

Pete M gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Mmm. Good point. No, they didn't. 325 would have been biggest, wouldn't it? With 328 coming later, into E36?

I doubt it as the M54 was only introduced in 2000. Do you perhaps mean a

Wasn't there an issue with this engine and high sulphur petrol because of the nikasil block or am I misremembering?

Seems so after some Googling. It was the M52 with the Nikasil bores and the M54 had cast iron liners to solve the problem. Drat, a mistake and I'd got nearly three quarters of the way through the year as well. Start from scratch again in 2010 and try harder.

Sorry - it's 01. I always new I was about 10 years out of date. And more than that parts my sell by date.

I doubt there are many still running with a Nikasil problem. Seems it was caused by imported petrol with a high sulphur content. Which hasn't been allowed for many a year. So they'll either be long fooked or ok. Didn't realise the M54 had liners - thought they'd moved to Alusil by then. In the US they went back to cast iron blocks for a while. ;-)

As are my specs, obviously.

In the USA they always had iron liners in the aluminium blocks because the USA had high sulphur petrol. It was European engines that had Nikasil coatings because they thought they could get away with it on the supposedly low sulphur petrol over here. They went to iron blocks for extra rigidity on the high output engines but that's an entirely different issue.

On the M54 they continued with aluminium blocks but used iron liners for all applications just in case the sulphur content of the petrol being used was a problem.

Think that's your second mistake of the year. ;-)

IIRC, the V-8 series of engines were the first to show problems with Nikasil. BMW initially thought it was due to localised overheating, as the process wasn't new, and had been used successfully on other US engines.

No - the base 6 cylinder units went *back* to iron block in the US.

They went to Alusil eventually - but dunno when.

I'll see if I can find the whole story for you. Later.

The info out there is a bit dubious with some saying iron liners and some saying iron blocks for the M52 in the USA.

The later M54 however definitely seems to have alloy blocks with iron liners.

Later still they even went to magnesium blocks with cast in place Alusil alloy liners for some engines.

As an aside I got an email from a guy some years ago with a Yamaha single cylinder bike engine that he'd had the valve seats cut by someone on and it was running like a sack of s**te and also blowing through the head gasket. He wanted the seats done properly and the aluminium barrel skimmed. No problem thought I rashly.

Well the bloody valve stems were like 4mm thick which means your seat cutting gear is flexing like a thin tree in a strong wind when you're trying to machine anything but I managed to get that redone ok. The original seats were a disaster. He'd already found they leaked like a sieve if you put paraffin into the ports but you could actually see the gaps between valve and seat just by looking down them.

The barrel though turned out to be Nikasil, or at least I presume it was. For about 3mm all round the bore it was hard as bleedin' nails. Even my trusty carbide cutter on the mill was bouncing over that centre bit. It chuffed through anything outside that quite normally and then leapt off like a startled ferret when it tried to cut near the bore. In the end I had to lap the face against wet and dry paper on a sheet of glass for ages to get the bore area flat to the rest of the skimming job. Maybe a diamond cutter would have done it but I don't use them.

Can't beat cast iron for easy boring, honing and big bore conversions. Refurbishing Nikasil or Alusil is a nightmare. It's harder than most people's cutting tools.

To avoid deck machining issues on dry liners in alloy block Nissan sink the liners a few mm down from top, by about the top ring land thickness. Not an issue for the boring process.

They don't machine coatings with single point tools, they grind them. The coating is too thin to re-bore so only way to big bore or repair is to cut the whole coating off, then reapply coating and grind to size. By time it's out to any worthwhile big bore the alloy bore wall is too thin to take hoop loads so it's better to fit dry liners.

The engine most effected was the M60 V-8 fitted to E34, etc.

Dunno. But it was only the M52 single VANOS non US sixes that had Nikasil problems. Just like the one in my E39. ;-)

Oh - it's a liner? I thought it was a surface treatment like Nikasil. So what's the benefit over iron liners?

Yes, I'd heard that. Although without petrol problems it's said to last the engine's lifetime.

Better conductivity & identical coeffecient of expansion.

It is a particular grade of aluminium with high silicon content that can be etched to leave hard silicon particles at the surface so you can either cast whole blocks out of it or make liners for use in other grades of aluminium or magnesium. Nikasil is a coating.