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      06-03-2012, 07:35 PM   #1
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Valve adjustment by a supervised noob

This morning, Davez4 supervised me doing the valve adjustment with more than a little help in between.

First off ill start by saying: IT IS NUTS THAT SHOPS ARE CHARGING OVER $600 FOR THIS!!!!

Some interesting info for you guys: My car has about 23,500 miles and we had to adjust 9 valves. They weren't far out of spec, but their is a definite difference in the smoothness and the top end now.

really. Its not that bad. If you are around others with the s54 motor, pool your money and buy the shim kit. It only took about 2.5 hours and thats with me dropping nearly every tool we had into my engine bay. Remember, ive never done this before in my life. I did have supervision and wouldnt have attempted it otherwise, but thats before i knew what i was dealing with. There are plenty of DIYs out there that you can look at so im not going to get into the details. Lets just call this some encouragement.

Big thanks to Dave and His dad for all the help! and for of course ragging on me every step of the way
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      06-03-2012, 07:42 PM   #2
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Good job! I want to attempt this myself as well. I'm only at 12k miles right now so I don't need one for a while though
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      06-03-2012, 09:04 PM   #3
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BMW quoted me 400-$600 for it and an independent shop quoted me a little over $400 for it. That was including everything. I trust the indy shop more to do it right.

I am tempted to buy all the parts and tools and do it myself. Can do on a weekend and saves me taking a day off work or finding another alternative for driving to work.

It looks pretty daunting though ...
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      06-03-2012, 11:24 PM   #4
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I'm actually due for one right now. Local shop wanted like $500 so I have been tempted to do it myself. Unfortunately I'm not very handy at all. I watched the video and it seemed pretty straight forward but if I mess something up I wont be able to go to work the next day. Is there any videos on how to remove the actual cover? The video I saw already had the cover removed. I know there is some sealant that has to be used.
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      06-03-2012, 11:26 PM   #5
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There are certain things I can't bring myself to mess with just yet, engine internals being one of them. Hopefully one of these days I can feel comfortable doing this, in the meantime my local shop will be making some money
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      06-04-2012, 06:52 AM   #6
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Thanks for posting your feedbacks. This definitely give me more confident as i am getting to do mine this weekend. As you said, I don't want to spend $400 for the Shims Kit so i am going to do it the hard way and going to the local dealership to get individual shims as needed. Hopefully they will have them in-stock so the car won't be down for too long.
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      06-04-2012, 09:33 AM   #7
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I would probably attempt it with "adult supervision" like you, but definitely not by myself. Too much risk to completely screw up your engine
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      06-04-2012, 12:20 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pheonix View Post
Thanks for posting your feedbacks. This definitely give me more confident as i am getting to do mine this weekend. As you said, I don't want to spend $400 for the Shims Kit so i am going to do it the hard way and going to the local dealership to get individual shims as needed. Hopefully they will have them in-stock so the car won't be down for too long.

You better make sure your dealer stocks individual shims before you start. I ordered some of the more common sizes with the hopes of getting others from a dealer if needed. No dealer in the DFW area carried individual shims in stock. They all had to order them. The turnaround time was the same as when I ordered them from Tischer and triple the cost. I ended up having the car sitting in my garage for a week before it was ready to go.

Good Luck, have fun and take your time. I did my car a month after I bought it.
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      06-04-2012, 12:30 PM   #9
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Yeah, i already contacted couple local dealers and they said they have individual shim in-stock. If not, i am planning to have the car down for a week since i have other things do as well.
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      06-04-2012, 12:49 PM   #10
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There are some threads buried in here on the most common range of shims.
That's what I bought instead of the complete kit.
We did 2 cars & it was a MUCH cheaper way to go.

...if I can find my old info I'll post it up
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      06-04-2012, 01:04 PM   #11
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I second(or third) the adult supervision idea. I can only envision what would happen if I did it on my own!
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      06-04-2012, 04:13 PM   #12
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its really not hard. Your going to drop the shims several times, fortunatly we have screens preventing the shims from going any further. A small magnet will pick them up. Thats pretty much the worse that could happen, removing the valve cover is very easy and you shouldnt have a problem with anything involved. I however wouldnt advise getting the shims from the dealership as you go, sometimes it takes a little bit of trial and error to get them perfect, so you will need a little more than just what you would think.
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      06-04-2012, 06:21 PM   #13
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I personally think now that a shop that does it all the time and will aquire odd sized shims to expand the "shim kit" is the best bet if they do the adjustment right. since they do not make half step shims this would result in the optimum adjustment. Now just to find a shop like my dads that will go the extra step to make it perfect!
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      06-04-2012, 06:36 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by txz4 View Post
its really not hard. Your going to drop the shims several times, fortunatly we have screens preventing the shims from going any further. A small magnet will pick them up. Thats pretty much the worse that could happen, removing the valve cover is very easy and you shouldnt have a problem with anything involved. I however wouldnt advise getting the shims from the dealership as you go, sometimes it takes a little bit of trial and error to get them perfect, so you will need a little more than just what you would think.
There are no screens that I know of.
You need to plug all the drain downs.
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      06-04-2012, 06:41 PM   #15
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Some of the engines have screens, some don't. I do not know what the common thread is to determine if an engine had them or not.
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      06-04-2012, 06:45 PM   #16
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06 & 07 and we had to plug them. BTW; if you do this as BMW directs the parts list isn't cheap. While it's apart I recommend changing the plugs too.
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      06-04-2012, 11:01 PM   #17
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Did mine 3 weeks ago. It really isn't hard. I dropped many shims lol. Luckily my October 2007 had screens.
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      06-05-2012, 06:55 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shipkiller View Post
Some of the engines have screens, some don't. I do not know what the common thread is to determine if an engine had them or not.
My 12/06 build had screens. I still plugged the holes anyways (and covered the vanos area while working).
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      06-05-2012, 07:16 PM   #19
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Import labour likely forgot to install them (screens) - my entire coil harness was only attached on one side BMW
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      06-05-2012, 07:46 PM   #20
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My 06/2007 build Z4MC has screens (oil strainer) in the S54 engine. I'm guessing all Z4M S54 engines have the screens. The only S54 engines I've seen without screens are those installed in the early E46 M3s and the 2001/2002 S54 powered Z3M cars.
The screen part number was activated in 09/2004:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...5&postcount=16
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      06-06-2012, 01:38 AM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by davesz4mc View Post
I personally think now that a shop that does it all the time and will aquire odd sized shims to expand the "shim kit" is the best bet if they do the adjustment right. since they do not make half step shims this would result in the optimum adjustment. Now just to find a shop like my dads that will go the extra step to make it perfect!
right on, i realized exactly what dave was talking about when we were trying to find the perfect shim for each adjustment. With the sizes in the kit you will often not be as close as you would like for an adjustment.
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      06-09-2012, 08:07 PM   #22
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It took us 3hours to complete the job this morning. The car has about 29k miles, 6 of the shims needed to be replaced with the next size up. I could not believe how easy it was; we were struggled a little bit to find the perfect shims. Then we decided to adjust to the higher end of the specs. The car seems to be "better" but it might just be placebo.
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