One of those days

[SaltyNC]

It's rainy today, so I thought I'd change my oil at the 3000 mile mark. I had let my car sit for a couple of months, and had put in some Techron when getting it back on the road, had the vanos repaired, and so thought I'd get some new oil in the roadster after running a couple of tanks of gas.

I started the oil draining and went to grab the new filter and realized the white BMW box I thought was the oil filter for the S54 was too small and held a MINI oil filter. Darn. I ran to the dealership to get a filter, and thought to myself on the way there that it was not a complete loss, because the engine will really have drained well in all that time.

When I got home,the garage floor had a huge pool of oil under my car. What the crap! When draining the oil, it's always a best practice to remove the plug in your oil recycle container before removing the oil plug from your car.

Oh well. A roll of shop towels and some degreaser, and it's all back to normal. Two hour oil change.

Salty

[RABAUKE]

Nice. I did my wife's Mini (a real one, 1979) the other day. The oil filter is a bitch to get at, you have to remove the grill and then It's still tight. The damn thing didn't want to come off, I couldn't get an oil filter wrench on it so resorted to driving a screwdriver through it to get it turning. Ended mashing the thing up pretty good while repeating the process four or five times. In the end, the contents of the oil filter were all over my driveway as my oil pan was still catching the pan contents......

I did my boat the next day, twin V8 inboards. For the life of me I don't know why the oil filters are installed on a downward 45' angel. Even with the pans drained there was still about a 1/2 quart in each filter with no room to get a pan under them I ended up with a fair amount of oil in the bilge.....

I still have the Z4MC to do.....I think I'll do it next week.

Sometimes I wonder why I DIY.

[SaltyNC]

Originally Posted by RABAUKE

Nice. I did my wife's Mini (a real one, 1979) the other day. The oil filter is a bitch to get at, you have to remove the grill and then It's still tight. ...
Sometimes I wonder why I DIY.

Cool. I have a friend in England that has a mint Mini (real one) that has been garage kept and only has something like 8K miles on it. I would love to have that baby, but I suspect it is going to his grandkids.

The new MINI is about as bad. You have to remove the coolant overflow tank, then stuff rags/towels under the filter housing and use a long socket extension and a special socket to remove the PLASTIC filter housing cap. I can't believe they use plastic for a filter housing. We used to let the dealer change the oil while it was under warranty, and we kept complaining of exhaust smells. After I changed the oil the first time, I realized why. Even being extremely careful, it's just next to impossible not to spill a little oil. I wipe down everything with a degreaser now.

Salty

[W///]

Originally Posted by SaltyNC

It's rainy today, so I thought I'd change my oil at the 3000 mile mark. I had let my car sit for a couple of months, and had put in some Techron when getting it back on the road, had the vanos repaired, and so thought I'd get some new oil in the roadster after running a couple of tanks of gas.

I started the oil draining and went to grab the new filter and realized the white BMW box I thought was the oil filter for the S54 was too small and held a MINI oil filter. Darn. I ran to the dealership to get a filter, and thought to myself on the way there that it was not a complete loss, because the engine will really have drained well in all that time.

When I got home,the garage floor had a huge pool of oil under my car. What the crap! When draining the oil, it's always a best practice to remove the plug in your oil recycle container before removing the oil plug from your car.

Oh well. A roll of shop towels and some degreaser, and it's all back to normal. Two hour oil change.

Salty

I have kitty litter just for moments like that. Works wonderful and is dirt cheap!

Glad that's all that happened. Was scared your car got hit or something since we got Z4s falling like flies!

[yousefnjr]

Doh! Been there, +1 on the kitty litter

[Finnegan]

Originally Posted by SaltyNC

It's rainy today, so I thought I'd change my oil at the 3000 mile mark. I had let my car sit for a couple of months, and had put in some Techron when getting it back on the road, had the vanos repaired, and so thought I'd get some new oil in the roadster after running a couple of tanks of gas.

I started the oil draining and went to grab the new filter and realized the white BMW box I thought was the oil filter for the S54 was too small and held a MINI oil filter. Darn. I ran to the dealership to get a filter, and thought to myself on the way there that it was not a complete loss, because the engine will really have drained well in all that time.

When I got home,the garage floor had a huge pool of oil under my car. What the crap! When draining the oil, it's always a best practice to remove the plug in your oil recycle container before removing the oil plug from your car.

Oh well. A roll of shop towels and some degreaser, and it's all back to normal. Two hour oil change.

Salty

"Best" thing about this is how you kept trying to make lemonaid out of lemons each step of the way, only to end up with more lemon juice in your eye! I hate it when that happens! "Well, I don't have X, but I can start Y, and while Y is going Z is getting prepared" only to have some unforeseen thing or step I forget in the process screw it up. <sigh> Makes me feel better to hear these stories as invariably they happen. Thanks for sharing it.

+! on lots and lots of cheap clay kitty litter! It's reusable for several "events" as well. Best in the plastic large containers that seal back up.

Last time I used it was with the Challenger on the lift. Easy enough car to work on, but the filter points down and holds a good 1/2+ quart of oil. So, you don't accidentally drop the silly filter full of old oil from 7 feet off the ground. Drops and globs everywhere, like freakin' blood splatter at a crime scene.

Kitty litter made it all go away.

Originally Posted by RABAUKE

Sometimes I wonder why I DIY.

Why? Because despite these events or an occasional self blunder on the project end you know the correct oil is used; you know oil isn't dripped/sprayed all over the heads due to careless filling, you know some idiot didn't leave the old oil filter o-ring on the block and put a new filter and o-ring over it, and you know the oil plug and filter aren't torqued to over 100 foot lbs. I had the BMW dealer try to use the wrong oil in the engine, diff, and transmission back when it was under the service plan. Caught it, but, geez, I even had to argue about it. No more. No thanks!

[SaltyNC]

Originally Posted by Finnegan

Because despite these events or an occasional self blunder at then project end you know the correct oil is used; you know oil isn't dripped/sprayed all over the heads due to careless filling, you know some idiot didn't leave the old oil filter o-ring on the block and put a new filter and o-ring over it, and you know the oil plug and filter aren't torqued to over 100 foot lbs.

Absolutely! This is why I am doing more and more things myself. The first independent BMW mechanic I used did a lot of work on my car. He did a great job as far as I know. I've since gone back and checked things to make sure they were done correctly, and everything looks good. But that first service, he informed me when I picked up my car that he had to get an extra liter of oil from BMW, because I hadn't provided enough. I explained that was impossible, that I had given him 6 liters. He had not worked on a Z4M, but had worked on plenty of E46's, so just assumed same engine, same oil fill. I came home and used a topside extractor to pull out 1 1/2 liters of oil.

Because we are enthusiasts and because we do so much research, we know these cars better than most independent BMW mechanics will. It only makes sense to DIY when we can if we want to make certain it is done right. A perfect example is a job I should have done myself. I called Raj at Beisan and asked for recommendations. He told me about a guy not far from me that actually helped him prototype some products. This guy also owns an e46. So, at least I knew the guy would be awesome at doing the vanos work, and he was. But, I sent him forum posts that dealt specifically with the Z4M. I also ordered the shorter timing lock pin and had that available for him. I told him how reattaching the vanos to the engine was a little trickier on the Z4M. He would have figured out these things on his own, I'm sure, but he said, "You taught me things I didn't know." I also provided my first indy mechanic with DIYs and links to procedures. I don't know if he used them, but I tried to help and tried very hard to present it in a way that wasn't condescending or belittling.

I'm going to do my own rod bearings. I wish I had reversed it and done the vanos myself and left the bearings to someone else. The vanos has very clear instructions. Nothing about it seemed hard to me, just tedious and many steps and required only a couple of special tools to set the timing. The bearings are just a crap ton of hard work, but I will really get to know the car, since I'll be doing guibo, FTABS, etc. while I have everything off the bottom. I'm doing coilovers, too, so might as well do that, too. Like the vanos, there are some great DIYs for rod bearings on the S54, especially for the e46, so I think I will be fine. Afterall, it isn't rocket science, and if it gets to be rocket science, well, we have StickMon around for that!

It's also great that with the S54 engine, it's an engine that lends itself to DIY. I don't know that I'd be working on an f80. Just looking at that engine crammed in the engine bay is intimidating.

Thanks to all on this forum for posting the DIYs and sharing the knowledge.

Salty

[StickMon]

I couldn't see getting my oil pan off on jack stands.
I would have a lift, but I have a second story over my garage and a 12"x16" beam across the middle of the garage ceiling to keep the house from falling down.
Only about 7' of head room.

I'll be interested in seeing how you drop the front suspension.
I don't know how Lang did mine, but I'm pretty sure they didn't remove my front wheels.

[rockstar93]

Originally Posted by Finnegan

Why? Because despite these events or an occasional self blunder on the project end you know the correct oil is used; you know oil isn't dripped/sprayed all over the heads due to careless filling, you know some idiot didn't leave the old oil filter o-ring on the block and put a new filter and o-ring over it, and you know the oil plug and filter aren't torqued to over 100 foot lbs. I had the BMW dealer try to use the wrong oil in the engine, diff, and transmission back when it was under the service plan. Caught it, but, geez, I even had to argue about it. No more. No thanks!

This is exactly my reason for DIYing anything I can. I'm sure I could have the oil changed for less than it costs to DIY (after accounting for my time, for sure), but at least when I do it I know it's done right.

I work for a large OEM and we're currently in the midst of a legal battle because one of those "Quick Lube" places has been putting a filter that's too small on our cars and grenade-ing the engines.

My mom also took her car to one of those kinds of places out of convenience and they had left their 3/8 extension under the hood, thankfully not in a place that caused any damage but still.

[SaltyNC]

Originally Posted by StickMon

I couldn't see getting my oil pan off on jack stands.
I would have a lift, but I have a second story over my garage and a 12"x16" beam across the middle of the garage ceiling to keep the house from falling down.
Only about 7' of head room.

I'll be interested in seeing how you drop the front suspension.
I don't know how Lang did mine, but I'm pretty sure they didn't remove my front wheels.

I think I'll have access to a lift. The landlord for my wife's store has a tire shop with several bays, and they now close on the weekends. If I started Sat morning, that would give me two days to get everything done. I'll just have to really make sure I have my ducks in a row.

Another possibility, and probably the smarter thing to do, would be to see if the guy that did my vanos will let me work with him to do the bearings. He has a shop, but it's not a full time thing as far as I can tell, so that might work out great.

Salty