n57 bad rattle, rod bearings?
Discussion
If it's 35-40C in Utah, those temps are probably acceptable.
Its only 16C in the UK currently and my 330d's coolant temp sits at 89C on a run. The fans never come on during my daily 80 mile commute. Highest temp I've seen during my 2 year ownership is 98C, and that was when stuck in bumper to bumper traffic for an hour. I have start/stop coded to off by default.
Its only 16C in the UK currently and my 330d's coolant temp sits at 89C on a run. The fans never come on during my daily 80 mile commute. Highest temp I've seen during my 2 year ownership is 98C, and that was when stuck in bumper to bumper traffic for an hour. I have start/stop coded to off by default.
What's the part number on your new crankshaft Marcel? It's been pointed out to me that there is an 8-counterweight crankshaft (p/n ending in 970) and sure enough that is what shows for our F26. It shows a previous p/n as being ended. Our existing crank has 4CW and is forged. Your new one has 4 as well. I'm just trying to get a clear picture on crank variations. The aftermarket has a few choices too, but it looks like a choice of 8CW cast steel and 4CW forged, whereas I suspect OEM ***970 to be 8CW forged, but not too sure.
marcelN57 said:
Part number that I ordered is: 11217812954
I didn't know there are different versions! I looked the number up in TIS and the BMW dealer I ordered it from confirmed it's a match for my VIN.
Thanks Marcel. I think the OEM 8-counterweight might be intended for manual transmission originally but is now advertised as standard, i.e. they stopped with the 8-CW being specific to the manual transmission (due to harsher engagement of a clutch vs a torque converter), and maybe just settled on one SKU for stock/manufacturing reasons, but I wonder if the 4CW might be the better choice maybe, and that is what you got. RealOEM shows the AT-Crankshaft being ended, and now just 'Crankshaft' available, and shows 8 counterweights. Your part number doesn't come up on RealOEM but maybe it's not up to date.I didn't know there are different versions! I looked the number up in TIS and the BMW dealer I ordered it from confirmed it's a match for my VIN.
I think I've finally finished my assessment of the aftermarket. From what I can tell there are Chinese crankshafts - no thanks, and then there is Motus of Turkey, and Genmot of Turkey. Both no good. IPSA are reboxing Motus and possibly Genmot too.
There's a guy posting on Youtube of his trouble with Genmot LandRover crankshafts (9 out of 75 were bent, one snapped in service much like OEM do - have to wonder if that's not an inherent design/shape flaw though).: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8BTYQNNtV8
Some talk of Genmot and Motus crankshafts on an N57 too on this Polish forum: https://www.bmwklubpolska.pl/forum/topic/206229-n5...
So I'll be looking at OEM too. Unfortunately I am seeing prices of around £2000 for an OEM crank though. I'll start picking up the phone and asking nicely for discounts.
Interesting on the 8 counterweight one. Can you share a photo / link to it how they look like? I don't think I've seen them during my research for this.
Two more ideas to source OE ones:
1. Leebmann24 very reputable online dealer based out of Germany. Bought from them before. They don't ship to US, but I think they do ship to UK. The linked part is the one that I ordered, already quite a bit cheaper than your quote.
They also have the best BMW online parts catalogue that I'm aware of. Would encourage you to put in your VIN and see which part number they come up with.
2. Sometimes there are used ones on eBay. Right now there is only this one here out of Canada. It has been there since I looked. I was interested but price was too high for my taste, given I could get a new one for only $400 more. I offered $900 and he declined. I don't know, maybe worth trying again?
I've bought a few parts from scrap yards in the UK including a cylinder head last year, and transatlantic shipping to US was surprisingly quick (less than a week) and straightforward. Maybe something to consider.
I agree with your assessment of the aftermarket ones. Unless you can find some engine rebuilder who used dozens of these with demonstrable success, would leave my hands off it given the considerable risk and relatively small cost savings relative to everything involved in the repair.
Good luck!
Two more ideas to source OE ones:
1. Leebmann24 very reputable online dealer based out of Germany. Bought from them before. They don't ship to US, but I think they do ship to UK. The linked part is the one that I ordered, already quite a bit cheaper than your quote.
They also have the best BMW online parts catalogue that I'm aware of. Would encourage you to put in your VIN and see which part number they come up with.
2. Sometimes there are used ones on eBay. Right now there is only this one here out of Canada. It has been there since I looked. I was interested but price was too high for my taste, given I could get a new one for only $400 more. I offered $900 and he declined. I don't know, maybe worth trying again?
I've bought a few parts from scrap yards in the UK including a cylinder head last year, and transatlantic shipping to US was surprisingly quick (less than a week) and straightforward. Maybe something to consider.
I agree with your assessment of the aftermarket ones. Unless you can find some engine rebuilder who used dozens of these with demonstrable success, would leave my hands off it given the considerable risk and relatively small cost savings relative to everything involved in the repair.
Good luck!
Edited by marcelN57 on Saturday 13th July 20:42
by the way, here a link to the spreadsheet with all the parts I used
Probably most of the suppliers are not relevant for you, but maybe some of it is helpful.
Also, definitely not all the parts are generally required. I broke a few things during disassembly because parts were old and brittle and I was impatient (e.g. the SCR coolant hose modules, the crankshaft position sensor connector) or because I forgot do things in the right order (e.g. to dismount the torque converter from the flywheel, so I needed to replace some ATF). Other things were broken before and I took the opportunity to fix them (e.g. CCV hose).
I also bought a used camshaft carrier assembly because some of the bearings in mine had some wear which I suspected was caused by spun rod material debris in the oil. However the used one I received had significantly more wear all around, so I ended up re-using mine.
There are other things that are probably advisable to renew if you have to pull the head, like valve cover gasket, that I skipped - this is because I just replaced all of that when I had to replace the cylinder head last year.
Probably most of the suppliers are not relevant for you, but maybe some of it is helpful.
Also, definitely not all the parts are generally required. I broke a few things during disassembly because parts were old and brittle and I was impatient (e.g. the SCR coolant hose modules, the crankshaft position sensor connector) or because I forgot do things in the right order (e.g. to dismount the torque converter from the flywheel, so I needed to replace some ATF). Other things were broken before and I took the opportunity to fix them (e.g. CCV hose).
I also bought a used camshaft carrier assembly because some of the bearings in mine had some wear which I suspected was caused by spun rod material debris in the oil. However the used one I received had significantly more wear all around, so I ended up re-using mine.
There are other things that are probably advisable to renew if you have to pull the head, like valve cover gasket, that I skipped - this is because I just replaced all of that when I had to replace the cylinder head last year.
Edited by marcelN57 on Saturday 13th July 21:33
Edited by marcelN57 on Saturday 13th July 21:36
I'm just putting my N57 rebuild to a pressure test - towing a heavy 4x4 across the country, from Miami Florida back to Utah - 2700 miles each way. It's doing very well so far!
It's a 2013 Toyota Land Cruiser on an aluminium trailer. Somewhere between 6000-7000lb weight.
There are no specific trailer speed limits here, so you can go 70+mph. Engine has to work quite hard :-)
It's a 2013 Toyota Land Cruiser on an aluminium trailer. Somewhere between 6000-7000lb weight.
There are no specific trailer speed limits here, so you can go 70+mph. Engine has to work quite hard :-)
marcelN57 said:
I'm just putting my N57 rebuild to a pressure test - towing a heavy 4x4 across the country, from Miami Florida back to Utah - 2700 miles each way. It's doing very well so far!
It's a 2013 Toyota Land Cruiser on an aluminium trailer. Somewhere between 6000-7000lb weight.
There are no specific trailer speed limits here, so you can go 70+mph. Engine has to work quite hard :-)
Ooh excellent. Seems to be doing great :-)It's a 2013 Toyota Land Cruiser on an aluminium trailer. Somewhere between 6000-7000lb weight.
There are no specific trailer speed limits here, so you can go 70+mph. Engine has to work quite hard :-)
and thank you for the parts list spreadsheet - that is extremely helpful. I have been a bit burned out on dayjob workload lately and haven't been in the garage at all - no rush on mine thankfully as we had a spare car.
rottenegg said:
Good stuff! You'll be wanting to change the trans fluid more often than specified if towing that kind of weight regularly, otherwise you might end up having to rebuild that as well 
haha! Good shout. Trans rebuilt sounds like an interesting challenge - that I rather avoid for now ;-)marcelN57 said:
rottenegg said:
Good stuff! You'll be wanting to change the trans fluid more often than specified if towing that kind of weight regularly, otherwise you might end up having to rebuild that as well
haha! Good shout. Trans rebuilt sounds like an interesting challenge - that I rather avoid for now ;-)
Ignore BMW's sealed for life BS. ZF recommend 60K intervals with normal light duty use, or 40K if towing regularly, especially in the hotter regions of north America.I just did an engine oil change. It's 8,100 miles since the rebuild. The normal oil change interval for the US version is 10,000 miles. However it had been asking for oil service for a few hundred miles now. I wonder if there is some logic in there that accelerates the oil change interval under high load / heat conditions?
Disturbingly I found quite a lot of glitter in the oil filter. Looked mostly like bearing material, lots of it had a copper color. I was expecting to find some glitter bc it obviously was impossible to clean out everything, but the amount surprised me. Every fold had like 10-20 clearly visible small pieces. I'l do another oil filter change in about 1,000 miles to see if new stuff is coming or if this was all the old stuff that was still stuck somewhere.
Disturbingly I found quite a lot of glitter in the oil filter. Looked mostly like bearing material, lots of it had a copper color. I was expecting to find some glitter bc it obviously was impossible to clean out everything, but the amount surprised me. Every fold had like 10-20 clearly visible small pieces. I'l do another oil filter change in about 1,000 miles to see if new stuff is coming or if this was all the old stuff that was still stuck somewhere.
carl0s said:
The vibration thing, it's not like a thud-thud-thud in the back while accelerating is it? We had that on this X4. It was hard to tell that it wasn't just bumps in the road at first, but I thought something was wrong, and it gradually got worse. I realised it was probably the transfer case, and I went down the rabbit hole of measuring overall wheel/tyre diameters, and pricing up new/refurb transfer cases. In the end I did an oil change on the transfer case. I put in some Ravenol TF-0870, and it solved it.
I had exactly the same on my E70 X5. I was also measuring tyre diameters and expecting to have to buy a new transfer case but a fluid change and resetting the transfer case calibrations made it perfect again.Watching progress with interest - great work.
marcelN57 said:
I just did an engine oil change. It's 8,100 miles since the rebuild. The normal oil change interval for the US version is 10,000 miles. However it had been asking for oil service for a few hundred miles now. I wonder if there is some logic in there that accelerates the oil change interval under high load / heat conditions?
Disturbingly I found quite a lot of glitter in the oil filter. Looked mostly like bearing material, lots of it had a copper color. I was expecting to find some glitter bc it obviously was impossible to clean out everything, but the amount surprised me. Every fold had like 10-20 clearly visible small pieces. I'l do another oil filter change in about 1,000 miles to see if new stuff is coming or if this was all the old stuff that was still stuck somewhere.
It's condition based as well as distance I believe. Interesting interval in the US. It's 18K miles in the UK/EU for the N57, which is frankly ludicrous. I drop the oil and filter every 3K miles on mine because I want the old bDisturbingly I found quite a lot of glitter in the oil filter. Looked mostly like bearing material, lots of it had a copper color. I was expecting to find some glitter bc it obviously was impossible to clean out everything, but the amount surprised me. Every fold had like 10-20 clearly visible small pieces. I'l do another oil filter change in about 1,000 miles to see if new stuff is coming or if this was all the old stuff that was still stuck somewhere.
d to live long and prosper. I've also used 5W40 LL40 instead of the prescribed 0W30 since I bought the car, which might also help with bearing/chain life. The UK rarely dips below zero degrees C, so I can get away with a heavier oil.But yeah, towing would load the oil up with more soot due to the extra fuelling needed to keep the car and trailer moving, especially up hills.
Oh no! Fine dusty particles or fairly sizeable 'chunk's? A bit of fine dusty glitter is to be expected, so hopefully the next change will be clear of debris. Fingers crossed.
Hope the X5 is doing OK Marcel.
I have gone for a crank regrind. A particular name came up a few times in recommendations so I decided to give it a shot, in the name of science, y'know.
Number-1 rod journal didn't clean up at 0.25mm so they've been ground to down 0.50. The mains weren't great either so they've been ground 0.25mm and polished. Cost including delivery both ways was 1/6th the cost of a new crank (£320 vs £1,950)
I've ordered a few used piston and rod sets off eBay since some of the big ends look a bit rough, and show signs of heat affection.
I've ordered some of the most obvious parts now, about 20 minutes ago, after finally getting the motivation to clear the workbench in my garage and make a proper start :-)
I need to dismantle the oil pump, and maybe the water pump too. Everyone seems to suggest any time you are close enough to be able to, you should replace water pump, but, on the other hand, I have my doubts about quality of some aftermarket parts, and don't want to pay BMW OEM costs, so I have to considering whether to keep 100,000 mile OEM pump - checking it for bearing wear and looking at vanes (plastic, brittle?) etc, or chancing some aftermarket brand.
Also I need to choose timing kit since I will obviously change the timing chain and guides given their importance and pain in the arse factor.
My shopping list so far looks like this:
Crankshaft regrind and polish incl delivery both ways. JHPG Ltd £320.00
ELRING 713.173 head gasket eBay UKB4C LIMITED £66.00
main bearing shells +0.25mm Kolbenschmidt Autodoc £85.00
con rod bearings, King cr1658sp sputter +0.50mm eBay, Lymm Engine Components £175.00
Elring head bolt set 14 bolts 233.380 Autodoc £38.00
3x oil filters Autodoc £20.00
main cap bolts, rod bolts, BMW OEM Sytner Stevenage BMW £89.00
3x used piston and con-rod sets eBay £75.00
... loads of fluids... cleaning products etc.
By the way, did you know that Ford sell the Coyote 5.0 (mustang) forged v8 crankshaft, brand new, for $585 ??? WTF BMW, $2,000+ ?
I have gone for a crank regrind. A particular name came up a few times in recommendations so I decided to give it a shot, in the name of science, y'know.
Number-1 rod journal didn't clean up at 0.25mm so they've been ground to down 0.50. The mains weren't great either so they've been ground 0.25mm and polished. Cost including delivery both ways was 1/6th the cost of a new crank (£320 vs £1,950)
I've ordered a few used piston and rod sets off eBay since some of the big ends look a bit rough, and show signs of heat affection.
I've ordered some of the most obvious parts now, about 20 minutes ago, after finally getting the motivation to clear the workbench in my garage and make a proper start :-)
I need to dismantle the oil pump, and maybe the water pump too. Everyone seems to suggest any time you are close enough to be able to, you should replace water pump, but, on the other hand, I have my doubts about quality of some aftermarket parts, and don't want to pay BMW OEM costs, so I have to considering whether to keep 100,000 mile OEM pump - checking it for bearing wear and looking at vanes (plastic, brittle?) etc, or chancing some aftermarket brand.
Also I need to choose timing kit since I will obviously change the timing chain and guides given their importance and pain in the arse factor.
My shopping list so far looks like this:
Crankshaft regrind and polish incl delivery both ways. JHPG Ltd £320.00
ELRING 713.173 head gasket eBay UKB4C LIMITED £66.00
main bearing shells +0.25mm Kolbenschmidt Autodoc £85.00
con rod bearings, King cr1658sp sputter +0.50mm eBay, Lymm Engine Components £175.00
Elring head bolt set 14 bolts 233.380 Autodoc £38.00
3x oil filters Autodoc £20.00
main cap bolts, rod bolts, BMW OEM Sytner Stevenage BMW £89.00
3x used piston and con-rod sets eBay £75.00
... loads of fluids... cleaning products etc.
By the way, did you know that Ford sell the Coyote 5.0 (mustang) forged v8 crankshaft, brand new, for $585 ??? WTF BMW, $2,000+ ?
Edited by carl0s on Monday 9th September 00:11
Ha, that's great that re-grinding yours is an option! It didn't seem possible for my crank because it was already up to 0.80mm under (this was measured after my hail mary attempt of polishing it with the shoelace method).
Also great to hear you're getting back to it. Looking forward to further updates and to the video where it runs again!
Regarding the timing components - everybody says it makes sense to do it, and while I don't want to disagree, I also have to say that I wasn't able to see any wear on mine. E.g. just for fun I laid down the old and new timing chain next to each other to see how much it lengthened, and to my horror I couldn't see any difference at all AND I wasn't sure anymore which is the old and the new one It is entirely possible that I put the old one back in
I actually think the old components in my engine would have lasted another 140k miles, at which point realistically the rig might be finished anyway / or the engine require another overhaul for some other reason.
Otherwise, my engine is doing fine so far. Nearly 10k miles now since the rebuild. It's been doing even more heavy towing duties the past weeks - heavy dump trailers full of asphalt, gravel or soil. The heaviest load was 10,400lb, I guess 4.7 metric tons. I'm continuously impressed how well this rig tows. And so is everyone around me here - they are not used to seeing anything but a pickup truck tow a heavy trailer, particularly not a BMW ;-)
I bought a house on a rather large lot, and with a garage! The old flooring (asphalt) in the garage was in horrible condition so I decided to rip that out. That's what all the material hauling was for. Once this is finished I will finally have a proper space to wrench in, and gone are the days of parking garage wrenching.
Also great to hear you're getting back to it. Looking forward to further updates and to the video where it runs again!
Regarding the timing components - everybody says it makes sense to do it, and while I don't want to disagree, I also have to say that I wasn't able to see any wear on mine. E.g. just for fun I laid down the old and new timing chain next to each other to see how much it lengthened, and to my horror I couldn't see any difference at all AND I wasn't sure anymore which is the old and the new one
It is entirely possible that I put the old one back inI actually think the old components in my engine would have lasted another 140k miles, at which point realistically the rig might be finished anyway / or the engine require another overhaul for some other reason.
Otherwise, my engine is doing fine so far. Nearly 10k miles now since the rebuild. It's been doing even more heavy towing duties the past weeks - heavy dump trailers full of asphalt, gravel or soil. The heaviest load was 10,400lb, I guess 4.7 metric tons. I'm continuously impressed how well this rig tows. And so is everyone around me here - they are not used to seeing anything but a pickup truck tow a heavy trailer, particularly not a BMW ;-)
I bought a house on a rather large lot, and with a garage! The old flooring (asphalt) in the garage was in horrible condition so I decided to rip that out. That's what all the material hauling was for. Once this is finished I will finally have a proper space to wrench in, and gone are the days of parking garage wrenching.
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