Beiträge von Bob Beebe

It is with regret that I have put my 850 in the local paper this week for sale. I've had a ball the last 18 months but have bought myself a Mercedes SLK 55 AMG and my wife says that the old one has to go. If anyone is interested please let me know by PM and I'll give you all the details and I'm sad to leave the community.

To get a car off the island will cost £300 ish on the ferry but will gladly help out as best I can. BTW we don't have MOT's here so my single double box no CAT's stainless exhaust may need modifying.

Thanks everyone,

Bob
850CI

I'm so pleased they didn't make a train out of the 850! The funniest part of the programme was when they asked the Glaswegian to say "Burglar Alarm" Classic Top Gear...

Bob
850CI

When servicing my 850 recently, I spotted this, both oil filter mounts completely sheared off. Picture attached. Give yours a shake and see if they are indeed intact!

Cheers

Bob
850CI

I spent an hour trying to release the lower steering arm joint with a generic rod end splitter. No chance! Does anyone recommend a splitter I could buy please? I did consider some heat but did not want to destroy the rubber housing. I'm wondering if to replace the steering track end as well for a proper job? Anyway, firts things first, a suitable high tension end splitter please before i get to the control arm replacement.

Thanks

Bob
850CI

I just wanted to post this in case anyone else has noted this before. I cahnged my oil and filter last week and migrated to Castrol Edge fully synthetic oil. Two things worthy of note:

1) The oil light goes out virtually immediately on start up. Before was 4ish seconds

2) The engine temperature is now 2-3 mm lower on the dial than before. It used to always be top dead centre.

On Friday, I fill her up with fuel and have kept a running spreadsheet for over a year. Will be interesting if there is any difference. Will post another update.

The oil was thick and black and over 6000 miles old according to the information I have.

Cheers
Bob
850CI

If you pause at 8 seconds, the 850 also has extra lights around it on the floor to make her look nice and shiny....

I can't see Hamster driving an 8? so it could be the Merc that has pee in it. We'll have to wait and see.

I know we'll all be watching...........

Bob

Hi Arnie,

Excellent information, thanks. Will proceed with these values accordingly.

Cheers

Bob

PS Great to get a Birthday greeting from 8er today! Beers tonight....

I have ordered a right hand side Control arm that has play in it and will be fitting it this weekend. Again, some critical torque settings required here for the mounbting ends. Someone here must have the correct values? Also there is cement that is required to be fitted to the mounting plate at the wheel end. I am assuming that a Locktite product would be used for this.

Any help would be grateful on torque settings and bolt/screw cement...

Thanks

Bob
850CI

Rear brakes all completed. Interestingly they are not bolts but Allen screws (7mm head) Just tightened them up as tight as felt correct. I didn't realise that the brake wear sensors are on one side only front and back and are diametrically opposite each other. Rear nearside, front offside.

First oil and filter change for me today to fully synthetic. Old oil was black! One thing I did find when undoing the filter housing that both filter housing rubber mounts had completely sheared. Would never have spotted this as all looks correct from the top. On starting now, oil pressure light goes out immediately, this was not the case before (2-5 seconds).

Also found a joint that needs replacing on the front suspension which probably solves the wheel shake.

Good work, no alarms up and drives great, have a good weekend.

Bob

I'm just replacing the pads both sides at the rear of my 850 and cannot find the replacement torque settings for the two bolts on each caliper on replacement. I think the reference number is: 34 21 5AZ

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks

Bob
850CI

The whining may be the belt adjustment damper. I'm not sure what the exact name is for it but I often get a little squeak and sometimes the power steering goes into non-power steering mode for a second when pushing hard. I must replace that! The oil leak may be the connection to the oil cooler behind the front grill. I had this once and the oil gently runs down the pipes until it can drop off the car around that area. have a look with a torch through the front grill for any signs. Hope this helps...Bob

Did I read somewhere that there was going to be some sort of 25th celebration for the 8 in Germany? I guess that will be in 3 years or so. Does anyone have any news on this. I'd love to make the long drive to Munich if it happens.

Bob
850CI

Hi Everyone,

I'm back in business!!! Excellent news here. OK so here goes:

I took it to the local repair shop who are great guys, let you in the workshop, talk things over etc. Their BMW test kit wasn't functioioning at the moment but they had a generic one that could communicate with my 850. Indications were MAF failure 7-12 and Lambda sensor? I guessed that the O2 sensor was effect, not cause so thought carefully and realised that the shot distributors were red herrings but needed fixing?

Got home and fitted the MAF that I recently got from Harry 8 (thanks!) fitted it and wow! Bingo! She started up immediuately and is so smooth now with the new distributer caps and rotors as well. So in the end MAF failure? I may strip it down and see if it is possible to repair or refurb. Unbelieveble. But feeling great now - she is lovely..

Thanks for all the advice and help. Slowly starting to understand her...

Have a great weekend

Bob

Another long evening here checking and checking. Nothing obvious found. No CEL lamp in dash, must get one of those.

I finally decided to try a battery disconnect magic reset, but to no avail. The fault condition is still present.

I jacked her up and the filters do look newish although I couldn't see a date on them but have done c. 5k miles.

Looks like cheque book time up at the local dealer. They are good there and will be thorough and may find the issue.

She is looking great at the moment so may just have to limp it there. I tried driving along my driveway tonight and she does feel as if in limp mode like when the EML lamp comes on. Odd... It maybe that is the mode she is in. Both sides of exhaust are getting hot as well, so maybe some cylinders fire in that mode. I'm not certain.

Will keep you posted on how I get on over the next few days.....

Depressed from Guernsey

Got it thanks. Which key switch position is "ON" is it when all the ignition lights come on and the EML light goes out after 2 seconds?

Just tried that and no flashing light. Or is it position 1 or 2?

Thanks

Bob

Thanks Reinhard,

Step by step and hopefully will find what's going on. Can you PM the Stomp link - it seems broken here- thanks.

Once I'm happy I've reached my limit of investigations. I'll have to take her to the local dealer at £100/hr

Will press on....

Thanks

Bob

Thanks Timm, this will be this evenings project. I though there was a pump for both cylinder banks? Are both the pumps under one seat?

Looking at the diagram of the filters they the fuel lines look as they go to the rear seat behind the passenger?

maybe clearer when I get in there tonight.

Thanks

Bob
850CI

Tried that and good spark on the dead bank plug resting on the engine casing.....

Got to be fuel I reckon. Strange it can happen so quickly.

Checked fuses 23 and 24 for fuel pumps. Both good

Thanks

Bob

Engine Fault Continues ...2

Some further information that may help. Yesterday, I removed all 12 plugs and cleaned, gap checked and replaced and checked lead integrity. All OK. One thing to note on the bank that isn't firing is that all the plugs were soot black but not wet after I thought it was simply the distributor that had failed. the more I think of this, I believe that both distributors were working in a fashion and something else has caused this bank failure problem. After running tonight, removing a dead bank plug revealed that it looked exactly as I had cleaned it. Sounds like fuel issues?

I suspect Fuel pump check? Where are they?
Filter check? Is it possible to check without disturbing?

Any help welcomed....

Thanks

Bob
850CI

After replacing both distributors and rotor arms which were in poor condition (as per previous post), I started her up this evening after a good clean up everywhere and still not right. She is only running on 1 bank it seems. Here are the symptoms:

Bank 1-6 remove main coil lead and car won't start. Put back lead.
Bank 7-12 remove main coil lead and engine sounds the same (i.e. appears to be running on one bank only)
take no. 7 plug out and good regular spark.
When restarted - both DK's operating (turning) but again only one bank running.
Could it be fuel? Coincidently, the day she failed last week, I ran to nearly on red on tank and filled 78 Litres worth. An hour later this problem occured.

Is it possible to test fuel flow easily? Could a fuel filter block so quickly? They were both changed (according to a service report I have 4 years ago, 6k miles).

When revving up seems very sluggish on 1 bank,(guess that is to be expected)

Any obvious tests please? She is off the road now

Thanks

Bob
BMW 850CI