Properly broken
Turbo Mini Forums

Bit of JB Weld and that will be fine.

Mine did exactly the same

Rob, as a minimum bin the oil pump and check all the shells. With the much metal debris floating about the pump will be scrap and the shells maybe scored :(

That was my thoughts to be honest. The car was suffering low oil pressure when it warmed up so i was going to be digging anyway

The crankcase was all peppered on mine, as well as the crank webs, ended up doing a full rebuild with new oil pump etc. Even took my block in and had it acid dipped to clean the gallery's out

Edited by Pauly on 26th Oct, 2014.

You can see why people fit windage trays, apart from the obvious oil being thrown about, it also stops a lot of gearbox flying around in the case of a breakage

Well i started stripping the block to see how that was looking, 2 reasons, one being a drop in oil pressure when hot and the second being the obvious with the shrapnel.

The oil pump was seized and needed a shifter to get it moving again. The outer ring was very tight and had picked up a fair bit of shrapnel by the look of it so that is scrap for a start. Mains are ok but i'm going to change them anyway. Big ends were fine so far.

Will post up some photos later

good work with the gears rob!

as the others have said, I would change the bottom end bearings as a matter of course for the price.

also want to give the crank oil ways a good flush out whilst its apart

You would still have had drive in 4th gear like that, although obviously debris is moving.

A good gauze on the pickup and good magnet on the sump bung are worth having

I bust many before finally going straight cut.

Often repairs were in a matter of hours as always needed car for work next day...so never bothered with engine bearings etc, although that was a combination of stupidity and luck I got away with it.
The oil filter should have caught anything before it can get to the bearings or turbo. Obviously the oil pump itself is before the filter though.

Std gears are just crap ! lol I barely got 4,000 miles at a time out of them, and usually a blast in 3rd killed it.

9.85 @ 145mph
202mph standing mile
speed didn't kill me, but taxation probably will

I thought that in hindsight too Steve but pretty sure i tried all gears.

I've still got the other box sitting, all i need to do is swap the diff over and its ready to fit

I suppose building a box that doesn't grenade itself would be a start!

a few photos of what we discovered when we went looking;

a bit of impact damage on the big-end nuts on 3&4



big-ends looked ok (granted a bit of light scoring)



oil pump needed persuading to come apart. The outer ring is heavily scored on the outer edge and has clearly picked up some debris.



found these gearteeth up in the block



just going to get my head into the oil pressure issue now

just went hunting for some info on bmw squirters and found some oil squirter bling here http://www.e46fanatics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=720393

( and 2 interesting learnings for me)
the oem (at least this series) squirters have a minimum pressure to first operate ie they wont steal oil pressure from other zones unless the overall pressure is good... and
the fitment and break off remarks?

fyi

I fitted Mercedes jets, that open at 30psi oil pressure. Pretty easy fit; I just chose the first one that looked like the bimmer ones instead of trying to track them down.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/311076257010

I took a gamble that they had a pressure release spring in them as you can just make out in the photo that the bolt is crimped at the end (spring and ball bearing valve are inside the bolt)

interesting option Phil

Another helical set bites the dust.

Edit, I meant to post this in the other thread, which I have done, but will leave this here too anyway

I ruined the springs inside the zetec jets when I applied heat, for a reason I cannot quite remember. at that time I removed the little check valves altogether and ran with the large gaping holes that are the zetec jet nozzels. Oil pressure was very poor at idle but picked up when the revs did, but not hugely above 40 psi. It was relatively ok through two 2 hour dyno sessions and a dyno shoot out for Mini Mag, after which the engine was pulled and BMW jets retro fitted. The bearings all went back in as there was no damage to them.

I had to have M8x1.0 helicoils fitted in the holes for the zetec jets and I used a copper washer unter them, for two reasons, firstly the washers sealed the jet to the block better over the thread inserts, and secondly the washers lifted the jet nozzels that little bit to aid clearance of the pistons as they poked a little out the bottom of the bores.

After this oil pressure was great, but, I never did get to work out why the oil pressure would fluctuate wildly at around 40psi other than the theory that this was the point that the jets all started to open.

I then of course had a center main bearing failure shortly after, that some on TM are convinced was because nugget here forgot to install the gearbox to block Oring while fucking about with the windage tray clearnce on the H bean con rods at 1am

This last build, I blocked off the jets altogether as I was never happy with threaded inserts, or the actual location of the jets in the block, where my machinist put them. Fast Carl gets my next block, and i'm sure he will be all to happy to have me watch over him making sure it is how I want it

Edited by Sprocket on 27th Oct, 2014.