A good reminder again about the swirl flap issue!

I've been in contact with a fellow BMW owner who purchased his 525d 2004 e39 touring at this summer. As a rational guy, he got his swirl flaps removed at local dealer (yes they do the removals in many places here). The car has done 160 000kms (99 400 miles).

He or the previous owner had never had any engine related problems (or that's what he's been told), and that's why the result was quite surprising!

- One swirl flap completely gone, lost, disappeared! They weren't able to find it or its reminds anywhere! How is this possible anyway?
- Four swirl flaps looked like in the following picture. The axle broken, one of the two rivets holding the flap gone.


He asked me to tell about his case to spread the word among fellow diesel owners. He obviously advises everyone to get their flaps removed!

 

Another good reason to do this mod ASAP, IMO!

 

http://www.pmwltd.co.uk/ These guys will supply & install a tidy fix, quoted ?200 for my 535d, it's still under warrenty & I'll most likely take an extention as well but who needs the hassle of making a claim for this in the first place. I posed this question to BMWCAR mag in the August 09 issue (& gearbox issues on remapped motors) & they came back with a small increase in emissions at low revs - idle speeds, a small price for peace of mind.

 

brilliant guide - did mine this weekend along with a new vortex type oil seperator(engine breather) and air filter.

Thanks Anzafin! You Da man!

 

...just adding onto this the guide says 'carefully lift off the manifold' - I would like to highlight this point! If you can block off the cylinder holes before you lift off the manifold completely it would be useful, I think there was a case somewhere where a member lost one of the rubber seals and it could have fallen into one of the cylinders! My manifold dropped one of the circular bolt gromets while I was lifting it, luckily it hadnt fallen into the cylinder but could easily have! My suggestion would be to lift the manifold slightly and have 6 rags/material ready to plug the holes before you lift the manifold off the bolts

 

Haha it was Dr. Dave just in the beginning of this thread ! Luckily it hadn't dropped into cylinder, but he didn't find it from anywhere else either.

However, your point is true, far1977 .

 

Thanks to Anzafin and all of you other guys I had decide to remove swirl flaps on my e39 530d from 2003.
My swirl flaps are quite different then one from e60 model.
So it was easy to do this operation.

This is how they look after 115000 km on my vehicle.


Also, I've made some changes. Insted of M5 10mm screws I've used industrial plastic screw (industrial plastic is used in some heavy duty machines)


And It looks like this at the end.


Now, engine is running nice....

 

Congratulations! Your plastic screw method looks very nice and clean!

Actually the swirl flaps in your e39 look the same as in an e60 that doesn't have the particle filter. Only the newer "updated" swirl flaps look different. Like mine, because I have a particle filter.

Anyway, good job there !

 

Going to have a go at the breather filter and air filter this weekend and hopefully remove the swirl flaps too ...

My car is 2005 530d ... and was thinking would there be any problem with swapping the whole of the inlet from a 2008 E60 as these dont have the swirl flaps ??

Also what size screws would I need if de-flapping mine ??

Thanks

Yas

 

I think you could use the intake manifold from a 2008 model, but I can't see any reasons for doing it. Besides, wouldn't it cost you some money? If you wish to keep the swirl flaps intact but still remove them from the manifold, you could buy those planking plates some people are mentioning on the forum. Then if you wanted to put swirl flaps back on some day for some reason, you could just remove the planking plates and reassemble the swirl flap system.

Good luck with the effort!