karomoney

About four days ago I began the N62 Valve stem seal job on my BRAND NEW (used) 06 550i using the AGA (eBay knockoff) VSS tool.



After struggling with the stuck valve cover for hours, I was finally able to get to work on the seals. On cylinder #1 (bank one) I was able to replace the two exhaust valve seals with relative ease. It wasn't until I began on the intakes where everything went wrong.

While I was near TDC, not exactly (had to use the rope trick, my air compressor couldn't keep up with the leakdown tester), As I was attempting to move the intake rocker out of the way to remove the valve spring, it snapped off, knocked off the two valve keepers and sent them flying around the engine. I recovered one, the other is still MIA. I'm hoping it's in the splash guard outside the engine.



Big headache, but whatever. I had some extra keepers in case. Same procedure. Take off the spring, put on the new seal, put the spring back on, slap some new keepers on, reinstall the rocker. No big deal. And then I got to the rocker. No dice. The intermediate lever, held down by the spring on the intake camshafts did NOT want me to reinstall that rocker.



I've clocked almost 40 hours and have done a measly four seals. I'm admitting defeat. Throw some leak stop in there, save up and have a real mechanic do it. I need something to drive. Except I can't reassemble the rockers.



What's the deal with this? The last two days have been eaten up trying to figure out how to get these things back on. I've called multiple mechanics who refuse to do the job (liability, i don't blame them) but I can't even pay money to have somebody else fix my mistakes. I just bought this car, I am in a BIND. somebody please help me out.

TIS is useless, as far as I can find. I've yet to find a procedure explaining the intermediate lever disassembly and reassembly.





Pictured is the rocker (keepers and springs not pictured, the retainer on the spring flew off when the tool slipped. Long story. Even with the spring properly installed I am unable to properly seat the rocker over the valve due to the intermediate lever in the way of it.

donpb

I was in a similar predicament with mechanics refusing to work on my e36 engine only because I had it in a million pieces. My car was down for 8 months but I have more than one car so was not too bad. I thought all hope was lost after calling around but then found a mechanic shop who finally agreed to do it. They put all the millions of pieces back together again. I'd keep trying.

dingolfing

I've never wanted to attempt this job, but I've seen videos and it shouldn't be that difficult, just very time consuming.

Did you remove the entire camshaft assembly? It seems like you're trying to remove the seals with "stuff" still in the way, making it seem impossible.

This guy removes both camshafts and, in particular, the entire intake camshaft assembly with the attached eccentric shaft.

Watch him remove the intake camshaft assembly here:
Hope it helps!

karomoney

Always good to hear from you.

I used the AGA tool to attempt this job, where a compression assembly was used simply to bypass the camshafts. However, with the intake camshafts' intermediate lever assembly what people did to attempt the job was to compress the valve enough to be able to slide the rockers in and out from under the lever. Did not go so well in my case.

As far as doing the job without the AGA tool, that involves doing careful retiming to the camshafts. I've done timing on the n52 plenty of times, but this is an engine i don't have the confidence to re-time. I'm beginning to believe it would have been a much more efficient way to do the job, though.

At this point I'm fine with throwing some Lucas oil stop in there and paying a mechanic to help/do the job in a few thousand miles, since this is my daily and i do need it urgently. Problem is, I can't get the thing back together.

karomoney

Theres one last shop in my area that i know for certain would do it- and the guys not picking up the phone.

Just bought this car and saved up for a year or so, really hope i didn't screw it up for nothing.

dingolfing

I remember running into insurmountable obstacles when replacing all those oil gaskets, gave up in defeat, and attempted them again the next day or later on and found success. Sometimes you just gotta give up until your mind has cleared and ready to tackle the problem again later on.

If worse comes to worse, rent the cheapest car you can find in the meantime.

Right now, I'm trying to tackle replacing the rear wheel bearing. The first attempt ended in a DNF. But I will try again soon.

karomoney

As you sent in your reply, I was trying to understand the complex system of the intermediate lever.

I found a solution where I used 45 degree long needlenose pliers to pry the spring up,position the lever, and slide the rocker in under it.
To do this, however, I had to compress the spring in subject enough to give the rocker some wiggle room. It was a very tight space, and i was terrified the tool would slip and take a yomp out of my finger, but to my luck, it did not.


This is the rocker while I was trying to maneuver it under the intermediate lever.

Shitty eBay Tool POV:


Part of me is thinking: I'm in here, I have everything I need, I might as well do the rest of them.

Another part of me is thinking: I've gone wrong in so many places, so many times, and I've only done the first cylinder. If I can get these two valves back together, the car will be running, I can shell out the big bucks for a professional to do it the right way.

Both sides are tempting, but I have some time to consider my options.
The spring retainer/washer on the other intake valve on cylinder #1 had a little accident, where the tool slipped from the spring (as I was going to install keepers) and the tension of the spring sent the retainer to where I'd assume is the atmosphere (I actually don't know where it went, i think behind the engine onto the splash pan. a shard of the washer broke apart and hit my face, I wasn't keeping my eyes open to see where it went) and went missing.

I have a brand new valve set (with spring, washer, keeper) from eBay being one day-ed to me as we speak. So I have until tomorrow to decide what I'm gonna do with it.

This job has been a nightmare. After doing MORE THAN one head gasket on the N52 (long story short, I'm a bad gasket scraper) I could have never expected to do a job so back-nerve-pinching, frustrating, time-consuming, and stressful as one quite like this. I did learn a lot from the project, and I've barely even made any progress. Not too many people at my age even know how an engine works, let alone knows how to repair a BMW engine. So throughout what may be the worst weekend I've had this year, I still think I came out on top of the kids paying $2k at the Volkswagen dealership for a remanufactured alternator.

donpb

@karomoney You're putting in a very good effort. You will know when you reach the end of your frustration and find a mechanic to help out. I did not feel bad when I did the same thing. That's because I put in a damn good effort before I decided to let a mechanic finish the job. Well that is after I found a mechanic willing to finish it.

karomoney

This has been a nightmare of a job, but i don't regret it for a second. I still learned miles about the N62 and would love to do it again in the future with the proper tools and guidance.

I think the trick of using pliers to pry the valvetronic spring up, and fitting in the rocker and intermediate lever is going to help me get the last rocker back in place. I'd love to do the rest of the seals but I'm terrified of something going wrong and digging myself farther into a hole. Maybe when I can get my hands on a cheap backup driver I can try to do this again.

karomoney

Figured i'd update yall. Continued to dig myself farther into my little hole of a money pit.

As I was going to reinstall the oil line for the camshafts on Bank 2 (without brush plugs), I dropped the nut into the hole that the brush plug was invented to keep from happening. All the plugs were in the other bank. Rookie mistake.

Next day comes around. Hit the advance auto, get the longest and skinniest magnetic pick up I could find. Get home, get to magneting in that hole, and to my wonderfully annoyed surprise, the magnet was no longer attached to the flexible rod that was supposed to carry it. IT FELL OFF THE STICK. Can you believe that?

Seems like I dig myself deeper and deeper into what turned out to be a disaster of a job. My next attempt at saving this BRAND NEW purchase is by removing the lower oil pan, and hoping to get another (better made) magnetic pickup in there to retrieve my saddening piece of junk magnet and the bolt that caused this issue in the first place.

Does anybody have experience with oil pans? I'm not wanting to deal with the upper due to the cramped location.