It has been over a month and if you are following my BMW N55 Engine rebuild project, you might be wondering what the heck happened and why haven’t I posted a video on the rest of the assembly, install of the engine and of course the engine running! This isn’t because I haven’t been working on it or the lack of trying, but mostly because I ran into a very major, what I assume to be electrical issue that I am not equipped or knowledgeable enough to fix. I wanted my last video in the rebuild series to be where I start the engine at the very end, but unfortunately, it will not be this video. The video where I explain what I have tried and my results is coming up shortly, but in this video, I will go over the remaining assembly and installation of the engine.
But before I continue, check out the BMW N55 engine rebuild playlist from the beginning if this is your first video here and hit that like button for the YouTube algorithm to help out the channel, it’s free!
In the last couple videos in this series, I installed the front and rear crankshaft seals, the valve and oil pan gaskets and the injectors. Now, of course there is still plenty left to do at this point, so I installed the high-pressure fuel pump. I’ve decided not a get a new one and reused the one that came on the original engine. Of course, I got a new O ring installed on it to make sure there were no leaks in the future. With the fuel pump installed, I could then install the oil filter housing, once again, renewing the gaskets as this is a very common spot for oil to leak from on these engines. I then torqued the bolts to spec as I mention in the video.
Some of you will no doubt comment below asking why haven’t I replaced this or that or upgraded certain parts and it’s an easy guess , it all comes to down to cost. Just like with any other project, there is a budget limitation and I have set myself a limited budget for the engine and car. If you don’t like the sound of that, don’t worry! I’ll be looking for my next project in a few short months and I’ll be modifying and upgrading at the same time of the rebuild on that one. Or least that’s my plan. This project was proving to myself that I can rebuild an engine without anyone’s help. Anyway, as you can see, I have also reused the VANOS solenoid. These tested just fine and I gave them a good clean right before installing.
At this point, things started moving a little faster. I installed the high-pressure fuel lines from the fuel pump to the injectors. You want to use a crowfoot wrenches to torque these down and prevent fuel leaks in the future.
With this side of the engine looking a little more complete, it was time to switch to the other side and install the exhaust manifold with the turbocharger.
I scraped remnants of the old gaskets out, cleaned the area and then installed them one by one. They should fit on there snuggly and will be crushed when the assembly is installed and torqued down. The O rings on the oil lines are a quick swap for a set of new ones and it’s time to marry it to the engine. I suggest angling the engine a little more or have someone help you as it can be a little awkward to get it in there and put the first couple bolts in at the same time. A cordless drill makes a quick work of getting the flange nuts finger tight and then it’s time for the torque wrench to get these up to spec. It’s important not to retighten them after the first or second round and follow the procedure exactly if you don’t want to have exhaust leaks in the future. Off camera, I also attached and torqued down the turbo oil lines as well as the bracket below the turbo housing itself and after some more plumbing, this side of the engine is done for now.
I then switched to the front of the engine and the first item on my list was to switch over the belt tensioner from the old block to the newly built engine. This is one of those items I didn’t really think about at the time of building the engine, but I would definitely recommend switching out the idler pulley for a new one. This might be a future DIY I will tackle with the engine in the car. In the meantime, I install the vibration damper, which now I have learned would have benefited from a front crank seal guard plate, you live and you learn! If any of you think of doing something like this at home, it’s honestly worth it just for the amount of engine knowledge you will get in the return, not to mention the patience! Anyway, I drop the front differential in place and torque it to spec. Next on the list is the water pump, this sucker just goes in and with a help of a couple bolts it’s in place.
Most of the big items are now installed, so I install the engine support that will attach to the engine mount and then the heatshield above the exhaust manifold that holds the vacuum regulator. I then position the spark plug and injector wires in their place, torque down the spark plugs and then install the ignition coils. The top of the engine is pretty much done at this stage and I can proceed to installing the wiring loom on the front of the engine. There are lots of small little wires going everywhere here, but luckily, they all seem to just be long enough to plug into the sensor or part that it’s supposed to. The plugs are different between them most of the time as well. One important item here is to not forget the ground wire on the bottom left corner of the engine. The same goes for the intake side of the engine, the bird nest of wires slides onto the engine and then I start sorting them out and plugging in what I can. The rest will be plugged in once the ECU and the rest of the intake sensors are close by.
Look at this beauty now! It’s starting to look more and more like a real engine and at this point I’m getting really excited to get this finished and put it back in the car, but before I get too excited, we still have to install a couple of parts. If you are wondering why am I struggling with this on the engine hoist, well.. it was impossible to do while on the engine stand as the engine stand was in the way of the bolts for the flywheel and I couldn’t think of any other way of doing this at the time.
And now for one of my favorite shots of this video, I love how after weeks of working on this engine and replacing most of the parts on the inside, it slides into the engine bay and is ready to be connected to its life lines. One of the struggles I had here is getting the AC compressor to go around the engine. I chose not to disconnect it as I don’t’ have the equipment to draw off the refrigerant in the system and having to call someone in sounded like a hassle.
THE END:
Well, this part was filmed over a month ago and OH how I wish it went to plan. The engine was supposed to fire up at that point and after some finishing touches, I would be enjoying my BMW 335i and all the work I have put into it. Unfortunately, it did not go to plan from this point on and the engine wouldn’t start. It would crank for as long as the battery would allow, but would not fire or even sputter. With that in mind, it’s time to end this video as it’s already far longer than I wanted it to be, but I wanted to show each step. Subscribe to the channel to stay tuned and to find out what I have tried so far to get the engine started. The list is long and I think you will find it interesting where my head was going troubleshooting this engine. That’s all for now, thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next one!