E30 Zone

Hi chaps,

My 318's suddenly started making a dreadful squeaking when it's idling, it seems to be coming from somewhere round the top of the engine, not from any of the exposed belts and doesn't appear to be coming from the cam belt area either. It goes away when the engine's revved but returns once the revs drop back to idle.
Any ideas on what it could be and if it's doing any damage as it sounds pretty bad?

Here's a video of it in action, the engine only has 57k on the clock and usually runs very quietly so only the squeak is audible til I rev the engine:
[youtube][/youtube]

Open the valve cover and see if the oil spray bar is squirting oil. It may be foulded and the top end may be suffering from a lack of oil.

You'll have to bare with me as I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to working on engines. Is the valve cover the part below the inlet manifold with BMW stamped on it in big letters?
Is it ok running the engine without this cover on?

Cheers

Yes that`s the cover. Remove it crank the engine or ask somebody to crank it for you and see if the cam is sprayed with oil wile cranking.

Had a spare afternoon to have a proper go at this today
With the valve cover off it was pretty clear what the squeaking was, the cam nearest the windscreen was bone dry! Fortunately there wasn't much in the way of damage though.
I took the oil spray bar off and flushed the gunk out with some WD-40. I also changed the oil, filters and plugs, now she's running sweet as a nut, cheers matey

I`m glad i could help. Change the oil and filter freqvently to prevent the oil spray bar nozzles to block. Take care