E30 Zone

As per the subject title, the cooling fan on my 325 which sits directly behind the radiator has all of a sudden started to catch one of the coolant pipes attached to the front of the engine (I believe it's the one from the water pump to the thermostat). I've already checked various online web sites and it does seem to occur now and again and from what I've read and can tell all of the engine mounts seem fine and the bracket holding the pipe is present and doing it's job of holding said pipe in place. So my question is would simply replacing the viscous fan resolve the issue as I'd rather not have to replace the pipe again (after replacing the current one) in a few weeks time?

Any advise would be most useful as I'd rather try and fix it myself than take it to a garage to resolve, especially if it's a fairly straight forward one.

Yes cable tie that pipe on the metal bracket right next to it, so it doesnt, catch the fan,
a must

Is the plastic clip for the hose on the bracket behind the hose in place? If not as above cable tie it to the bracket/engine house mount.

The plastic clip is in place but there is still a little play with the pipe, it just seems the fan is too close to the hose in the first place. Probably doesn't help that I don't have a shroud in place.

Remove the clip and cable tie it.

Check your engine mounts if one has gone it can cause this

manse73 wrote:Check your engine mounts if one has gone it can cause this

Thanks, I'll have a closer look at the engine mounts. If I do need one/all, where would the best place to buy them from?

If it is the engine mounts replace both of them as I never noticed that mine had failed and have that nice worn out look in the sound deadening foam and the small dent in the bonnet from the throttle body.......

Best place to buy mounts from is BMW. You didn't say cheapest.

I wonder if the coolant pipe is ballooning when hot due to breaking down structurally with time?
This happened to one of my hoses recently.

The pipe isn't ballooning as it was a new BMW one only fitted late last year after I damaged the sump by hitting a kerb which at that point pushed the fan into the pipe. The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that accident probably damaged the mounts and despite me asking the garage to check them it didn't, I've only done around 100 miles since it was all repaired. Just seems to be a re-occurring nightmare as I'm out of pocket for £800 (I know it was my own fault) as the accident also took out the oil pump within the sump (hairline crack) and the brackets for the oil cooler radiator so by the time that was all fixed it came to £800 including a new second hand sump and labour. Not great.

Could have saved a few quid by just ditching the oil cooler. Not very helpful now I know!

Spoke to Cotswold this afternoon and the BMW engine mounts are £160 the pair, does that sound right when I can get Febi or Corteco ones for like £11 each?

I would definitely go for Febi, that price is ridiculous. I would check RealOem as there is a metal cup that they sit in that you can only get from bmw.

what part numbers were you given? That does seem OTT - more like the price for the hydraulic mounts used in later BMW models.

These are fine for the M20:
http://www.burtonpower.com/engine-mount ... fp292.html

Ben