Water is doing a Houdini

[kam-325i]

Ok, i have fianlly gotten aroung to have some time to start changing the head gasket(325i).

BUT......After taking off the vavle cover, and having a look for all the mayo, there is not any, The oil looks good, there is a nice flow of oil from all of the cam bearing, the centre one is ouzing the most. No mayo at all in the breather tube, which was cleaned out about 3 months ago.....

I ran the engine without the valve cover on to see if any water is coming up thru the cam bearings, no water,(strange thing thou, the vavle/tappet ticking sounds quiter with the cover off).

It just seem's weird that there is no evidence of any presence of water.

What should i expect to see with the valve cover off ?

[Jordan]

It was likely just condensation...

[telski789]

theyre isnt always mayo,if its leaking from a waterway in the head into a cylinder then your not mixing with oil and its being fired and sent out the exhaust! doesnt take much,sometimes you wont even notice your engines running different,could just be one cylinder....had this on my peugeot mi16,run the engine taking one spark plug out at a time so only five are firing and the other has no plug in,on my mi16 when i got to the 'leak' it fired water out and steamed like a mofo!! cheers

Tel

[DazzyA]

Sorry for butting in, but have been trying to clear up whether the oil coming into the rocker box is normal. It comes up from either end, is this the cam bearing oil? Must admit I didn't notice any in the middle though!

[Brianmoooore]

theyre isnt always mayo,if its leaking from a waterway in the head into a cylinder then your not mixing with oil and its being fired and sent out the exhaust! doesnt take much,sometimes you wont even notice your engines running different,could just be one cylinder....had this on my peugeot mi16,run the engine taking one spark plug out at a time so only five are firing and the other has no plug in,on my mi16 when i got to the 'leak' it fired water out and steamed like a mofo!! cheers

Tel

Water leaking into a cylinder will usually cleac the chamber, piston and valves up a treat - steam cleaning.
Don't know how much water you were loosing, but it could just be a water leak.
My wife's touring has used about a quarter of a litre a week for about a year. Not really put much effort into tracing it, but a couple of days ago I was underneath it on the ramp with the engine running, and caught sight of a drip from the water pump every few secomds.

[kam-325i]

Sorry for butting in, but have been trying to clear up whether the oil coming into the rocker box is normal. It comes up from either end, is this the cam bearing oil? Must admit I didn't notice any in the middle though!

As far as i know, all the cam bearing will have(325) an oil feed, so you should see oil seeping out of the bearings. i think it was five on mine.

Also, i have found evidence that the head has been off before, as 11 of the bolts are 12.9's, and one(cyclinder 6 intake side) is a 8.8.

Last one, should the head bolts be torx or hex head ?

[Brianmoooore]

Bolts should be Torx head. There is a known weakness with one make of hex bolts.

[kam-325i]

What was the name/make of the poor hex ones?

[Brianmoooore]

What was the name/make of the poor hex ones?

Can't remember, but the advice from BMW is to replace all hex bolts with torx.
Can be done one at a time without disturbing the head gasket.