My 524td Build (5 speed swap done!)

[Jon2830]

Since nothing will be happening to the 524td this year I figured I would share some of what Ive been doing at school with you guys. This past semester we had Body electronics 1 , Engines, Intro, and PC/transport skills. For engines i requested to take apart my favorite BMW engine: the m57. This was a US spec m57tu2 and was rather simple to take apart and put back together. Its pretty funny because I had a choose to take apart anything from an s85 to a s55 to a s62 to a n20. Anyway me and my partner Kyle finished earlier then anyone else in the class mostly because the m57 is only a 6 cylinder and it has no vanos or valve-tronic to deal with. We still had to do tasks on other engines such as the n62 valve-tronic, n52 valvetronic, n54 valve stem removal, and much more. The other neat part was that we were the only group that got to take apart a motor with all the accessories on it. Anyway I learned so much blue printing this motor. It was so cool especially since before this Ive only taken apart older diesel engines. Hopefully one day I get around to my dream swap of a m57D29 or maybe a m47d20 just to be interesting. Anyway enjoy the photos



This was the motor on day 1. We didnt have to put all the accessories on at the end of the semester, I don't really know why but our instructor didn't want us to.



The end of the day 1 tear down.










The wrist pin on these pistons was rather impressive. Even my teacher was impressed ( nobody has ever done a blueprint on the m57 before us)
















The kids who did the s62 didn't follow the REP's....


Something missing?




The back storage room


Reassembled!


The e89 that came in half way through last semester. We have to do a rear shock removal task on this car this semester.
I have to get some photos of the estorial Blue F33 that we had to do a strut removal task on and a brake task on.

That's all for now though...

Jon

[tig]

Wow, that's really cool. You just had to reassemble it...how does the prof know you did it right?

[Jon2830]

Well I think I might make the entire process simpler then it sounds. The first part was the disassembly process which we had to locate all the repair instructions for on ISTA. From there we had to do a ton of measurements such as:

cylinder out of round for every cylinder
cylinder taper for every cylinder
ring end gap every pinston on both compression rings
ring land clearance on all three piston rings
cylinder head warpage
deck warpage
plasti-gage all 6 cylinders on the rod and main bearings
crankshaft end play
out of round for all the rod journals
out of round for all the main journals
out of round for the connecting rods
out of round for the main cap out of round

I know I'm missing a few since we didn't get out task books back yet but not bad for remembering most of it off the top of my head. After we did all the measurements we had to find all the BMW specs in ISTA and determined what measurements were out of spec and which ones were in spec. These engines are motors that have blown up or have never been run before, or they had some sort of manufacturing defect. My other set of friends in the class for example got a hydro-locked N63TU motor to tear down. It had a decent chunk of the piston taken right out of it from a possible failed injector scenario where all the fuel just keeps dumping into the cylinder until it blows. Apparently this has been a pretty common problem on those motors. Anyway after all the measurements are done the motor can be re-assembled but we must use all the BMW torque specs and tighten everything down in the correct pattern. MY instructor doesn't just let us off and do this totally on our own. A lot of the kids in the class have never even taken apart an engine before when I have done a ton of small engines and a few car motors including an m30b32. So he was constantly back and forth helping us out with any questions we had. The special tools were kind of annoying and tough to fins sometimes and BMW sometimes gives very strange names to components or certain measurements so it would be sometimes extremely annoying to find in ISTA. He was an awesome help none the less and he is probably my favorite instructor to date. He was basically watching our progress most of the way so he knew if you were on the right track. Also when you put the motor back together it had to spin over as nicely as it did before. IF you broke any parts or had left over pieces it would hurt your grade to. All the measurements went into a task book we handed in at the end of the semester so you either had to bullshit the measurements very good which would be hard on a motor that's been taken apart before or you had to do it right. The kids that cut corners seem to be dropping like flys. In the beginning we had 16 guys, now we have 10 and i honestly think this other kid is going to drop out soon to. Also if you are wondering why you could still pass and mess up and engine or not complete most of the tasks well yes kids still get passed on but they wont be getting placed in BMW dealerships for their CO-OPS if the instructors don't think you are ready for a BMW dealer. Based on what tasks I'm put on, my grades, devotion, and hard work I put into almost every task I do there I believe Ill be placed in a BMW dealer for the CO-OP. But we shall see, in the next few weeks we are going to be shadowing a tech at Hendrix BMW and probably sometime during the middle of the semester we will get private meetings with the instructors about our CO-OP placement.

[tig]

I'd actually give a large percentage of my left nut to go through that...and to be able to walk away with a bunch of those BMW special tools.

[Jon2830]

Well I basically did moving all the way down here from NJ and having to leave both of my e28s behind. To some extent I wish I went up to Boston since I would have only been 4 hours from home but honestly the 8 hour drive isn't as bad as people make it seem. There are a lot of special tools id like to have for my own here. One of the most nifty ones I got to use was the special spring compressor on the f33. Some of the vanos special tools for the m54 and S54 are pretty neat to.

[89bigcoupe]

time to start a new thread for your new project

[Kopek130]

Would you be able to look at your part number for the Nissens radiator you got? Photo is over exposed.

I've got a 524td too, but fear that Nissens/behr has discontinued it.

I'm thinking of fenangling in a 535 radiator from Nissens, but what can be done regarding the 524td's 2 sensors near the bottom of the radiator?