engine and drivetrain tii running on 2 cylinders

[adamm]

Looking for a few suggestions, obviously it's difficult to diagnose accurately over the internet but I'd like a few more ideas before I concede defeat and take it to my mechanic.

First off, ignition side is perfect. I've followed all the procedures to test everything and it works out fine.

Then I moved to the fuel side following the 'manual' from the tii registry to check and trouble shoot the whole system. I worked through as far as the part where you slacken off the fuel lines in turn from the KF (those familiar will know what I mean). I identified the two problem cylinders as 3 & 4. I swapped the fuel delivery valves between 4 and 2 (ie a working and a 'non-working' cylinder) in order to determine if fault was at injector or fuel delivery valve. According to the manual given the results, my problem was with the injectors.

I'm working today so my dad kindly agreed to swap out the injectors with known good spares that we keep.

Having replaced them, the engine is running no better. (poor dad!)

I have my suspicions where to look now (but I'm a bit of a pessimist so I don't want to put any thoughts out there) but would like to know what your thoughts are?

TIA

[BillWilliams]

I am not quite clear on how you ran the tests but I would suspect your plungers in the pump are stuck especially if the car has set for some time. Remove those two hex head bolts on top of the pump, remove that little thing in there with brass tweezers, what you see in there now is the top of the plunger.

Take a pick or small screwdriver and set the point on the top of the plunger, have someone rotate the motor at the crank with a wrench and watch carefully to see if the pick or screwdriver moves up and down.

Note, it may take several moves of the wrench to get that plunger to go down and also note that the plunger only moves 1/16" or less, It is a small movement. You may want to do a test on a known good cylinder to see how little the pick/screwdriver moves.

Report back

[ray_]

And, what plugs are you running, how new are they and how did you test them?

... Is the cold start valve leaking?

GL,

Ray

[schwartzerritter]

suspect everything and triple check everything then the injections system. i have seen a pump sold to cure this problem.Well the old pump cleaned reinstalled. Problem was electrical . I was offered the new pump in box for dealer cost . No I did not buy it !

[adamm]

Hi Bill, thanks for your feedback. I probably should have explained initially that my car is in daily use and I had in fact done some miles on the day that the problem reared its head. I'd popped in to see my folks and upon leaving found the car to be running very poorly.

Upon establishing everything was ok on the ignition side, I referred to the BMW 2002tii Fuel Injection Manual (the one with the blue cover produced by BMWNA) and specifically page 17 - Warm running problems.

So with the engine running I went through loosening the fuel delivery lines above the delivery valves to establish where the problem was. Lines to 3&4 cylinders showed no difference in running.

Fuel also leaked out which the manual states points to either a defective delivery valve or injector.

As I said before, from swapping a good delivery valve with one of the bad ones and not seeing any improvement I assumed the problem to lie with the injector - but this is apparently not the case either.

So, the spark plugs are sparking, the KF is delivering fuel but I'm getting no combustion in cylinders 3 & 4. Blown head gasket? Bad rings?

[eurotrash]

Compression test. I will answer that last question.

[adamm]

Mr Eurotrash, I think I can answer my own question, dear dad was already testing comps. 1 & 2, 13 bar. 3 & 4, 4/5 bar.

Uh oh.

Would somebody else like to say this for me - I can't bring myself to say it out loud...!

[eurotrash]

Pray its just the head gasket..

[adamm]

Hmm. This engine was rebuilt by a very reputable engine shop only four years ago and has probably done only about 18,000 miles in that time yet this is its second (possible) head gasket. First time it munched the head quite hard as well. Very different symptoms this time (perhaps why I've not jumped to this conclusion sooner).

Any reason why this engine seems to have a thirst for head gaskets? I don't want to go through this for a third time - like I mentioned - this car is my daily driver... needless to say it's well looked-after, regular oil changes, never overheats, my mechanic who tunes it for me has an excellent reputation over here. So I wouldn't say that it could be down to neglect or anything like that.

Any thoughts appreciated.

[Preyupy]

Is the head gasket blowing between cyl 3/4? You said it has already gone through 2 headgaskets in 18k miles, did it do the same thing both times? If so I would suspect either the block or the head (or both) are not flat. Did you re-torque the head bolts 2-3 times after each new gasket (I recomend 2-3 heat cycles then retorque, 100 miles re-torque, then again at 1000 miles) if you are using the stock 55 ft/lb torque spec.

I use stock non cutter ring gaskets on 13:1 race engines without any issues so you should not be having any issues with them on a stock engine.

If for some reason the engine builder used a cutter ring gasket (the factory did originally) then every time you change the gasket you have to have the head surfaced to give the cutter fresh aluminum to cut into.

The other thing that will kill a headgasket in no time is detonation, if you are having any issues with poor fuel or ignition timing it is very easy to trash a head gasket and the most likely failier is between the holes.

[Patman]

The problems I had with my Tii sound like yours and the in the end I found it was the head gasket had failed between cylinders 3 and 4. New head gasket (cutting ring type) and total head rebuild while I had it off solved all the issues. Running like a champ now!

Good luck! I feel your pain.

Regards,

Patman in Tehachapi, CA

[Kpeters]

(nt)

[Kpeters]

I had a simliar problem but had to take apart the whole kugelgischer and I never put it back again. Well mine is not an original tii so...It doesn't hurt that much.

[adamm]

I'm getting the head over to the machine shop tomorrow to get them to check it over - it's already on it's minimum so assuming it has remained straight, no cracks etc - would folks recommend a cutter type gasket or go again with a regular gasket? I've read a lot about the cutter gaskets and also mls gaskets (I'm assuming the two are different??) but what are the pros and cons?

[Preyupy]

I would use a stock non cutter ring gasket