__________________ The Beast
2001 E39 M5 LeMans Blue with Black/Blue Sport Interior and Titanium Trim with some great mods and a blown, balanced and blueprinted S62
Having made one or two (hundred) bonehead mistakes while working on my cars (I have an X5 in the garage that is slowing dripping antifreeze from the ONE o-ring I didn't replace when I replaced EVERYTHING ELSE in the damn cooling system last week...) I know that no one will beat you up over this harder than yourself.
Thanks for sharing - I now have this info filed away for for when I replace my clutch.
Tim: Ok now that we know it was the CPS in relation to the flywheel, one more question. In post #81 in the other thread you said it couldn't be the CPS because with it unplugged one car had fuel being sent and the other didn't. So is there a way to rectify that situation to the misaligned flywheel or were you somehow wrong about the fuel discrepency producing a red herring and reinforcing the concern about an electrical spike, etc?
With the CPS unplugged, my car was not getting fuel because the CPS was not reading ANYTHING. It was telling the ECU the flywheel/crank was not spinning, do not send fuel.
With Phil's car, the CPS WAS reading the flywheel/crank spinning and telling the ECU to go ahead and send fuel/spark, it was just in the completely wrong time. With the flywheel not lined up properly (about 40 degrees off), the ECU thought TDC was in a different position than it really was. The CPS was reading the opening in the "tombstones" at the wrong time. We didn't think it was getting spark because the engine wasn't firing. We could tell we had fuel (smell) but couldn't understand why it wasn't firing.
Once I realized that the sound of your two start sequences were distinctly different, I knew it wasn't an EWS issue. No ignition would have sounded pretty similar, so the crank/cam timing made the most sense.
This is a mistake that you'll now never repeat. On the bright side, being off two holes possibly prevented serious engine damage if it were able to start one hole out of time.
This is how we learn. It happens to all of us. Chalk it up and move on. I'm glad it all worked out; and think of all the extra practice you got!
OOOHHHHH I beat you by two minutes in the other thread in where I suggested maybe you installed the flywheel wrong! I knew it wasn't an EWS or key issue.
What do I win?
Seriously though - good job for thinking it through outside of it being a DME-EWS issue - sometimes the answer is far from what we expect, and sometimes no matter how good we think we are or how well we did something we need to walk through the entire process again.
Only my making mistakes and remembering every single detail do we learn.
I wish even half the dealerships around would give one quarter the amount of care and thought that timmay did in this "adventure". Stuff happens, and it is how you deal with the stuff that is measures the person.
I would trust my car MORE to a guy like timmay who has shown us how he handles setbacks than someone who has not had to deal with any issues. I know timmay puts as much blood and sweat into someone else's car as he does his own. You can't ask for more than that.
I have to admit though (and deviate from the crowd here), in all reality this is a basic issue that most techs at BMW know to follow (or any automotive technician) - it is one of the fine details of working on not only these cars but any other car. I say this with the assumption that Tim did not know the flywheel has to line up a certain way, per his own admittance of crushing the dowel.
A suggestion for all that might help you next time (or anyone doing their first time job) - follow documentation on that specific component and check off as you go down and then back up the list. Following written steps is the easiest way to make sure you did what needs to be done, and verifying each step will save you time down the road as in this instance.
Additionally, labeling and marking parts will not hurt you or the car. In this case the flywheel relationship to the dowel or crank could have been marked with a paint marker, crayon, chalk, etc.
maybe this was asked but I didn't see it. how were you able bolt up the flywheel without the dowel pin lined up? wouldn't it not fit properly and not be flat against the crank?
1Likes
Linear Mode
