DIY: Cleaning the VANOS unit and engine e46

So this weekend I decided to just take the plunge and clean as much as I can from the engine and VANOS unit as I suspect the two VANOS oil solenoid pistons, as well as the main pistons aren't functioning like they should.

I also fitted a new Valve Cover Gasket, with gaskets for the ignition coil-spark plug chambers. And also replaced the breather hose with a new one.

Right off the bat, if you are thinking about doing this, give yourself a week so you can just relax and do it at a steady pace. I did it in 2 days and my back is killing me.

First off, use the Beisan Systems VANOS seals DIY (posted on the DIY thread) as a guideline to remove everything from the enigine.

I took pics of the spark plug chambers just to see if any oil or moisture got in. Seems some oil, very little did manage to find its way in.



Some close ups of the situation:













The best way to describe this stuff is like burned cheese on a toaster. Is not gunk that you simply wipe off. Its like its burned onto the parts and needs to scraped off. Not sure what would cause this.

How this stuff looks coming off and some that are already off.



VANOS unit out and busy with the cleaning process.





Toothbrush, nail brush, PREPSOL and hours of bushing.

New parts:



The piston that refused to budge. (in middle of pic). As I twisted it out with pliers you could hear the grinding of gunk and bits that got trapped. Took me a good 30 min to get it out. Now imagine that stuck closed and no oil feed to the VANOS.



Nice shiny clean inside for the piston to move.



The other one:



With gaskets and assembled ready to go back in.







Shiny piston (Had oil burn marks on it), with moranor's awesome VANOS rings.



The cause of all the problems. The VANOS solenoid piston out. This is the cleaner one! Notice the marks from the oil.





VANOS unit as clean as I could get.



Engine cleaned as far as I would dare. I didn't go too hectic on the engine itself as im scared to much gunk at once comes loose. But still an improvement I think and one could go on with chemical treatment from here on.

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Soak your pistons in some oil before refitting.



Unit back in. Remember the spring in the left unit.



Piston back in. Such relief and all worth it when I put this part back in and you press down on it and it pops right back up. Compare that to when I opened it and pliers wouldn't even get it out.



Lets put it back in.



VANOS back in.





New gaskets in.



Used a pressure hose to clean the inside of the Valve cover.

Almost there...



Clean the underside of the cap. Might as well go overboard with cleaning.



Aaaand done...



This was such a daunting but great experience. Fired the car up and she is purring like her old self again. Im still keeping the revs under 4000RPM just for the pistons and things to settle.

I don't wanna know how much this would have cost to do at a garage but I got away with R1300 for all the tools and stuff I did not have. (Thats including the breather hose and Torque wrench).

Thanks for reading