First I'd like to say that if you're oil filter hsing is leaking or your oil pan is leaking,the oil can get on the drivebelt accessories and destroy your serpentine belt and also result in a destroyed Idler pulley.

Now here is how my day went,had very little success:


Working on my car in this frigid climate and my hands were freezing. Wow!

However my serpentine belt broke on me and I see my idler pulley is destroyed or should I say was partially desintergrated.

I noticed that there is also engine oil caked all over the place more than usual with belt material on the front drivers side of the motor.

BMW's,M3,and E36 3 series are notorious for oil filter hsing leaks. There is also engine oil all over every one of my drive pullies. The top of my motor is clean and I never noticed this leak after chging the oil early last month. Guess I never looked real close as well.

Broken belt pieces all aover the place,stuck between the alt pulley,steering pump pulley,wrapped around the tesioner,so I spent alot of time in the cold trying to get all the shrapnel out.

OK. Go to take off the fan shroud,fine. Now I start taking out one of the mech fan bolts and out of three of the small bolts one of them drops down to the bottom of the car trapped by the plastic lower engine cover. Guess I'll worry about fishing that out tomorrow.

OK fan is off,shroud is off,yanked broken parts of the belt out of the different pulley's(was a real pain in the *** as the belt jammed the pulleys where they could not move by hand) and now I go to take the idler pulley of.

As I loosen up the screw,I never realized the damn thing was so long.Jeez.

As I pull out the bolt,the damn thing is so long that it hits the radiator.

Well I'll leave this darn thing for tomorrow. Has anyone had to take out their radiator just to chg this pulley or can I just take off the top radiator support,pull the radiator back and get this darn idler pulley screw out?


Sorry for the long story,just venting. Too damn cold to complete the job.

Thanks all replies welcome.

 

Hahahahahahahha i made this job before in a friends car! Yes, you need to remove the top radiator frame only & pull them to front. this way you can change the pulley without remove the radiator/Ac condenser unit

Fabio Daniel

 

Thank you my brother.

I guess I'll chk the oil filter housing gaskets as well while I am at it.

 

You will need to change the 2 oil cooler seals, the oil filter housing seal (you will need a 46mm socket for this, be very careful not to cross thread it when you are reinstalling) and I would suggest you change the oil gallery cover seal on the timing case as well.

Pretty much every M112/113 needs these seals every 8-10yrs.

The top idler pully has a very long bolt, you need to remove the top radiator support and pull the radiator slightly forward, no need to remove it.

 

OK I know about the oil cooler seals ,the timing case seal I'm gonna look into as well then. I knew nothing about that one. Thanx!

PS a picture or even a link from an advertiser of what that particular gasket looks like would help me out alot.

FOUND: The missing infamous third gasket! READ link below Folks

https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w...-oil-leak.html

http://www.autohausaz.com/search/pro...Cover%20Gasket

 

Hello Carlyle: I remember those cold days laying on my back in my parents home driveway. UGH If you were here in FLA. you would have the use of my garage tool box and Lift. It will be about 80* with a slight breeze here. BTW my car is running great in this weather. This project is about done . I'm looking for a CLS 5.5 with a blow motor. Give my best to your family & Friends. Well any way Have a great Christmas & New years.

Patrick T.

 

HEY Patty!! How are you man!!

When I went to Broward Community College I remeber after school when I used to work on my car. Back then in "84" there was not that much going on in Broward County so I came back to NYC in 1986. Oh how I regret that now. If I stayed down there I perhaps would be working for Bell South and not Verizon.

Such is life

Well u and your family have a very merry Xmas as well Patty and good to hear from you.

By the way todays weather seems alil more manageable.
Take care!

 

Wow what a mess this job is.

I have a massive leak behind the oil cooler next to the oil filter housing. This thing was leaking as if there was no gasket there. Took the cooler off and the gaskets are harrd and brittle. As soon as I pryed them out they were just brittle and broke into pieces. I'm also believeing that I will have to do this to my BMW M3 which has a bad leak and has a pretty similar setup to this M113 motor. Chging these blasted gaskets.
Got to run to the MB and BMW dealer on Sat morning I guess for the gaskets. I'm chging the timing cover one on the MB as well since I'm at it.

My motor has so much oil in the front of it ,it's ridiculous. I will have to do a nice e ngine brite job to it. I believe this is what destroyed my Serp belt ,this oil leaking from behind the oil cooler. Unfortunately my idler pulley became victim to this as well.

Saturday is another day God willing. Merry bX-mas and Happy Holidays everyone!

 

Just curious, what do you do for Verizon? I work as a service tech for at&t in California.

 

I'm a fiber optic service (FIOS) install repair technician.

 

I was hoping to do that for ATT. Even took classes on fiber optic splicing and got certified. Never worked out.

 

OK Job complete. I thoroughly cleaned the whole motor after installing the gaskets. I will be watching for leaks. Was a pretty simple job for an experienced person to do. So now she's got a new serp belt,idler pulley and three new oil gaskets. The third one was the timing cover seal gasket.


This is a job everyone is gonna have to get done sooner or later,but well worth it.

 

Just went through the replacement of the idler and tensioner - you actually need to remove the top cross member directly over the radiator (four 10mm bolts) and the two bolts that fasten the A/C condenser to the radiator at the very top - it's the only way you'll have enough space to the idler bolt. The two nuts are captured by the radiator mount.

Of course PRIOR to the above, you should drain the coolant, loosen all the hose clamps and remove the hoses - once you have done so and move the condenser back you can lift out the entire radiator.