Hcaleman

Received a call today from my father regarding his E63. It appears that he had a lower oil pan leak and attempted to remove, reseal, and replace the lower pan. In the process they somehow left a wadded paper towel in the lower sump... and drove the car. Needless to say, he was fairly distraught by this, but lets call it an expensive lesson.

What I'm trying to get a feel for is what potential damage has been done and remedies.

This is what I was able to gather so far:
- Lower oil plan pulled to reseal with MB silicone and replaced
- Car started and drove home
- Idled steady, ran fine for a time then valve train began to make noise (whining/whirring).
- He mentioned an alarm type sound, but I don't know if he meant from the actual cluster.
- No apparent knock from lower end of engine or rapid unexpected disassembly event (i.e. explosion)
- Down on power
- Paper towels used described as heavy household one, not the blue shop rag type.

To me it sounds like if the paper towel was left in there it has moved to block the oil pickup leading to low oil pressure/oil starvation. Does the E63 have hydraulic lifters and chain tensioners? I don't know if he is entirely certain the paper towel was left in the engine, or is just attributing some other screw up to that. Is there any other possible cause for the above symptoms?

His current plan is to have the car flat-bedded to some shop in Orlando on Monday to pull it open and look for the errant towel and determine what other issues, if any, exist.

Any information, diagrams, etc. would be appreciated. I'm not of much use for him as I'm located across the country and am only familiar with M cars, but at least I can reach out here for help.

layzie12g

That is a major f up. Anything that happens to that engine from that point on is always going to come back on that shop. It was oil starved. It can should be torn down and inspected. Sounds like that shop will need to use its insurance for that mess up.

SICAMG

You really have to pull it and go through everything. Who knows where this towel has come apart and lodged itself. If all the small little parts of paper start moving around it could block starve something for oil and then you have more problems. This is a really bad situation and sucks big time. But...on a good note.....TIME FOR MODIFICATIONS since it will be out any how!!

Sugar_Mouth

Ya it sounds like the towel was sucked up into the oil pickup which caused reduced oil pressure and volume. That created a lack of oil which started in the valve train first.

How did you know a towel was in there prior to opening it up?