mini r56 one burning oil and common vanos related codes

little update on this one and this happens so trying to find a good n12b14 or n12b16 or even a n16 head all will fit and inter change , found many off cars where seller states no history of why the head is for sale and its buyers risk to check such heads before use, trouble with this is that if its been cooked and over heated chances are will be cracked, and also chances are it will also have same issues as the old head where the retang metal rings have cut grooves in the cylinder head and end cap and worn the camshaft away as well, this will cause vanos and timing related codes and issues ,,
when looking for such heads you either bite the bullet and order a recon for around £800 or find as cheap as possible a head that came off a car that had timing chain failure or bottom end failure is more safer bet, what causes this a lot fo the time is people leave it to late to refresh the engines, so car dont use much oil until the day it does and when it does the first warning can be the red oil can light on dash,, by time this light has switched on its to late some damage will have been done and most likely to head first ie head is weak point for wear, and gets staved of oil first and for longest time as such, these engines are strange one seen many of them dont use oil until around 8 year old and 60k ish then some just start slowly and others it becomes the main even, build up of crud and heat and time i guess is same on all of them and all have same sort of reaction to it ,,

MickeyMini said:

@mike1967 like we say all Prince engines will gravitate towards high oil consumption, speed at which this happens is the question. In reality looks like, as with most things, down to how the car is used and looked after. More careful the owner is with driving the car, frequency of oil changes, and I guess a degree of luck can prolong the inevitable. As predictable as day follows night every gen 2 mini will consume large amounts of oil. Best bet, plan to refresh the engine if considering long term ownership. I doubt BMW are prepared put that in the service book!

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i see that same as you and anyone who repairs these cars I believe, then better cars are always the nursed cars with owner that from new has always checked the fluids at least weekly and kept levels to as close to max mark as poss, some fools might think anyone like myself who preaches this is only doing so as have skin in the game, where reality is the worst outcomes are always when ignored or disbelieved ,, when I only tell everyone what i find and have found for many years now , and to be honest would not bother me if i never done another one a lot of the times , when i get a few cars one after another that throws surprises and turn in to a can of worms caused by prolonged use with bad oil pressure due to past owners lack of care for what they drive many times, wish it was just mini that done these tricks, had a vw t6 transporter in the other day needed head off cracked valve 120k on clock, done head put back together then it would not start,, now i'm anal about how to bleed such fuel systems, so use diagnostics tool to prime and bleed all air out the system before trying to turn key,, bloody thing would not start, 700bar on cranking to rail, no bleed off from injectors,,, ha ha the clue, this thing is fitted with totally crap siemens injectors and known issue when drop the pressure off the rail to lock up and cant be repaired or refurbed £364 plus vat each times by 4 ,, and TPS parts guy said they sell thousand's of these injectors ,, worst bit get no fault codes , live data shows pressure and trigger points ,, removing them sending in to be tested was only way ,, ie more dead money when they say are for the bin, then add the vw bi turbo engines egr cooler fails and takes out the engines for a past time including the £1500 twin turbo's , endless crap designs that owners get nailed with,, even my vw t5.1 transporter has 5 speed box that with bigger wheel and remap will drop a gearbox every 60-100k , saving grace is gearbox refurb to me is £750 and morning work where the early t4 gearbox in my daughters camper is on 200k and still smooth and good, I got 2015 honda civic 1,6 idetc even they have issues with camshafts and first lobe, main dealer £3k repair, £1 for me in parts , the earlier 2,2 had clutch weakness and timing chain and injectors that would not come out if had to do chain on them, the joys of emissions forced crap

another sunday another mini lol, today got bottom end all done pistons and new rings and bores honed and all back together now waiting on a cylinder head as this one is for the bin due to where camshaft retang rings have worn away the surfaces,

above hone tool in bore notice the black ring at top of bore, its that lip that need to be honed away on both top and bottom of bores,, this one due to oil starved was a tad more lipped that most bit have seen worse an they have been ok going forward,

bores honed notice the 45 degree lines in surface, this is needed helps new ring travel over any ridges and prevents the edges of rings being damaged on run and bed running , to get these lines i have drip slow speed and fast in and out ,,

above are rings i use now find these really good,


all pistons cleaned and new rings fitted, notice they are marked with red dots and are the direction and end cap directions, you must always keep these items marked and directions as each end cap is only going to fit its conrod it came off, mix them and dont realise will end so badly ,



above new big end berings as this engine has had oil staved and we are trying to repair whats there under a budget new big ends will help things ,, i only fit new big ends to engines like this with oil problems , normally they are like new when do refresh and no point replacing them,

two pistons in two to go, notice i mark number 1 to gearbox end as psa trained and habit , takes me two minutes to slide them in these days seems ever ring compressor tool has a different quirk to it,


above rod end caps lagged in i use lucas engine oil and steering oil additive works a treat, link below for it
i use that in gearboxes as well really good stuff, i add oil to itin oil can when building engines its sticks to it,




all 4 in robs down ready for oil pump and sumo to go back on and new oil pump chain and sprockets,

above timing chain master kit i get sourced from ultra parts that source from psa so much cheaper than bmw and same stuff, comes with new vanos sprockets and all stretch , rocker cover seals crank oil seal oil pump chain and sprockets etc, I DONT DO PARTIAL TIMING CHAIN KITS NO POINT,

below is sump all cleaned and repainted , and back on , i also got to replace the water pump and link pipe genuine bmw only and thermo housing febi brand, i also ave changed the oil seals in oil filter housing to block, now i'm on stop as cylinder head needs replacing so owner has ordered one that when it arrives i will refresh it do retang rings and clean it all fit new stem seals before putting back on the block, sort of put me behind about a week but seems the normal for the engines you never really know what you got until you know lol,

had a full day nearly on this one today , got head last night today spent day stripping it an cleaning it lapped valve seats in new stem seals , found non return valve faulty on donor head and metal particles in the vanos solenoids all in keeping with what seller told us the bottom end piston damage reason for head for sale so a winner for sure , the cam journals are like new i replaced the retang rings just as always do on all the refresh jobs, little tip when sourcing such heads any head after and including 2009 will have the plastic retang rings and not the metal ones and are the better ones to have as dont wear the journal away ,,

above pic oil control solonoid with swarf on it from bottom end failure,, also notice its got the metal filters this has been replaced at some point, factory ones have a different filter back when this was new,

above cylinder head stripped and valve seats checked and guides are perfect,,

above pic a exhaust valve all the valves in same condition and loads of cleaning for me lol

above half the valves cleaned v=ready for lapping the seats in,




head cleaned and valve stem seals fitted i use elring

above head all back together ready to go back on, i always clean the surfaces ie head and block with brake cleaner and clean cloths 4 or 5 times to ensure its spotless and dry before using wellseal on gasket ,, been using wellseals for many years now and not had a head gasket failure back,,

above camshafts end caps where retang rings sit ,, these must not have any grooves c=worn where the rings sit if they do then head for bin,, this will cause oil pressure light to come on when engine gets to 105c on idle and very very commn on pre 2009 engines as use metal rings,, bmw realised there was a issue way back hence the new ring after 2009 all are plastic and dont wear away the head or caps, these caps are perfect

above new retang rings on camshaft,, you must soak them in oil before fitting and dont over stretch them, then on first start up it pays let car warm up on idle for the heat treatment they seal to need to seals,, I notice on live data some cars timing moves around and then after a few hot to cold to hot running comes back right,

above part numbers for retang rings form bmw ,

end of camshaft lagged in engine builders grease and oil before fitting new rings,,

above pic retang rings soaking in engine oil for a hour or so before fitting,

above head all back together vvt system and camshafts in , 10nm for all 8mm bolts

above pic shows the non return valves for vanos system , the one on the right is perfect and the one on left is broken notice the ball is lower than the other one so for the bin, this will cause issue on first start up with timing , and can cause running issues as well

head back on torque down and timed up and crank was locked before putting head on,, this is good practice to lock crank at that point avoids any possible issue rotating it with head on etc,

above pic timing chain and vanos hubs soaking on engine oil before fitting ,, reason for this is if dont these can lock up solid on first start up ,, I always on refresh jobs do full master kit for timing chain and oil pump chain etc, and al sprockets , i also fitted new water pump new thermo housing new plastic link pipe and new pulley ,

spent another morning on this today and now runs without any nasty noises except for vvt motor that teeth are worn away on ,, the motor on the car was a dead shorted one, the head i got sent tried using that motor and very noisy not long for the world ,, so new one on order, ran it up today for as long at took to get to when coolant g=fan cuts in and out a few times and revs heald at 2500 to bed rings and big end bearings also helps timing chain to smooth off , now the engine sounds better and will get better with use i suspect so will have it a few days longer and make sure it stays running right,, only maybe on it is the oil control solonoids for vanos at present the positions are both 2 degrees off, this could be down to adaptions need to be reset a few times to bring it back right,, also when i drop break in oil oil i use i will pull solonoids out and clean them as tend to get some metal debris from engine bedding in them can effect timing and make engine sound horrid when they do,, so tomorrow this one is out the door next one in another 1.4 mini one , as this last one has given my times a kicking