R2D2

Job Time: - 4-5 hours. Symptoms of faulty CCV: - Engine drinking oil (as much as half a litre/month is typical). - Oil residue in the inlet manifold (remove your DISA valve to check). This is a job that most people who live in a cold/ish climate and own a 7+ year old e46 probably need doing, even if they dont realise it. The CCV (crankcase ventilation) system is designed to recirculate oil vapours from the camshaft housing down into an oil seperating valve so that the oil can be seperated and recycled down into the sump (via the dipstick) and the other vapours are sent to the inlet manifold and exhausted. BMW have acknowledged that the CCV is a weak point on their M54 engines as they get condensation buildup during cold weather which mixes with the recirculated oil vapours and clogs the oil seperation valve itself. This then prevents the oil from being drained down into the sump, and instead gets sucked up into the intake manifold where the oil gets burnt during combustion, and comes out of the exhaust. Youll then end up with a gunked up valve as mine was: This is the main culprit behind so many people complaining that their 6-pot M54 engines drink a lot of oil. Most just dont bother replacing the valve, just top their oil up when needed. Well id had enough of forking out for oil top ups so decided to finally get on with sorting out the cause. What you'll need - T-40, T-25 Torx bits - 6mm, 10mm, & 13mm sockets & Ratchet - Various length Ratchet Extension bars - Needle nose pliers - Small Mirror - Torch - Set of cross and flat headed screwdrivers - Magnetic pick up tool (for those screws that youll drop down onto the skid plate!) - Stanley Knife Tips - Label all the connectors you remove with masking tape! - Have a magnet pick up tool at the ready in case you drop any screws down onto the skid plate - Give yourself plenty of time to do the job - Use some washing up liquid or silicon grease to get the new hoses on if youre struggling with them Parts There are 2 different parts lists that are available to do the job. Theres the standard 'warm climate' parts, and a more expensive 'cold climate' setup. The cold climate parts are foam insulated to reduce the amount of condensation build up in the ventilation system. Its up to you which version you buy, but the cold climate one is more expensive and the valve is much more of a pig to fit due to its larger size, so be warned! The parts list are as follows (prices as of Nov 2012): Warm Climate Parts 11617501566 Oil seperating valve - - £40 11611432559 Vent pipe - £17.52 11617504535 Connecting line - £24.30 11157532649 Vent Hose - £11.66 11617504536 Return Pipe - £25.43 11431740045 Dip Stick O-rings - £2.10 13547504729 Throttle Body Gasket - £6.65 --------- £127.66 Cold Climate Parts 11617533400 Oil seperating valve (insulated) - £45.70 11617533398 Vent Pipe (insulated) - £19.06 11617533399 Connecting line (insulated) - £24.30 11157532629 Vent hose (insulated) - £11.66 11617504536 Return Pipe - £25.43 11431740045 Dip Stick O-rings - £2.10 13547504729 Throttle Body Gasket - £6.65 --------- £134.90 Procedure Battery Firstly, unhook your battery. Unplugging sensors during the ccv replacement with your car powered up could throw errors with your ecu, so just to be safe remove the earth (black) connection on your battery. Its located under the black tray on the right hand side of your boot. Pull the upright carpet out of the way and lift up the black plastic tray to access it (being careful not to pull on the green fuel cap release in doing so). A 10mm socket is all youll need to loosen the connection and lift it off. Air intake filter and boots The next job is to remove your air intake components. This comprises of the air filter housing, MAF and intake boots. Firstly, remove the 3 expanding clips on the intake housing using a flat headed screwdriver, and then the 2 hex bolts that are holding the air filter housing to the engine bay. Now loosen the jubilee clip and unclip the MAF connector (by pinching and pulling on the plug)... The whole intake unit should now lift out exposing the upper and lower intake boots. The upper one comes out easily by pulling ouy the vacuum hose at the top (you may need a screwdriver to prise this out) and then loosening the jubilee clip and pulling it out. To remove the lower one though, youll firstly have to remove your DISA valve, which is held in place by 2 T-40 hex bolts. Once youve removed them, just unplug the DISA connector, and twist and pull on the valve and it will come out as one complete unit: With the DISA valve out you can now remove the lower intake boot by loosening the jubilee clips that tie it to the ICV (the smaller hose on the lower intake boot) and the throttle body (the larger one). It can take a bit of tugging but the lower boot will eventually pull off, exposing the throttle body. Throttle Body, Conduit Box & Purge Valve The last stage before you can actually see the CCV is to remove the throttle body that youve now exposed, and also the conduit box which houses various looms. To do this, firstly unbolt the 3 10mm nuts that are securing the conduit box. There are two easy ones to see in the middle and on the left, but the third is out of sight on the right hand side located next to the bottom right hand throttle body bolt (use a mirror to locate it if youre having trouble). Once you have all 3 nuts off, just move the conduit box out of the way. Next remove the throttle body 4 10mm hex bolts which secure the throttle body. Its hard to see the bottom two in the picture below but theyre in the same position vertically as the upper ones. The bolts are quite long so dont be surprised when they just keep on unscrewing! With the bolts out, unplug the throttle body connector and pull on the TB and it should easily slide out and can be completely removed with a bit of twisting and pulling. Now its just a case of unplugging and unhooking the purge valve to the left hand side of where the conduit box was. At this stage it is also a good idea to take out the retaining bolt on the dipstick housing so that the whole dipstick assembly can be moved out of the way. The retaining bolt is located as shown here: This will now completely expose the oil seperator valve which will now be removed. CCV (Oil seperator valve & hoses) With everything now out of the way you should now be able to see the oil seperator under the inlet manifold. Its now time to start unclipping all the hoses in the ccv system so that the valve can be completely removed. To access the top hoses (connecting hose & return pipe), youll need to firstly take off your micro filter assembly (A) and fuel rail cover (B ), as shown here: The micro filter assembly is removed by turning the 3 sprung clips through 90 degrees until they pop up. Its cover can then be removed, revealing the filter itself. Take out the filter and then unclip the enclosure in front of it (C ) and pull out the 12V cable in black conduit. By now removing the 4 T40 torx screws that are holding the housing in place you will be able to pull the whole assembly out. You can now access the two hex bolts (under the plastic covers) that hold the fuel rail cover in place. Unscrew these and pull off the cover. With the cover off you can now access and remove the connecting hose and return pipe. Use a pair of needle nose pliers to pinch and pull them off where needed, dont worry if they snap, theyll probably be very brittle and youll be replacing them anyway. The final hose to remove at the top is the one thats attached to the valve cover. Just pinch and pull this as with the others. With this final top hose removed, you can now unscrew and remove the valve itself (D below). It is held on by 2 x T25 torx screws as shown by the arrows. In the diagram below, hoses (B ) and (C ) should be detached as per the previous step but its now totally up to you how you remove the valve itself, some prefer to cut hoses (B ) and (C ) at the valve end so that the seperator can just be pulled out, some prefer to do some wiggling about and keep them intact. Either way youll need to remove the 2 torx screws. With the oil seperator out from underneath the intake manifold its just a case of removing the drain hose (A) which is attached to a nipple on the dipstick at the other end. I found that by far the easiest thing to do was to slit the hose at the dipstick end with a stanley knife and pull it off. The oil seperator valve can now be completely removed from the engine bay ready for the new one to be fitted. Preperation & Reassembly of new parts Before reassembling the new parts back in place, there are a few steps that need to be taken. Firstly, the nipple on the dipstick needs to be checked to see if its clear of gunk, otherwise the new oil seperator will just get clogged up again. The best way to do this is to remove the distick completely. To do this, take out the dipstick (which you use to check your oil levels) and then with the retaining bolt having been removed earlier the dipstick tube will completely lift out of the sump with a bit of a wiggle: Once out, check the nipple that the drain back hose from the oil seperator connects to, and make sure its clear of gunk. If its clogged up you can use a bicycle pump or an air line to clear it as much as possible. While the dipstick housing is out, its also a good time to replace the larger dipstick o-ring. This can be found either around the bottom of the dipstick housing, or in the hole in the sump where the dipstick tube pulled out from. With that part complete, fit the new drain hose to the dipstick nipple ready to connect to the new valve and replace the dipstick housing, but dont re-secure the dipstick retaining bolt just yet. Its now time to fit the new valve and hoses. This is by far the most awkward part of the job so be prepared for a few scraped knuckles. I found that the best way to re-fit was to attach the connecting hose (C ) first (mine was a push and twist fit) and then feed the hose up through the gap in the inlet manifold where you pulled the old one from and get the oil seperator into position at the same time. It takes a lot of patience and twisting as the throttle body housing gets in the way, but dont fret it does go in there eventually. Once in place, secure the valve back in place with the 2 torx screws, and then feed the valve cover hose (B ) down through the gap next to the oil filter housing and connect it to the ccv valve. The valve cover hose (B ) takes a little bit of bending but its a push and click type rather than the twist fit, so its a bit easier than the last one. Now fit the final hose which you secured to the dipstick nipple earlier, it goes on the bottom of the new oil sperator and should be a push and click type again. Youre now ready to do the rest of the reassembly, which i did in this order... - Refit and reconnect the purge valve - Refit and reconnect the throttle body & replace gasket with the new one youve bought - Refit the conduit box - Refit and reconnect the DISA valve - Resecure the dipstick housing on its bracket - Refit lower intake boot - Refit upper intake boot & reattach vacuum hose - Refit air intake enclosure/air box & plug MAF back in - Refit fuel rail cover and micro filter assembly - Reconnect battery ....And youre done!! Hopefully you find this guide useful and it cures your oil drinking problems with your engine. I take no responsibility for anything going wrong when you follow the above, its just what i did step by step, and it all worked out for me. If you have any questions, dont hesitate to ask. Lastly there are some fantastic how-to videos on youtube by Bavarianauto. I pretty much followed what he did in them and it was very handy seeing everything done in real time. I highly recommend watching them before taking this job on. I can only post the first part for some reason, but there are links to parts 2 and 3 at the end of the video: [media=] Acknowledgments I pretty much nicked some of the pictures from other websites to write this guide as i didnt take any pictures at the time of doing mine, so thanks to DetailingWorld, Bavarianauto and BMW fanatics for those.