Removing the Inlet Manifold on the 330D

[The_Judge_]

This guide is based on the 184Hp engine, (it should, in theory, be reasonably similar to the 204Hp engine too). I've been on the forum for about two years now and could never find a usable guide for this. 

Please NOTE - I am not a mechanic, this is just a guide and you will be doing this at your own risk!. 

EDIT: If you want an alternate way of removing injectors without taking the manifold off, check this out: http://www.bimmerforums.co.uk/forum/f89/changing-injectors-m57-engine-not-n2-m47-lost-pictures-t124159/

I was generally scared of doing this on my own but then with some help from Triggerfish and Mr. Xen I got some expert tuition, thanks, chaps So as I was doing a similar job today I thought I'd write up a mini guide. There's no right or wrong way of doing this or correct order. Generally, though there are four areas to focus on; remove engine acoustic covers, remove the pollen filter and under trays, remove miscellaneous screws/cables/hoses attached to the inlet manifold and finally remove the manifold itself. The key is work calmly and methodically, don't f*ck this up!

I started by removing the bulkhead trim, pollen filter and trays as this give you access to a lot of hidden bolts and screws. Follow this guide here, but there is no need to remove the air filter.

http://www.e46zone.com/forum/topic/8440-diy-bulkhead-trim-removal-and-330d-air-filter-replacement/

Be careful when removing the extreme left/right ones that the bolts don't drop down the holes. I tend to collect bolts in a magnetic tray as I'm going along, I bought a set of three from Screwfix.

Behind the trays is a backing plate. It's possible that you can skip removing this plate, but doing so does make access a bit easier. It is a bit of a pig to remove and to replace, I may skip this step next time. To remove there are two Torx T-30 bolts (one on either side), and there is a small black plastic rivet type locating bolt to the right of the engine bay as you look at it (passenger side) which can be removed by twisting and pulling. The plastic rivet is pretty simple and is really used to locate and connect this plastic bit to the curved plastic bit to the rear right of the engine bay ( I have part of a rubber glove from a previous job stuck behind my plastic screw here!)

To remove this, you will need to lift the rubber protection on the right of the engine bay and slide cables out and generally wiggle this thing out of place. Once removed you'll see something like this:

At this point move onto removing the acoustic covers. Firstly pop up the plastic bolts by the air scoop, I generally use a very small flat screwdriver to pry up the centre portion and then the rest just pops up:

Then the rest of the acoustic covers need a 5mm hex bolt (or allen key)

If you follow the path of the air scoop, you will see it has one bolt holding it in place towards the front left (close to the windscreen washer fluid bottle), remove this bolt:

Removing the air scoop is pretty easy. The front scoop part hooks into the front frame, slide it backward and up using the bendy bit to your advantage. Then for the part where you removed the bolt, slide this part towards you and then to the left away from the engine, as there is a clip which secures it into the air filter housing.

This is one of the two clips at the front of the scoop which hook underneath the front top of the car frame:

This is the clip which secures the rear of the scoop into the air filter housing:

Next, remove the 'T' shaped engine cover. There are three screws you can easily see (one in the grey area, one to the right by power steering reservoir and one to the left, in front of the engine oil cap). There is also one previously hidden one which was covered by the air scoop, I've removed it already in this diagram, it went into the gold rivet on the right.

The right side of this cover clips over the power steering assembly:

Next, you have to remove the Air Filter cover, it has five screws (two at the back, two at the front, one in the centre). Two screws are hidden, some screws stay in the housing. The first hidden screw is easy to locate, use a small screwdriver to pop out the cover for it from the centre plastic section:

There are two screws to the rear, one is easy to locate, the other is a bit tricky and is to the rear left, you can just about see it in the bottom of this picture:

I have previously used a bendy screwdriver, this time I used a 5mm hex bolt and various adapters:

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You will also need to temporarily remove the oil cap, but put it back afterward to stop anything dropping in.

This gives you an idea of the screws which stay at once removed:

Next, remove the black insulating rubber covering the injectors and wires. Then undo the three 5mm bolts holding the wires unclip the cables from the injectors (you may want to label the wires so you plug them back to the correct injectors, but to be honest the way this harness removes itself it's difficult to re-attach the cable to the wrong injector when putting everything back together). Once you undo these bolts you should be able to swing the whole harness away from the engine temporarily.

Now you can start removing all the bits attached to the inlet manifold, remove these in any order you wish. You need to remove your EGR which is secured using four 10mm bolts, and also the vacuum pipe. (Note, it's slightly different on the 204Hp engine)

There is a 10mm bolt holding the dipstick and other bits to the right of the engine bay, this needs to be removed:

In this photo you can also see the swirl flap controls which used to be attached to the bottom of my old manifold which had swirl flaps. To the rear of the engine on the passenger side is a cable attached to the inlet manifold, I believe this is the MAP sensor, it has a spring clip used to hold it in place.

To remove I reached behind the engine with my left hand and pressed the metal clip in, and then using my right hand wiggled the cable downwards and away from the manifold.

You now need to remove the rubber covers that hide the M7 (11mm) nuts on the manifold. You can just pull them out from their right edge:

The first three are approximately the same size, then there is one which is attached to cabling, swing this one out of the way and the rear one is a bit larger.

The spring locked cable is attached to 18 in this diagram, the rubber bits are labeled 17: http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showparts?id=ER92-EUR-02-2002-E46-BMW-330d&diagId=11_2836

There are now several M6 (10mm - labeled 5 in the diagram) bolts and several M7 (11mm - labeled 14 in the diagram) nuts which need to be removed. Its advised to remove these randomly, e.g. remove the most extreme left and right, then a few in the centre etc, the key here is to avoid warping. The final M7 bolt is to the rear of the engine next to the MAP sensor:

Note, when you remove the 6/7th M6 bolt from the front, it will free up a small housing, which is used to secure the T-Shaped engine acoustic cover.

Some guides also recommend removing the cables stretching left-to-right across the top of the engine connected to a terminal - but you don't need to. It does however make a life lot simpler for the next part but you need to disconnect the battery.

If you have swirl flaps you have one more thing to disconnect. Underneath the manifold, near the bolt which held the dipstick is a connector for the swirl flap actuator control, this is also attached to vacuum pipe. Disconnect the cable by pulling it downwards. On my car someone else blanked the swirl flaps, I believe it's best to stick a screw into the vacuum pipe to block it off as it's not needed anymore. I believe you should re-attach the cable to the manifold too even if you blank the swirl flaps ....

Now, here's the tricky bit, your manifold is free, to remove it I advise standing by the front passenger side wheel. Lift the manifold up enough to clear the bolts which the M7 nuts you removed earlier were secured to, then slide the manifold to your left (i.e. towards the front of the engine) carefully. This is where removing the cables would have made life simpler! Underneath the manifold are rubber gaskets and if you are a bit rough these may drop into the engine pots - this is very bad!!

When taking these photos, I didn't actually remove the manifold, but here's a photo from a previous job:

You can see the rectangular red rubber gaskets and small circular rubber gaskets which (may) drop out when you remove the manifold, it shouldn't really happen though. The manifold on the top is my old one which had swirl flaps, for reasons not worth covering in this DIY I had to ditch this one and hence have a manifold from a manual now, the lower one.

Replacing everything is pretty much the reverse but there are few things worth mentioning.

 

• Remember to be random when doing back the bolts/nuts for the manifold, recommended torque settings are 15Nm for the M7 nuts and 10Nm for the M6 bolts.
• When putting the M7 bolts back on the manifold, remember the small metal clip used to secure the T-Shaped engine acoustic cover
• Remember to plug in the MAP sensor (and Swirl actuator) cables in the manifold, else you may find it runs lumpy afterward
• When replacing the EGR valve (or bypass), remember the vacuum pipe.
• The air filter housing is a bit tricky when you screw in the top bolts and put the oil cap back - it doesn't necessarily mean this is back in the right location. If you are standing by the drivers' side front wheel when doing this, ensure the two bottom screws closest to you (extreme left and extreme right) are located correctly first and then everything else fits perfectly.
• When putting the pollen filter back into its tray, there are two small cutouts on each side of the tray and the pollen filter has protruding fins which sit into these cutouts. This helps you prevent putting the filter in upside down, which is easily done!
• When replacing the T-shaped acoustic cover, clip the plastic on the right over the power steering reservoir first, then attack the screws.

Good luck, hope this guide is useful

Edited December 30, 2017 by The_Judge_
Moving pics from s**tty Photobucket

[Fastasbmw]

Very nice write up.. need to check my swirl flaps so will be using this to get at them..

Thank you

[The_Judge_]

Very nice write up.. need to check my swirl flaps so will be using this to get at them..

Thank you

Good luck - let me know if I missed any steps! Think I covered it all, but it's hard taking photos when you're stuck in with a job!

[TriggerFish]

Nice guide Suf! Good too see you're gaining confidence too (not meant in a patronising way!). Its all surprisingly easy, isn't it?

[TriggerFish]

Worth noting that the 204 is the same process

[momo]

Great write up!

[The_Judge_]

Nice guide Suf! Good too see you're gaining confidence too (not meant in a patronising way!). Its all surprisingly easy, isn't it?

Worth noting that the 204 is the same process

Yeah, just spanners and bolts and things at the end of the day, still I sweated buckets first time I tried this on my own!

Thought there would be subtle differences on the 204, but maybe I was wrong.

[TriggerFish]

If there are differences, then it's so trival its not worth worrying about. Thrre maybe an extra sensor on one of the two, but that's it, from memory. Been a while since I've done a 204 though. Pete's was the last one, and then we spent most of the time worrying about/searching for a missing orange washer!

[The_Judge_]

Updated to remove the pics that s**tty photobucket removed ....