2009 mini cooper clubman, timing chain and valve seals

So not spark, as the swap of plug and coil shows they are good. Next is injector and compression, this is assuming that the repair was correct on all counts.
 
GoceKU said:
I 'would suggest you do a leak down check espacily on cylinder 1. They are know to have valve seat issues, or do what everyone else is doing, just drive it til it dies or fixes itself. There is lots of minis here with bad engines, and everybody selling them is saying it needs new spark plugs.
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compression test is good. All a leak down will give you is a rate and the ability to pinpoint it to valves or rings.

Cyl 1 misfires are common with timing issues on these engines. It's usually the first indicator the chain is worn beyond limits.
 
pdentrem said:
So not spark, as the swap of plug and coil shows they are good. Next is injector and compression, this is assuming that the repair was correct on all counts.
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As mentioned, compression good. Ran the injector test from the scan tool, checks good. It's timing, I'm certain of it.

Translation: I screwed up when I timed it and it's out just enough to set the misfire code. Common on these engines when it has a worn chain or, as in my case, the cams aren't phased just right.

Possible causes are 1. Cam locking tool too “loose” (ie:slop where it lovks the cam) or, 2. Cams moved too much when torquing the tty bolts to 180 degrees.

This time, I’m going to make sure the cams are snug in the locks (ie: feeler gauges to take up slop) and I’m going to hold the cams in place (while torquing) with a 27mm wrench instead of relying on just the cam lock tool to hold the cam.


The cam lock tools can vary in quality and accuracy and I might have one thats close, but out just enough.
 
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LOL!

Wife stopped into the mini dealership in town today to pick up my TTY cam bolts. Service manager heard her talking about my working on her mini. He came over and talked to me on he phone trying to make it sound like it was waaaayyy to complicated for anyone besides the dealer techs to work on it. That they could fix it in an hour and I'd be old, grey and have pulled my hair out before I figured it out.

I asked him if I could bounce a few questions off him and his answer was a hearty "no no no". We don't do that here. That's ok, I get that. Nothing for free, I understand when a guy is running a business about "not giving away a job".

Then he started going on about a 10,000 scan machine, a 20,000 this and that, etc and there was no way I could troubleshoot this thing at home.

I totally get they have to make a living, but don't think someone doesn't know what they're talking about just because they don't work for you and don't try and suck cash out of me by trying to make me think this thing is more complicated than the space shuttle. .

Some guys........:rolleyes:
 
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great white said:
LOL!

Wife stopped into the mini dealership in town today to pick up my TTY cam bolts. Service manager heard her talking about my working on her mini. He came over and talked to me on he phone trying to make it sound like it was waaaayyy to complicated for anyone besides the dealer techs to work on it. That they could fix it in an hour and I'd be old, grey and have pulled my hair out before I figured it out.

I asked him if I could bounce a few questions off him and his answer was a hearty "no no no". We don't do that here. That's ok, I get that. Nothing for free, I understand when a guy is running a business about "not giving away a job".

Then he started going on about a 10,000 scan machine, a 20,000 this and that, etc and there was no way I could troubleshoot this thing at home.

I totally get they have to make a living, but don't think someone doesn't know what they're talking about just because they don't work for you and don't try and suck cash out of me by trying to make me think this thing is more complicated than the space shuttle. .

Some guys........:rolleyes:
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Did she come home with a new car?

Sorry….

momoney
 
Assuming the cams were locked in position with that special tool, it is odd that the one or both cams would be out by 1 tooth. I am scratching my noggin.
Pierre
 
pdentrem said:
Assuming the cams were locked in position with that special tool, it is odd that the one or both cams would be out by 1 tooth. I am scratching my noggin.
Pierre
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The way the n12 works is the two cam gears and the crank gear have no alignment marks or keys. The tool is supposed to lock the crank and the cams in the timing postion and then you secure the gears by torquing the bolts.

you can be off a couple degrees if the tool isn’t installed correctly or if its not manufactured right.

The other thing is pretensioning the chain before tightening the bolts. Too much pretension and it throws the timing off. I belive this is what I mostly did wrong as I threw the tensioner in the block instead of the pretentioning tool, which likely retarded the timing just enough to screw it up. Pretention tool is basically just finger tight (0.6 nm) and the tensioner puts waaaaay more tension on it than that. I didn’t think of it at the time, but thinking back….yeah, I screwed it up.

According to anedotal evidence, a stretched or improperly tensioned chain usually shows up as cylinder 1 misfires, which is what I’m seeing.
Not saying thats what it is, but seems likely and not much else left to verify.

Its also a VVT engine, so if the timing isn’t correct (statically), theres no telling where it will throw it out of time and what the effects will be when it tries to do its “VVT” thing. Makes sense becuase you don’t get the misfire until higher rpms, where the VVT comes in to effect…and its also what I’m seeing on the live data.
 
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