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Originally Posted by aptwave
In 100% of cases if VANOS spring want to go off - it will remove cap too.
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What is your claim based off of? Extensive first hand experience??
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But I'm not sure that in 100% of cases when caps go off - this will cause spring to go off too.
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You don't have to feel certain, we will tell you for sure that the spring will
EVENTUALLY come off.
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My friend was driving without cap for a pretty long time, maybe half a year and thousands of mileage, without any issues.
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Good for him? He took a major risk and went against the BMW design and everything we know about the system (and common sense). Who's to say it wasn't going to fall apart after a few more days?
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Take a look at those caps from the other side, there's no any clips or anything which can hold it on the VANOS unit, seems like it can be removed by hand with really small force.
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This is incorrect, again. There are clips on the back of the cap that snap into the vanos housing. It takes considerable skill to remove an intact cover without braking it. These are not intended to be disassembled and BMW specifically states this. Are inspecting broken units and online pdf's your only vanos experience?
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The point is - fallen off caps are not the reason why spring go off too.
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In 100% of cases, springs coming off the hub
ARE due to lost caps. The spring isn't forcing itself against the cover but it needs the cover to retain it from walking off the spring posts. If you set a vibrating shoulder massager on a table, it will walk all over the place. It is basically the same principle here. No significant force, but movement none the less.
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If anyone have photos of this spring in expanded state, outside of VANOS unit? I can't imagine how it can be possible to drive car if spring goes out.
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You probably didn't know what you were looking at and missed this detail in his photo, but there are pictures just a couple posts above of
Iyzmi
showing his vanos with the spring loose (no tension). He also said it ran fine. I will also confirm the engine will run without the spring, but was noisy in my experience (and it also ended up breaking the vanos internals seen in my pic above). I also explained the spring's function above. In case you didn't understand the gist, it wouldn't inhibit engine function if it were missing.
Why is this even a discussion? BMW designed it that way for a reason which everyone here has confirmed was valid. If you are hell bent on risking damage or destruction of your engine by leaving the covers off, that's your decision but you're arguing uphill on this. Nobody is going to stop you but you're trying to convince yourself it's going to be OK when its actually going to be a major risk that most likely won't end well.
