2008 E92 M3 White on Red - Number 12

[RocketyMan]

Sweet! The wife let you wash car-parts in the bathtub as well before drying it off in the oven?

Lol...

[egebhardt]

Originally Posted by RocketyMan

Sweet! The wife let you wash car-parts in the bathtub as well before drying it off in the oven?

Exactly! I wear the pants.

[RocketyMan]

Originally Posted by egebhardt

Exactly! I wear the pants.

Glad you're clothed! Haha.


Any further developments?...such as the weather permitting you to drive? I'm curious if you have any oil leaks around the oil cap area.

[georgebmwM3]

Congratulations on the car! I also have an 08 M3. I have been taking care of her with only 3106 miles on it. I can't stand the thought of damaging that car. I have done the CIC upgrade, put on the comp. pkg wheels and the LCI rear lights. Also the Carbon fiber splitters and the mirror caps. People have told me that the '08 is not as desirable but I think time will prove them wrong as this was the 1st year of that very special M series car. I wish you all the best with it and many years of enjoyment. Here are some pictures of one.

[egebhardt]

Originally Posted by RocketyMan

Any further developments?...such as the weather permitting you to drive? I'm curious if you have any oil leaks around the oil cap area.

I'd like to finish this valve cover job today. The roads are wet and and it's supposed to snow Tuesday and Wednesday. I won't drive this thing for at least a week if not 2.

As for the oil cap, I did not have leaks before this job. I used a Scotch-Brite pad to make that interface smooth and masked it off before painting. It's much smoother now. I'm told an E46 M3 Oil cap gives a tighter fit so if I have to, I'll get one of those. I tried bending the tangs inside the oil cap a bit further in for a closer fit but they don't bend.

[egebhardt]

Originally Posted by georgebmwM3

Congratulations on the car! I also have an 08 M3. I have been taking care of her with only 3106 miles on it. I can't stand the thought of damaging that car. I have done the CIC upgrade, put on the comp. pkg wheels and the LCI rear lights. Also the Carbon fiber splitters and the mirror caps. People have told me that the '08 is not as desirable but I think time will prove them wrong as this was the 1st year of that very special M series car. I wish you all the best with it and many years of enjoyment. Here are some pictures of one.

OMG... that's gorgeous. I would drive that car 50 miles a year, tops! Beautiful.

[egebhardt]

Update:
I got the Valve covers back on and every thing plugged in. I may have done something wrong.

I'm getting P1628 and 'DSC Malfunction' on the center display.

Clearing the code did not seem to fix it. P1628 goes into Pending codes on my scanner. I drove around the block and cleared the codes again. P1628 comes back.

I've read a lot about failing TA's so I'm wondering if this is just another incident of the same dam problem?
Maybe I can't swap Throttle Actuators and I need to reverse them if I did in fact reverse them?
Maybe P1628 and DSC will eventually go away?
Maybe I need a different tool to clear the code?
Maybe I have a broken TA after just removing them? I opened them up to find a tiny bit of plastic shavings and cleaned them. Nothing seemed wrong. They were replaced with BMW TAs at 49k miles. I'm now at 90k miles. I had no errors from them until now.

I'm open to suggestions. Thanks in advance.

[RocketyMan]

Nice. Thanks for the valve-cover update!

I just cringe whenever I see a foxwell...yuk.

Well for 90k-50k of about 40k miles--that's about time needing throttle actuators...I guess. There's really no point in swapping them other than in diagnosis. And if you claim you saw plastic shavings, then yes of course it'll throw a code!

There are a couple options for you in regards to the TA. You can buy OEM brand VDO from FCP. Or you can try and get a refurbished set. OR...you can buy the replacement gear set off ebay and pray to J that works.

Let us know what you choose!

[egebhardt]

Thanks!
The Foxwell reads and clears codes. What am I missing?
I’ll try a metal gear set first.
I feel like there are other options.

[RocketyMan]

The metal gear set is supposed to help solve the issue of the teeth shredding. Let's see if it fixes your issue.

[egebhardt]

Update:
I pulled the TAs. Opened them up. Closed them up. Put them back in the car. BAM!!!
No codes. I drove around and they worked properly.

I have new plastic gears coming today. Metal gears were 2-weeks shipping so I bought some plastic gears to try first. I'll put those in this week but for now, it's working!

[egebhardt]

So I replaced the plastic gears with more plastic gears (with shafts) from Amazon for 45 bux. Put it all back together and it works.

Frankly, I'm unimpressed with the level of sophistication and precision in these gears and shafts. Plenty of plastic and the axial play on the shaft from factory parts is ~1mm. That's a lot!

I put in a washer to cut the axial play in half. It worked fine when testing by hand so I put the TAs back in and they work fine. Job done? I feel like they'll break again. If so, I'll try the metal gear sets for 2 TAs. The metal gear prices range from $100 to $300. Don't ask me why there is such a huge variation. The pics all look the same.

So far, it doesn't appear you get what you pay for when it comes to TA replacement gears. The cheap ones seem to work. Even if the plastic gears I bought only last half as long as factory, it's a deal. They're all aftermarket and anyone can claim anything so the only way to find value is to test them and compare with others.

[georgebmwM3]

Originally Posted by egebhardt

So I replaced the plastic gears with more plastic gears (with shafts) from Amazon for 45 bux. Put it all back together and it works.

Frankly, I'm unimpressed with the level of sophistication and precision in these gears and shafts. Plenty of plastic and the axial play on the shaft from factory parts is ~1mm. That's a lot!

I put in a washer to cut the axial play in half. It worked fine when testing by hand so I put the TAs back in and they work fine. Job done? I feel like they'll break again. If so, I'll try the metal gear sets for 2 TAs. The metal gear prices range from $100 to $300. Don't ask me why there is such a huge variation. The pics all look the same.

So far, it doesn't appear you get what you pay for when it comes to TA replacement gears. The cheap ones seem to work. Even if the plastic gears I bought only last half as long as factory, it's a deal. So far, it appears that you don't get what you pay for when it comes to TA gears. They're all aftermarket and anyone can claim anything so the only way to find value is to test them and compare with others.

Great job. I'm impressed with your mechanical ability. I you filmed how you repaired those gears, the community would benefit from that.

[egebhardt]

Originally Posted by georgebmwM3

Great job. I'm impressed with your mechanical ability. I you filmed how you repaired those gears, the community would benefit from that.

Ha! I don't see that happening. I'm pretty average on this forum.
I tried doing YouTube videos a few years ago. I suck at it.

[spammysammich]

Just FYI, if your gears were stripped to the point that they needed changing there is a slight chance the MOSFETs on the circuit board were running super hot to the point that they could continue to throw codes even with good gears. This is why refurbs often include upgrading/changing components on the boards as well as new gears.

[egebhardt]

Originally Posted by spammysammich

Just FYI, if your gears were stripped to the point that they needed changing there is a slight chance the MOSFETs on the circuit board were running super hot to the point that they could continue to throw codes even with good gears. This is why refurbs often include upgrading/changing components on the boards as well as new gears.

Thanks. I've read that too. Unfortunately, no one has offered a clear fix for anything on the board. It could be MOSFETs and/or Capacitors and/or Resistors. A refurb house is NOT going to offer that info or they may as well close their doors.

Unless you know and want to spill it?

[egebhardt]

Update:
The car runs great.
I bought the cheapest plastic Tactuator gears I could find on Amazon. They still work fine. No codes.

I suppose BMW used some cheap plastic for those gears so it should be no surprise others can make them work too.