New Member, New Ti, Possible Headgasket

[wanjman]

Hello members! Its great to find such an enthusiastic group of car lovers who all have the same thing in common. Although I am new to this forum, I have been a long time BMW owner, driver, technician and lover of most things made in Germany I spent a few years as a dealer technician near West Point NY in the late 80's, had the incredible experience of driving a brand new 88' M6 as it came off the delivery truck. Also owned a rare 1965 1800 TISA, one of only 200 made. Im excited about owning this TI after spending the last 6 years driving and fixing Range Rovers, wonderful vehicles to drive but full of strange problems only the British could imagine.I have read through some of the postings related to possible headgasket problems and the related repairs. I will be checking mine this weekend to confirm whether its a headgasket or perhaps I got lucky and the fan clutch is shot and causing the temp to creep up above normal as the previous owner indicated. I was advised that a potential problem with the head bolts stripping in the block should be checked (try re torquing the head) and if so would need to be addressed, or at that point consider an engine swap. Ill be sure to follow up with an update once I get my wrenches on this white beauty over the weekend and see what she's made of.

[teetime4one]

Welcome to the Org.
Best of luck with your upcoming repairs. Let us know how it goes.

[BlackBMWs]

Welcome! Pics?

[wanjman]

I'll be taking pics tomorrow when I finally get a chance to play under the hood .

[wanjman]

I FINALLY GOT UNDER THE HOOD OF MY 98 ti Saturday. Godd news is I dont believe the problem is a headgasket. The coolant system has not been properly bled, the temp reaches the normal temp on the guage and then will creep up to the hot zone without any circulation through the heater core. I verified the heater control valve is functioning but the coolant is not even reaching the valve. I removed the thermostat which looks like it had just been replaced by the previous owner in an attempt to solve this same problem, looks brand new, but after placing it in a pot of water and slowly reaching the boiling point, nothing happens! I also dont see by design how any coolant could actually pass through this thermostat even if it did open??In suppose its possible for a new part to be faulty out of the box so I am going to replace it this comong week along with all of the related hoses, clamps, the VC gasket, spark plugs, wires, o-rings etc... and then I will proceed with the tedious priocess again of bleeding the air from the cooling system and hopefully will be successful this time. If anyone out there can explain the thermostat and how coolant is supposed to pass through the second disc even if the the first disc moves at temperature, i would appreciate it. Ive been working on cars my whole life and never saw one quite like this? Thanks

[bmvw]

The thermostat is weird and may not do the boiling water trick. Run the motor with the cover back on but the thermostat out, see if it heats up. Also check if the heater blows hot air. Check if the fan is kicking on. Also, the radiator may look good but if a thin coat of lime inside from tap water, will overheat. One last thing, a headgasket which leaks exhaust into a barrel could cause the symptom you have.

[wanjman]

so I replaced the thermostat and water pump, properly bled the system and it was running fine at idle, normal temp reading after almost an hour and a few short trips up and down the road, temp never moved above half way. I put plates on it and took it for its first road trip, the temp stayed constant b ut i noticed that I had a leak when I arrived at my destination. Further inspection revealed coolant was being forced out the radiator cap. It would appear that there is a headgasket problem which is over pressurizing the cooling system with combustion gas and now im going to pull the head.

[bmvw]

Likely the previous owner overheated it. The engines are very reliable if not overheated, but unfortunately the Ti cooling system is under-engineered.

When head is off check carefully for cracks. If that is the problem, just replace it with a clean junkyard part there are plenty, don't try welding the cracks like I did.