WARNING! ENGINE DAMAGE!

[ShinySideUp]

I've used Jim Bade's (AKA Jim von Baden) DVD to guide my last two services and, while I found it very valuable, an error in it has resulted in damage to my sweet engine.

He shows the torque value for the rocker arm T45 (wrongly labeled T40) bolts to be 40 Nm. THIS IS WRONG!

I attempted to tighten mine to that figure, and my torque wrench (new Snap-on) never clicked. Instead the threads just went mushy on me. That's because the correct torque value is 20 Nm, not 40.

When I went to Jim's website to contact him, I found the slides he has posted about the procedure and, sure enough, he acknowledges the error, saying:

"NOTE: My DVD says 40nm for the three smaller bolts, that is wrong, it is 20nm. I will be sending out an e-mail to everyone I have sold a DVD to explaining this. New DVD's as of December 1, 2008 [sic] are now correct."

I never received an email and now must take my bike in to have helicoils installed.

Hopefully everyone here can learn from my expensive lesson. As the bumper sticker says, "Question Authority".

I've made a spreadsheet service chart that shows the intervals, the fastener sizes, fluid capacities, tolerances, and torque values. Now all I have do to is triple check it against the BMW DVD!

[celticus]

That is horrible! Thanks for the warning.
Mark

[stogiepuffer]

I hate to jump on your thread but that's why I asked about CD repair manuals and paper repair manuals a couple posts ago. I am uased to working on my bikes but I always have a book next to me when I do. So, has anybody else had any problems with the repair CDs? Is the BMW factory one accurate and worthwhile?

[Lost Rider]

Sorry to hear that, it really sucks!
I never received an email either from Jim...................
I used his DVD as a visual reference, but always looked up the torques on the BMW CD.
As I've said before you want BOTH to do maintenance, sorry this happened to you.


Yes, you can trust the BMW CD, if you can't trust a factory product what can you trust?
$20 on ebay seems like a small investment...

-Joe

[tobes]

Sorry to hear that! Thanks for the warning. I just got Jim's DVD and watched it this past weekend. Will get the BMW disc next.

[Graf]

....just curious....the ebay dvd is 2006 and is the 4th edition.......numerous additions tell me that there were corrections to the previous ones.....so the question is....is the 4th edition the latest one?

thx.

[tobes]

hmmm..just got mine from beemerboneyard. Not sure of the edition. Will check it out tonight.

[ShinySideUp]

What's Jim going to do? since he never sent out the email he should be responsible...
-Joe

Jim has sent me an email of his concern.

His DVD does have the usual legal disclaimer for not being responsible etc.

My perspective is that I was the one who chose to work on my bike. I am the one who stripped the threads. I am the one who will pay to have it repaired. I'm not big on blaming others, as much as I'd like to!

However, as I've replied to Jim, if I were running his business, I would have sent out replacement discs to all of the first purchasers with a prominent printed warning of the error and instructions to destroy the offending discs. I would not want ANY discs out there in the world with my name on it that resulted in engine damage.