In need of a engine for my 1997 528i. Only 110,000 miles on body. I've researched to find that white smoke after sitting overnight is the coolant leaking into the cylinder (4th to be percise. After pulling plugs to see witch fouled.) Used blue devil sealant And it got me 3,000 miles before waterpump seized ran it hot again. Not blaming the sealent had stopped smoking in the mornings. Label said it repaired head gaskets nothing about waterpump life extending.
Now have new metal impeller by "geba", oem thermostat, fan clutch, upper hose, and aluminum thermo housing. Should I second try blue devil or just save parts for new engine?
I don't think I'd launch into all that without determining as best as possible if the problem might be a head gasket or cracked cylinder head or a problem with the block. I don't know anything about the sealant, but I'd be concerned your getting coolant mixing with the oil and coolant makes for a lousy engine lubricant. Engine rebuilding is labor intensive and thus expensive, never mind parts which also add up. If you have a bad coolant leak, finding the known best-condition used engine possible might not be a bad way to go, but even at that, with a replacement engine in hand & easily accessed, compression, leak-down, and pulling the oil-pan for inspection of the crank and bearings (at least, there might be more) might be worth the time and expense, unless you are highly confident of it's condition. A head gasket job might be the least-expensive (still gonna be $$$ though), and, the cylinder head might need machining, which might mean having to remove the valves/cams/etc., if the cyl. head's warped due to overheating, it might be salvageable by truing, or maybe not. If that were the case, unless you were fortunate enough to source a known-good cyl. head for cheap (relatively), it's possible another cyl. head &/or machining work would be nearly as expensive as a used engine. Cylinder head replacement is a pretty big job, but you don't have to pull the whole engine. Unless you're in for it no-matter-what, it may be worth considering the relative valuation on the car (check prices on autotrader &/or autotempest.com) - rolling up on 18 yrs old - at this point, it might even be such that used E39's as yours can be had for what throwing any money at this might cost you, unless you're a really dedicated d-i-y'r with the tools, time, budget & risk tolerance (nobody ever _expects_ the car to fall off the jacks and crush them to death, for instance) to tackle the project yourself, & you like the car enough to really want to do it. I would venture a guess labor at an Indy. shop just to do a motor swap would run $2500-$3k, + the cost of a used engine, presumably motors of unknown provenance might be had for less than $500, or sub $1k range (guessing). Did the car overheat on you and possibly cause damage @ some prior point? Search bimmerfest &/or bimmerforums.com, I have no idea if head gaskets were a common problem w/ M52 engines.
Depending on how bad you over heated the engine you could just replace the head gasket if the head or block is not damaged. Did you see coolant in cylinder 4? This of course is a expensive job and would probably be better to start looking for a used engine if you wanna keep the car. I would never use that sealant stuff mainly because it can clog radiators heater cores, kill water pumps.
Hope it's just the water pump and the blue devil hasn't clogged all the ports. I'm loving the idea of a m3 engine I believe it is a s52 and can fit right in my 528i Givin her more horses. Custom 528m
