95 540i 'crankshaft pulley' pt 2

Okay so I talked to the shop and I showed them what I had found out about this pulley. Just so we have the terms right, we are talking about the wheel-shaped thing with the teeth that has weights to balance the vibration of the engine (?) and the teeth are read by the crankshaft position sensor above.

What is happening right now is if the car is revved above 4000rpm, it almost dies, or does if you push the issue. The sensor that is in there now is one I got from ebay for around $80. The shop says it is throwing weird signals at 4000rpm.

They are saying this is caused by the wheel above or pulley, whatever the proper name is, 'bouncing around'. ie, it's not doing a nice clean spin, it is 'orbiting' a little horizontally.

They think the only real possibility is that this balancer or whatever it is is toast, a weight has come off, or something of that nature. What I'm worried about, given that it's a high mile and oft abused engine, is that it might be whatever that pulley/balancer is connected to. Or of course, that the shop doesn't know what they're talking about.

Does any of this make any sense? Getting the car to the city would be nice but would require a tow as the brakes and so on aren't safe enough. I just want to be sure I don't have a major engine problem in the making and waste a bunch of money fixing other things when a catastrophic failure might be imminent.

That part is called your vibration dampener. If it moves like you describe then it needs to be replaced.
If the dampener was kissing the CPS then its likely you'll need to replace the CPS again.

Originally Posted by falter

Okay so I talked to the shop and I showed them what I had found out about this pulley. Just so we have the terms right, we are talking about the wheel-shaped thing with the teeth that has weights to balance the vibration of the engine (?) and the teeth are read by the crankshaft position sensor above.

What is happening right now is if the car is revved above 4000rpm, it almost dies, or does if you push the issue. The sensor that is in there now is one I got from ebay for around $80. The shop says it is throwing weird signals at 4000rpm.

They are saying this is caused by the wheel above or pulley, whatever the proper name is, 'bouncing around'. ie, it's not doing a nice clean spin, it is 'orbiting' a little horizontally.

They think the only real possibility is that this balancer or whatever it is is toast, a weight has come off, or something of that nature. What I'm worried about, given that it's a high mile and oft abused engine, is that it might be whatever that pulley/balancer is connected to. Or of course, that the shop doesn't know what they're talking about.

Does any of this make any sense? Getting the car to the city would be nice but would require a tow as the brakes and so on aren't safe enough. I just want to be sure I don't have a major engine problem in the making and waste a bunch of money fixing other things when a catastrophic failure might be imminent.

That makes little sense, your car would not really shut off if balancer in question was moving so much/missing teeth. And you would have loads of V-belt issues going on.

You can do the job your self, get the harmonic balancer from ebay and new bolts from bmw. It's a very easy job.

http://www.e34addicts.com/Harmonic_Balancer

Originally Posted by 1995i540

That makes little sense, your car would not really shut off if balancer in question was moving so much/missing teeth. And you would have loads of V-belt issues going on.

You can do the job your self, get the harmonic balancer from ebay and new bolts from bmw. It's a very easy job.

http://www.e34addicts.com/Harmonic_Balancer

Yes, but the harmonic balancer/vibration dampener can affect the CPS, its only a mm away. If that happens then the engine will cut out for sure.

Op, make sure the sensor is exactly 1 mm away from the teeth of the vibration dampener/harmonic balancer.

I would assume the car would not stumble and die if reading was off. The shop says the sensor is throwing 'wierd' signals at 4000 RPM is bull**** did they run the car without it (because they can't) or tap into wiring (doubt it). I don't recall GT1/etc having reading panel for that sensor output.

Either way anything can cause your car to act that way at 4000rpm. So whatever I'm saying here is pretty much a wild guess.

Originally Posted by 1995i540

I would assume the car would not stumble and die if reading was off. The shop says the sensor is throwing 'wierd' signals at 4000 RPM is bull**** did they run the car without it (because they can't) or tap into wiring (doubt it). I don't recall GT1/etc having reading panel for that sensor output.

Either way anything can cause your car to act that way at 4000rpm. So whatever I'm saying here is pretty much a wild guess.

The gt1 can't tell you that sort of engine information anyways. The mechanics are ****in around with you because they broke something and they don't want to take the blame for it

It took me a year and many unnecessary parts before I discovered the reason for my issue. It would act like the ignition was shut off for a half second, then catch again. It mainly happened when temps were below 50F and above 3500 RPM's. Once I replaced the harmonic balancer, I never had a single issue since.

Originally Posted by falter

Okay so I talked to the shop and I showed them what I had found out about this pulley. Just so we have the terms right, we are talking about the wheel-shaped thing with the teeth that has weights to balance the vibration of the engine (?) and the teeth are read by the crankshaft position sensor above.

What is happening right now is if the car is revved above 4000rpm, it almost dies, or does if you push the issue. The sensor that is in there now is one I got from ebay for around $80. The shop says it is throwing weird signals at 4000rpm.

They are saying this is caused by the wheel above or pulley, whatever the proper name is, 'bouncing around'. ie, it's not doing a nice clean spin, it is 'orbiting' a little horizontally.

Well, if there is some abnormal movement in any of the pulleys or the harmonic balancer, you should be able to see it with your naked eye. Ask them to point it out to you.

I agree with Ethirty that the CPS cannot be read live. If there are any problems with the CPS, you'll get a CPS sensor error code. Pull your codes via the stomp test or a code reader and see what you've got there.

I'm not sure if they are screwing with your head though. Their description of the problem seems pretty detailed. Why don't you try to look at the engine as best as you can while it is running to see if anything looks amiss? Either that or you'll have to see it when it runs while winched up.

Be careful when you lean over into the engine bay. Brace yourself with your hands correctly to avoid falling in case you somehow slip (it happens).

Mine was visibly out of round while running so you should be able to see yours too if it is.