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Johnmadd
05-10-2014, 12:49 PM
I am caught in a bad situation and need knowledge and maybe even help sourcing a head. My parents decided to help my brother and his family and bought a 1992 e34 non vanos 525i touring and when dad brought it home I thought with some tlc it would be a great car for them. It has 186000 miles on it and drove home almost 200 miles and all seemed good. Couple days later and less than 10 additional hours the head gasket went. We took the head off with no visible issues other then oil and coolant in the head, none on the dipstick though. So with no visible issues we decided to get it pressure tested and see if its good. Its not! Cracked head at one of the coolant ports.

We are going to replace the head because of how deep we are in now. My research has lead me to believe I can get a vanos head and remove the vanos unit and I'm good, also reading that I may need to swap cams and other internals. Does anybody here have ANY information on this subject? If anyone has another idea (other than s5- swap or junking the car) please feel free to chime in. Tia :)

Avetiso
05-10-2014, 04:11 PM
Sorry for your troubles. Is it not possible to find a non-VANOS head?

Newjack
05-10-2014, 09:32 PM
I think your right about being able to take out the VANOS unit and swap in the head. From my brief research all of the cylinder heads for that car seem to be identical VANOS or not. I think while your in there you might as well swap out cams and other stuff to make it new again.

Hermes
05-10-2014, 10:29 PM
Seriously bro, dump the car. E34 tourings can be a nightmare


Edit: and 2 of my friends have them so I know from what they complain about all the time