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03-15-2019, 03:04 AM | #1 |
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I may have induced a problem with my Throttles - how to debug?
Ok, long story on my 09 M3.. Car was running fine, but coming up on 54k miles. Wanted to rebuild the TA's ahead of complete failure, so took the risk of taking them out and swapping out the gears.
Got myself a pair of used TA's (with at least one known bad one) to first learn how to rebuild the TA's and swapped out the gears myself on that pair first. When I pulled my TA's instead of then rebuilding my own pair, I used the mechanicals(gear and spring assembly, the bottom part of the TA's except the boards) from the set I found used, and paired them with the good boards on my original TA's (probably first mistake) - tested the motors on both to be at least operational.. Put everything back together and car ran fine for at least a 1000 miles. Now I got a little greedy I guess as I had read the TA linkages may be stiffening up and eventually cause the gears to fail, so decided to open the car back up to clean and lube them.. This is when things started going south. When I lubed the throttle linkages. first I lubed bank 2, I used a penetrating lubricant (Wurth HHS-K) - the bank seemed to get a lot smoother and easier to operate the valves (at least by hand). But after a few minutes, I realized that this lubricant is also somewhat adhesive like when it dries, and gets a unique adhesive like consistency.. Anyways I panicked and did not use the same lube on Bank 1, instead opted for a different lube (penetrating lithium grease). Bank 2 got smoother as well, but was slightly stiffer - not as easy as bank 1 to operate. Also when I was lubing the linkages, I moved the shafts longitudinally a bit to loosen them up (and possibly hurt the TA sensors? Not sure) Anyway, I put everything back together, fired the car up and started getting error codes.. the same ones someone gets when a TA goes bad.. Bank 1 started failing pre-drive check at least once but then I turned off and started the car and unfortunately it went into limp mode.. I turned off the car, cleared the codes thinking maybe the linkage position was not calibrated and so reset codes, and restarted the car. Luckily, no codes appeared, so I assumed the error was a fluke and that all was good and put everything back together. Car drove fine for about 100 miles but then went into limp mode when driving today. Both bank 1 and bank 2 gave me errors. Bank 1 - failed pre-drive check 2B21 Bank 2 - 2B16 Guess I panicked again, as I thought the mechanicals I used from the other set may be faulty, So I pulled out the TA's, rebuilt the original mechanicals of the TA's I had on the car with new gears, and put the TA's back on (essentially, back to original TA's with new gears) - And as my bad luck would have it, same errors still appeared Bank 1 - failed pre-drive check 2B21 Bank 2 - 2B16 I almost gave up hope, but I tried one last step and swapped out bank 2 TA board for one from the used set I got and put everything back together. The faults cleared and I was able to start her up normally once. But now I was weary with the intermittent nature of this whole exercise, so let her cool off and waited to try and re-test. Sure enough, try to cycle again (No engine start, just power on to initiate the pre-drive checks and bank 1 fails pre-drive check) Bottom line, I have one or more possible failure modes. 1) One ore more of the TA's are bad 2) Bank 1 is failing pre-drive check. I am struggling a bit to decipher if the bad TA's are causing the bank 1 pre-drive check fail or if the tighter linkage is causing the check to fail. What are my options forward? I am a bit worried that repeated pulling of the TA's may cause further induced failures eventually (bad connectors etc) I could get a new set of TA's and swap them out to at least eliminate that possiblity of bad TA's but I doubt if it will fix the problem. I am worried that the tighter linkage on bank 1 could cause the new TA's to fail prematurely.. Maybe try lubing it again until I can get it somewhat close to Bank 2? (I already tried cleaning it out and re-lubing, no luck) Thoughts? Ideas? ( I posted the same on the TA thread as well but hoping this will drive some additional attention as the issue may be beyond just the actuators) |
03-15-2019, 05:27 PM | #3 | |
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I hooked up the diagnostics reader and watched the TA actual % open data - bank 1 seems to oscillate at idle from a 0.2% to 0%, sometimes even -0.1% Bank 2 seems to hold stable at idle at 0% Have to drive it really hard for TA's to really open up - flooring the pedals gets me to about 85% - 89% on both banks regular driving (2k - 3k rpm range) - they barely open, to about 5-10% Not sure if that's normal.. |
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03-15-2019, 06:24 PM | #4 |
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I've never heard of anyone living the linkages on the TAs. I'm not sure what that may of done other than put a lubricant in an area that it wasn't meant for. You're in a tough spot and it will be interesting to see how it resolves itself.
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03-15-2019, 06:56 PM | #5 |
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Sticky situation to say the least.. Attached a picture of the areas that I cleaned dirt / debris and lubricated.. Picture is not from my car, just sample I downloaded.
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03-15-2019, 06:59 PM | #6 | |
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03-15-2019, 07:08 PM | #7 |
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Just to confirm when you rebuilt the TA's you wound the spring once and made sure the pins for actuator motor to the ECM fully engaged? I'd check those pins make sure they're nice and tight..
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03-15-2019, 07:25 PM | #8 | |
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The wound spring does sit a tad lower than when I first opened them up - not sure why, because I kept track of how much it unwound when I opened them first and then wound it back the same way.. |
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03-15-2019, 07:42 PM | #9 | ||
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03-15-2019, 10:11 PM | #10 | |
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03-15-2019, 10:35 PM | #11 | ||
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03-16-2019, 02:05 AM | #12 | |
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Might be worth doing a DIY walking first timers through how to properly rebuild an actuator (At least the gear portion to begin with and maybe the mosfets and other components too for those who venture) - There were some videos on youtube for the gear replacement I followed but they left out the pitfalls to watch out for I guess.. Might explain why it may fail after a prolonged heat episode - the components expand.. possibly forcing the gear mechanism to seize. |
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03-16-2019, 02:22 AM | #13 | |
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This picture is from the practice rebuild Last edited by eswaroop; 03-16-2019 at 02:28 AM.. Reason: Added picture |
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03-16-2019, 02:47 AM | #14 |
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Found something else very interesting on closer inspection of the practice build - the new center full gear has more play than the old center gear! ( Both tested with new half gear in place )
Makes me question the effectiveness of the new set of gears ! These were from a company called Tafmet from Poland |
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03-16-2019, 04:19 PM | #15 | |
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03-16-2019, 07:51 PM | #18 | |
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car was fine until you decided to be proactive. its been said on here you don't need to lubricate these as most lubricants attract dust. sounds like a perpetual chasing of problems created by the op.
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03-18-2019, 01:53 PM | #19 | |
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What's done is done - the lube does seem to have helped and the car is driving great so far Seems like the throttle adaptation algorithm may be taking it's time to normalize to the new configuration - the TA response curves were very sharp earlier but the readings are smoothing out now - let's see how she perks up.. May clean out dust that collects over next couple of months and just maintain her a bit better - will also get a sense of the dust issue. |
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03-25-2019, 03:41 PM | #20 |
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You do know BMW has extended the warranty on the throttle actuators 10year/120000 miles. Not all but some. I could tell you if you gave me the last 7 of your vin.
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03-26-2019, 04:22 PM | #21 |
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03-28-2019, 09:30 PM | #22 |
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