mr. grey’s open heart surgery day (part i)

so, tomorrow i do something i’ve put off for far too long…

…i do the valve cover gasket leak on my beloved e46 BMW, Mr. Grey.

(you know he’s beloved because i actually used the shift key there)

i bought the parts to do this back in august of 2016…earlier that summer he had a power steering leak, a coolant leak, and an oil leak. he also had over 200,000 miles so this wasn’t a huge shock. the power steering leak was fixed with a six dollar o-ring my auto parts place said didn’t exist…

(but since i bought it online and installed it i guess we know who won that argument, huh?)

…and then soon after i bought the gasket kit and i was trying to nut up into cracking the top off his engine i started having bigger coolant issues, which started with the aux tank replacement, then the upper hose, and finally the entire radiator, and that all straddled a coastal trip with the family, so it drew out me NOT having my car for over a week.

after that was fixed in september of 2016 to paraphrase the meatloaf track, two outta three ain’t bad. i rode out the oil leak for over a year…but when i went to take him to san marcos to get washed recently cylinder four was misfiring and since getting down to plugs and such is half the battle, i decided to go the full way – and started it last week, but ran into some drama with it so it got pushed till tomorrow. but TOMORROW we crack open the parts and go for it. let’s see where this takes us…