Son's m-technic 318ti was down with a major head redo. Needed a daily driver for him for school. Instead of buying an E46 (we're a BMW family - I've probably owned 20+), I decided I could save money. So about 18 months ago I buy a Nissan Altima and forego buying cost and have less maintenance. 125k mile car for $2200. I was doing great, and had a shitbox that I could care less what went on with it.
Few months later, it needed a cooling system. Damn the parts are cheap. Only car I've ever seen with two thermostats (it's a 4 cylinder!) ... then tires. Then brakes and rotors all around. Then battery. Then headlights. Transmission flush. Then a starter.
Then last November it ate a head - overheated. Turned out the cheap-ass radiator I bought (remember I said parts were cheap for the Nissan aftermarket) had a slow leak. $50 radiator caused the head gasket to go. Why? It got seriously cooked. So I teach my sons how to fix things (life skill IMO). We pull the head, send it to my machine shop. Next mistake I have my son take it without specific instructions. It comes back with just the head milled flat (I wanted the shop to go through the whole head). $75 - at least it was cheap. So we reinstall - big pain in the ass. I go Felpro on the gasket set (no more cheap).
Car starts and runs great. For a week. Then starts to act up. It's blowing exhaust by the manifold. Strange, new exhaust manifold gasket. Pull steel one and put a different gasket it, retorque. Same problem. Just order an exhaust manifold (I lied - back to cheap parts). Install. Same problem. Now I'm confused. Pull manifold again. Put a straightedge on the exhaust manifold - cheap aftermarket shit. Not even flat - so I go down in my guitar-making shop, blue the manifold face, and grind the manifold flat on the stationary belt sander (3 aluminum oxide belts and probably 3/16" of steel removal). Now we install ... and it leaks.
I'm at a loss. Several exhaust gaskets - that's not the problem. Manifold ground flat. Can't be the problem. So I take a straightedge on the exhaust ports of the head - way off. Turns out the head got so hot it had twisted - the machine shop had milled the bottom flat as my son requested.
Unlike
@NoQuarter 's story, I don't know when to let go of the shovel. I got this. So I pull out a 3"x8" Diamond plate (used for sharpening plane blades), blue the exhaust ports, and proceed to hand mill the exhaust ports flat. I took off a lot of aluminum head material. Finally re-install the exhaust manifold. Loose a couple threads by now - a few helicoils solve that. Car continues to run meh - head gasket on its way out again.
I finally realize the head was so warped that I was down a rat hole. Tired of nearly two months of screwing with my $2200 Nissan "deal", with half a restoration worth of parts in it. Beaten. Dismayed, we sold the Nissan to $500 to another optimist. I had easily put $4,500 in parts in that car in 15 months. Should have bought an E46 - at least I know how to keep those alive. I lost two months of time, too, working on shit I didn't care about. My son, beleaguered, was not excited to work on getting the 318ti back together.
Filippo
