n54 motor locked after walnut blast

[dsocold]

how the hell is this possible had a guy do it with me and the car literaly spins and locks!! we are spinning the fly wheel and it goes a few turns then locks how is this even possible

[dsocold]

the rookie left walnut go in the cylinder blocking the motor from turning, luckily the vacuum fixed it and all is gd. spent 8hrs on it, horrible experience. pay for quality work ppl dont let backyard mechanics do it for cheaper or shit like this happens not worth it luckily i sirvived.

[inevitab1e]

yep, make sure to vacuum out the walnut before starting the engine

[Jeff@TopGearSolutions]

Originally Posted by dsocold

the rookie left walnut go innthe culinder blocking the motor from turbing luckily vacuum fixed it and all is gd spent 8hrs on it horrible experience. pay for quality work ppl dont let backyard mechanics do it for cheaper or shit like this happens not worth it luckily i sirvived.

Had to read this a few times but wow that's crazy, at least it wasn't actually blown.

[ayao]

I'm not ordinarily a fan of autocorrect but ...

[Stewy_604]

Could've been a costly mistake. Agree on letting quality shops and professionals do this type of work.

[andysantoro]

Not sure what happened here. I was planning on doing my own walnut blast so am curious. Did a piece of shell get in the cylinder and block the piston from moving? I thought both valves needed to be closed while you were cleaning that cylinder.

[dsocold]

sorry i did attempt to do an auto correct but for some reason it did not go through after several attempts.
i wrote that response after 12 hrs helping the diy mechanic fix my car while i was droving home.

pretty much the valves werent fully closed and shells got into the cylinder. how much i dont know but enough that the motor literally would try to spin and lock instantly, and it did not even start thankfully beacuse if it did it would have definetly blew. We where spinning the flywheel ( we removed the starter) and it was literally locking at a certain point. We were spinning it back (the flywheel) and it would rotate a tiny bit and lock right at that same point. We then vacumed the ports and thats what fixxed it and we sucked out all the shells and it started right up. The guy claimed he did several n54 but he damn near almost blew my engine and my starter stinks from trying to start it so many times luckily it didnt blow up (it was really hot) just make sure your valves are closed and VACUUM!!! them good. sorry for my spelling im stuck in traffic in stop and go as i write this reply

[dsocold]

this ^. sorry that sentence was horrible but i was typing without even looking off my iphone..i

[BimmerAg]

Damn, that sucks that some shell pieces actually got into the cylinder. I sure hope you got them all out when you vacuumed it! Either way, if I were you, I'd change my oil and filter ASAP, and probably again in about 1000 miles just to make sure everything is clean after a mistake like that. Glad you got it figured out though!

[ayao]

All joking aside this is a total horror story but I'm very glad it worked out ok. Curious to know where you found the guy who did the work for you?

[dsocold]

Originally Posted by BimmerAg

Damn, that sucks that some shell pieces actually got into the cylinder. I sure hope you got them all out when you vacuumed it! Either way, if I were you, I'd change my oil and filter ASAP, and probably again in about 1000 miles just to make sure everything is clean after a mistake like that. Glad you got it figured out though!

I changed the oil and filter right after the incident last night when i got home. I feel i got away with it, my engine response is better and it feels more powerful, and it sounds and feels just fine if not better. this is how my valves looked like at 70k.
I have 120k on the body with a new motor put in by bmw at 50k miles. My car has a new trans put in by bmw at 86k under cpo, a new starter right before my cpo ran out, and about a gazillion other new parts. I was about to start crying when i seen my motor locking worst part was i was 2 hours away from home at this guys garage total nightmare. I was lucky to be able to drive it home. So be careful when you perform this blast, as an open valve thats not cleaned can just destroy your motor.

[dsocold]

Originally Posted by ayao

All joking aside this is a total horror story but I'm very glad it worked out ok. Curious to know where you found the guy who did the work for you?

i Found him on IG looking at 1 series pics he supposedly does mobile walnut blasts. I dont know if i wanna blast his IG profile but yea hes located in NJ, so if you see his page and it says mobile blast bla bla you should probably avoid him. although he was muslim and he was fasting maybe he was rushing it a bit to get home for iftar and eat i had stepped out with his 1 to go to bmw and buy some gaskets, he was a good guy but again he nearly blew my motor with an only solution being i dunno why your cars not starting but i wont charge you the 200 bucks bro not that i had any intention of paying anyways if anything he owed me a motor needless to say at the end when it started up i left without paying and he did help put for about 7 hours just trying stuff and doing things to help it start swapping starters and what not and so many other things.. It wasnt until his idea of re vacuuming the ports that finally resolved the issue.

[dsocold]

o and if some got into the cylinder wouldnt they just burn up in the combustion chamber anyways?

[BimmerAg]

Originally Posted by dsocold

o and if some got into the cylinder wouldnt they just burn up in the combustion chamber anyways?

Yeah probably so, but I'm not sure what the products of walnut shell combustion are haha. Probably not something you want in your engine...

[gap]

Well in a nut shell that is why you always double check your work!

[mike the snake]

You got Nut locked! lol

Glad it worked out for you.

[AndyW]

Originally Posted by BimmerAg

Yeah probably so, but I'm not sure what the products of walnut shell combustion are haha. Probably not something you want in your engine...

While not desirable, my understanding is walnut shell dust is used for these things precisely because it is soft, compressible, and combustible and has little chance of damaging your engine if some gets into the combustion chamber. In this case it sounds like there was so much it physically prevented the affected piston from reaching full cycle and the starter was obviously incapable of enough force to push through it. OP should be grateful...if a couple of cylinders had lit off it would likely have been catastrophic.

TLDR: if you fill a combustion chamber with anything, your motor won't turn over...or it will blow up. Your dice to roll...

[Juggernaut135i]

I got mine done at active autowerke. 400 dollars out the door and of course it's quality

[Mr. Tasty]

It must have been a massive amount of Walnut Shells. They are easily combustible and cause no damage to engines if run through the firing cycle. Hence the use of removing carbon on the intake valves. Maybe your starter is seizing?

[dsocold]

we were manually turning it using the flywheel i believe, where the starter attempts to turn the motor with a long pry bar and we couldnt turn it neither. The starter couldnt neither which was a good thing. Since the vacuum was needed to clear out the shells and all was good afterwards. When i changed the oil it looked fine no type of shells watsoever. I got really fuc*in lucky guys, could of been a blown motor. I let the other guy i was payin do the final look believeing him that the valves are fully closed. I definetly feel i can take this task on myse lf only cause i like to triple check things like this and go the extra mile and vacuum and clean as frequently as possible.
To you other new DIY dont be afraid just triple check that your valves are closed and make sure you vacuum and blow airr and keep vacuuming the ports