The Bentley manual suggests removing wiper arms and the ducting/vent that sticks out to gain clear access to the valve cover. Did anyone have to do this when they replaced the valve cover gasket? I've been looking at the clearance I have to work with and I can't really tell if I can fit a torque wrench in there to tighten the bolts in the rear without doing what the manual suggests.
Normally, I wouldn't mind spending extra time and effort to do it but I don't have much free time right now. On the other hand, I noticed some oil in the #3 spark plug hole today and it needs to be taken care of. So, I need to know how much time I should expect to spend on this.
If anyone who has done this could share some of their experience, it would be very helpful. Also, are there 2 or 3 bolts on the rear side (the firewall side) of the engine?

Oh, my car is 92 325is coupe.

TIA.
JN

i was looking up this info too..
search bf.c theres A LOT of info about it

Thanks for the reply.
I did look through the forums before I posted but no one seems to have done the ducting removal part so I'm just wondering if it really isn't needed on all e36s.
With my car being the first year model and all, maybe it's one of those "glitches" that was fixed(to increase serviceability?)in the later models.

JN

A friend of mine has a 325is and he did not have to do anything special to replace the gasket. It is straight forward, but I don't know how many bolts there are on the rear.

Tom

Well I tried doing the replacement and ran into a problem.
How do you get the iginition wires out of the way?
All the wires go in to a long rectangular box along the fuel rail but I couldn't figure out how to remove it. Its supported by brackets that are connected to the injectors but its in there really tight and I couldn't pull it out of them. If I give it a really good yank will the injectors be OK?
All the manuals don't comment on it so I thought I should be able to remove it really easily. Maybe I'm missing something.

JN

I don't think you should have to remove the ignition wire gallery. You have to remove the ignition coils and wires from the coils. The wires can be removed from the ignition coils. Its difficult to explain, but you have to first pull up or loosen the metal clip and the wire pulls right off. Don't force it; those wires are expensive. Also, there are two half moons in the gasket near the firewall- make sure they seat properly or you will have a leak and you will have to do it over again.

Tom

You need to move a bunch of stuff out of the way. I looked at this for about an hour before I decided to just try and squish everything around. You cannot easily remove the wire harness there.

Oh, you know, I was just confused. The valve cover comes off real easily - it's the intake manifold that I really had to wrestle with. See this pic:

So, does this mean I need to remove the intake manifold to get clearance?

No, you dont have to remove the vent/duct or intake manifold to take off the valve cover. Just try to move the wires to the side while you take the cover off. I did this on my car which is a 92 325is also and will be doing this with my current M3 engine soon. Just unbolt the brackets that hold the wires and move them to the side.

Nope, sorry if I wasn't clear. The above photo is part of a head gasket project, which requires the removal of the manifold. The manifold is really tough to wrestle out from underneath...

-Wayne