Was: 1985 BMW E28 520i / Now: Moggie is Now Go

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I’ll let you work it all out. Realoem is your friend.

[Warren t claim]

I'm sorry to go off on a tangent with a Warren rant but here goes.

The 2.0 litre E28 was always considered a sweet spot in the range offering a decent balance of power and economy but when I owned an E30 320i with the same motor, bogey fingered arseholes would sneer and comment that it had all of the thirst of a 325i but much less power.

[Warren t claim]

Having said that, the early E21 320i with the four pot motor was probably a better car than the later E21 with the two litre six.

[SiC]

I’ll let you work it all out. Realoem is your friend.

Its clear as mud for the cambelt. I'm going to wait until the car is here before I start ordering parts.

bmw e28 cambelt.png (52.99 KiB) Viewed 2760 times

Any recommendations on where to buy E28 parts online?
ECP/GSF are shit for anything E28. Autodoc have plenty of choice but they're insanely slow right now and unlikely to arrive this month. eBay is a lottery on fake/shit parts.

[BenHar]

If this only needs one little bit of welding I'll eat my fibre glass kit.

Ben

[SiC]

If this only needs one little bit of welding I'll eat my fibre glass kit.

Ben

As hilarious it would be to watch, I'm not sure I can recommend eating fibre glass or the associated products contained within a kit.

[Eddie Honda]

I’ll let you work it all out. Realoem is your friend.

Belts are a piece of piss. 127 teeth, round tooth profile. Belt part number is 11311711081, roller tensioner is 11311711154 and the spring is 11311267746.

How do you know its 127 teeth? Internet has a lot of conflict between the two and also reckons the 1985 is cross over year. Not arguing on your correctness or knowledge on it, just interested to know how you know for sure its 127.

Ok, here's how you use the ETK:

Bash in the last seven digits of the VIN Drill down to the page with cambelt on it. If you click a number on the image, it'll highlight the parts in the list:

Screenshot_20210304_032705.png (110.86 KiB) Viewed 2741 times

If you click on a part number, it'll give you more details. Starting with the Z=128 belt 11311286168:

Screenshot_20210304_033017.png (68.71 KiB) Viewed 2741 times

You can see it is "ENDED" aka NLA. It goes on to say the newer part is Z=127 11311713361 (which is also ENDED). So the replacement for that is 11311711081, also Z=127.

Screenshot_20210304_034121.png (76.7 KiB) Viewed 2741 times

You can see the start and finish date of the parts and which is current.

If you look a bit further down the previous list both 11311713361 and 11311711081 have the red markings round the description that say (ignoring the duplication):

Screenshot_20210304_034528.png (19.7 KiB) Viewed 2741 times

It says you can use that 127 tooth belt providing you also use parts 11311267746 & 11311711154. In other words, the 127 tooth belt is fine with the 127 tooth adjuster.

If you look down at the bottom, to remind you when to do it next, you can get a sticker to fill in!

https://forum.bmw5.co.uk/topic/14963-cam-belt-520i/
https://bimmersport.co.nz/topic/54538-m ... ent=588786
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/show ... iming-belt

Here's the Contitech catalogue info:

Screenshot_20210304_042157.png (118.44 KiB) Viewed 2741 times

https://www.continental-engineparts.com/eu/en-GB/

[SiC]

Thanks Eddie, that's really useful info.

The gist of it from what I can gather, seems you can change out a 128 tooth cambelt to a 127 providing you use the 127 tensioner. Older engines may have a stamped metal sprocket when they had a 128 tooth belt (presumably square toothed) and if it has, then it's strongly advised to change to the newer style tensioner. The stamp metal sprocket is prone to chewing the belt up.

[paulplom]

I thought the number of teeth on the belt would be vital regardless of the type of tensioner.

[SiC]

I thought the number of teeth on the belt would be vital regardless of the type of tensioner.

So did I! Also would have thought it would have been specific to the car and not something that can be changed.

Differing information floating around the internet on all this but predominantly it points to what I've said above. From forum posts on it, to RealOEM deprecating the 128 tooth belt and the E30 belt change notes on Pelican Parts mentioning to change to a 127 tensioner (but no mention of 128).

I do find it odd that 128 tooth kits are still so readily available though.