Has anyone done their own Crushed Walnut Shell cleaning on their Mini. I've searched all over and found nothing. Is it that hard to do? Dealer wanted $850 for the cleaning which I think is too much.

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I read here before that a shop here in California does it for $350 for a group cleaning. Maybe you can organize something like that also in your area.

 

Doing the walnut treatment has a high cost of admission. You're going to need a walnut blaster machine, air compressor, and that handy special tool (vacuum attachment) BMW makes so you don't turn your engine bay into a pig pen. If you're not trying to break the bank do it manually with some gun cleaning brushes and assorted garage tools.

 

I saw the BMW walnut blasting machine. From what I can tell. It looks like a fancy media hopper. Mines not as pretty or a professional looking, but it works.

I have a media hopper, air compressor and vacuum. As for the tools, The BMW vacuum attachment is about $75 and nozzle wand is about $25. Crushed walnut shell media is dirt cheap.($14 for a 25 pound bag at my local contractor supply shop)

So for the high cost of admission is not much if you don't buy the BMW one.
-Air compressor =~$140
-Shop Vac =~$60
-Hopper with nozzle =~$60
-Walnut Media =$14
-BMW Attachments = $100 (I'll try to find and post the part numbers)

Total Cost:~$374 (+/- $150 depending on the tools you get)
The cost for me would be $100 for the BMW tools

The Advantages
Pays for itself first time you use it.
Since you would have the tool. Carbon Cleaning the Mini the 2nd time would cost less than $10 in Crushed walnut shell Media.
You can also use it around the house too.

My Issue:
I have media blasted stuff around the house. I have never media blasted inside a engine before and kinda afraid of killing the engine if I screw up.
Also wanted to know how to remove the intake manifold. I've tried to remove it but I couldn't pull it out.
How to turn the engine to shut the valves during cleaning.

Thanks.

 

You have no idea how much air blasting takes. A 20 gallon compressor just won't cut it... No matter what you think your results show. Unless you like waiting for the compressor to catch up.

 

For me it does just fine. Just don't run a big nozzle. I don't think I would need to run continuously it, maybe 10-15 second bursts. Remember the space is very small. The space is smaller than a can of soda. If that makes any sense.

I pulled the intake manifold this morning to take a peek at the valves and OMG it looks very nasty. (My Mini has about 55k on it). Note: I've used seafoam and the BMW cleaner every 5-6k, looks like there's no effect whatsoever. Here's a photo of what it looks like.

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OMG. Hope you can do rthe DIY and maybe write one up.

 

<AOL>me too!</AOL>

 

Sorry, I was thinking of my blasting cabinet. Glad I've got a 80 gal 2 stage compressor...lol

I've killed several small air oiled compressors in my time.

 

80 gal is huge for anything I'd use it for (I don't have the room either), plus not very portable/practical for my use. Doesn't take much air to run nail guns & some basic air tools.

Now I just gotta figure out what kind of grit size I need. I was thinking of using a 35-60 or maybe 18-40 walnut grit size since it pretty stuck on there.
Anyone know the size walnut grit BMW uses. Thanks.

Here's the links to the BMW carbon blasting tools.
Found the tools on ECS tuning.
Vacuum attachment Part No: 81292208038

Nozzle attachment Part No: 81292208032

 

Couldn't you simply go in with a engine safe cleaner and just clean out all the ports? Then jut blast it with your air nozzle and vacuum out to make sure there is no deposits left in there. I did this on my 4.2l S4 motor just last january and it seemed to work fine. heavy duty cloth and my finger + cleaner. Or is the Walnut blast really that much better.

 

That picture you posted tells me all I ever needed to know and suspected about Seafoam!

 

I did try that while I was waiting for the adapters to come in. (The part was on backorder so I have to wait till next week for the parts to come in.) I did remove some carbon but not much. I was thinking of using some carbon off degreaser that I use in the kitchen, it very strong stuff(can take off baked on carbon in less than a minute. But I'm afraid it may be too strong, also my dad was telling me to pour Diesel down the intake valves because its good at dissolving carbon. How much of that is true I'm not sure. So my best bet is walnut blasting and it showed the results I wanted.
I'll try to do some before and after pictures when I get it done and how long it takes me to do it.

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Seafoam seems to work pretty well as a temporary fix. As it did fix some bad idling before on my Mini.
I think the main issue of the carbon buildup is from the long oil changes. I've seen other MINIs worst than mine because they followed BMWs oil change intervals.

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Here's a update.
My tools just came in this morning. The BMW sprayer wand thing didn't work with my sandblasting nozzle. LOL



So I made my own. A valve and a couple of fittings I got from my local hardware store.
Cost = $6








As for the air compressor I used. It is a dinky little 4 gallon bositich compressor since my 20 gal air compressor and good shop vac are shot. Dam hurricane sandy flooded my uncle's basement along with a couple other tools he borrowed.



The media I used is fine crushed walnuts. 24 grit



I'm happy to say it went quicker than I thought Actually a lot quicker than I thought. To decently clean all 4 intake valves took me about 15 minutes.
About a minute to clean one cylinder pretty good and prolly a minute for my air compressor to charge/catch up. My little compressor came on 4 times so a 20 gallon tank would be easily capable of carbon blasting a Mini.

Before:




After:



As for the amount of walnut media used to clean the intake valves. About 5 pounds.

This is how much that was in my vacuum after the valves were clean. And to me the media still looks pretty clean so I can still reuse it for something else.


After I put my Mini back together. I did a test run. I can definitely feel the difference. I have the AP running stage 3 and usually in sport mode always I hit boost cut for some reason but, couldn't figure why it did that. Now no more boost cuts in sport mode.

All in all it took less than a hour to completely carbon blast my Mini. Now I'm going to stop wasting my money buying seafoam and deep creep for my Mini. Instead, since I have to BMW tools to carbon clean. Next time I do it should cost less than five bucks.
Now for the money I saved not going to the dealer is going towards a new air compressor since the old one shot. Debating if I should go for a nice 30gal portable belt driven or 60 gal belt driven stationary($50 difference)

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R56owners better get your kit. I feel ECS tuning will be shipping this kit more and more each day because of this thread.

 

Good to know! I'm a strict DIY oil changer every 5K miles (shorter intervals early in my MINI's life). This thread is great. Love seeing folks take matters into they're own hands to solve a problem and like you said from here on out, cleaning your intake valves will almost be free. Good stuff!

 

Any pictures on how that vacuum attachment works? Is it necessary?

 

The vacuum attachment works great. If your doing your own walnut blasting its pretty much required and the nozzle as well. The cleaning wand is designed pretty good. I thought it was a expensive bent tubing.
The vacuum attachment and nozzle go together before you put it in the intake valves. Once the vacuum attachment is in. There is no way to accidentally back out the nozzle to the point the wand comes out and blasts walnut everywhere.


I had some on the forms say to use a brush and some engine cleaner to clean the valves because it was quicker and cleaner. I tried to clean cylinder 1 on my MINI while waiting for the attachment to come in. After 20 minutes of scrubbing, it removed very little carbon, then I gave up. When I used my walnut blaster, I was curious how much a 15 second walnut blast would take off, well the valves were almost spotless. Don't believe me, watch the videos and see in how long it took me to clean them.

Here's a couple of video I did showing how long it takes to decently clean one cylinder. Sorry for the blurriness of the video, stupid autofocus didn't quite work.
Couldn't figure out how it would take more than 3 hours to clean the intake valves. Dam the dealer make alot of money off this cleaning, $900 - $5 in walnut media and less than a hour or so in labor = at least $750 profit. Since I know how to do it now, I could charge like half that and still make a killing.

Cleaning Cylinder 4
http://youtu.be/Ml-869AE_mA

Cleaning Cylinder 2
http://youtu.be/sN_GOrnhUiY

Good luck to anyone trying to walnut blast clean their valves.

NOTE: Don't forget to check to see if your valves are closed before doing this, you don't want walnuts going into you cylinder. How I checked is taking all the spark plugs out and using my mouth I tried to blow air in to see if it had pressure in the cylinder. If it didn't leak, I knew it was closed, if it did I get in my Mini and try to turn over the engine and check again.
I don't know if it would of made a difference in cleaning the carbon off. I did the cleaning after a drive to get some walnut media so the engine was all warmed up. I didn't mind the engine heat since it was 45 degrees outside.

 

Yeah, that vacuum adapter seems pretty useful. I noticed your cylinder 4 video showed some walnut walnut media still in the cylinder head, was eat easy to vacuum it out?

 

Yea, leftover walnut media was very easy to clean out. I just took a air blow gun to it and blew the walnut media right out.

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This DIY rocks. Dealers will suddenly see a decrease in their walnut blasting work order. More seafoam on retailer shelves for use on other vehicles.

Looks like the kit is a tight fit and it should be. Ported ports? well.......

 

NY56,

Maybe you can do walnut blasting party in your area for a fee.

 

Here you go DIY idea for that attachment kit. If I have an R56 I've jump on modifying these attachment.

 

That would actually work too. Just shorten the head till it fit and drill a hole for the sandblasting tip to fit in.

I just dropped 1400 bucks on a nice 25 gallon portable air compressor and its awesome to have 18.5CFM compared to 6CFM my old one one gave.

I just did my cousin's 08 Clubman S yesterday and I wished I took pictures(I got too excited since my air compressor came in yesterday as well.) Hers threw a P0303 & P0304 code which I think are misfiring. The carbon build up on her Clubman is something else. And yes she followed BMW's service intervals since dealer does all her work.

I can say that seafoam does indeed slow down carbon buildup on our valves. My buildup was on the smooth side, but hers is more rough and a lot thicker like in small clumps.

Took about 40 minutes to clean the valves compared to 15 minutes with mine.

What I thought was interesting is that it seem to get rid of most of the cold start rattling noise after I cleaned it.

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