E36 bilsteins with coil overs?

[bimmer630]

Alot of people have done the ground control coil over swap on their struts, and I know a guy who has them on Billy sports.. so I found a sweet deal on a brand new early 325 (91-92) set of billy sports, since they have the swaybar tab just like an M3, and figured I could chop off the larger E36 spring bucket and throw some threaded adjusters on there for coil overs.
Well... I got the struts yesterday and they are Billy sports but the cap that holds the insert in the strut tube tapers out to a larger-than-strut tube-size, thus making it Impossible to slide the threaded sleeve onto the strut.

Whats the deal with these struts I bought? they are brand new and the guy only sold them cause he thought they would fit his M3 and they didnt..
I may just end up buying some Non-M h&R springs for these but would rather stick with the smaller diameter of an M spring or a coil over (Ive read that the larger spring diameter can hit the strut tower?)

[dinanm3atl]

It is E36 fitment? Where the strut mounts to the spindle/hub? Don't know how you will make that work...

[bimmer630]

I have a 5 lug swap. maybe this should be in the 5 lug section.. but it seems kinda dead over there lately

[bimmer630]

bump?
I started cutting the spring perches off these things today and messed up.. i cut them completely off and just left the factory weld for the perch... I had some cheapo EBAY coil over kit where I sliced the threaded sleeve in order to spread it over that larger top area, then figured I could keep it clamped together with the spring adjuster once its tightened up. well that didnt work out and after getting on the phone with jay and trevor at ground control, I realized I chopped too much material off. I should have left some of the spring perch on there because they can only make a threaded sleeve that fits the size of the larger diameter at the top, and then it would rest on the spring perch..
so im thinking of coming up with some kind of clamp, a circular part cut in half.. kinda an exhaust clamp type of setup, that will clamp to the housing and rest on the factory weld, and the threaded sleeve can rest on that

[Pudmunkie]

Sounds haggard... Just buy new ones.

[bimmer630]

yeah sounds haggard at this point.. but these are BRAND NEW struts and I wanna be able to use them somehow.. just wondering if anyone has experience with this style strut.
of course im wishing i didnt get trigger happy with the sawzall but this is the way you do it with most bilstiens, i had no idea i would run into this.

Really it wouldnt be unsafe or jury-rigged to have some kind of disc thats held up by the spring hat welds.. thats what ground control and most others use to hold up their threaded adjusters for coil overs

[bimmer630]

http://www.climaxmetal.com/2pc_metric_collar.htm

this is all I need. clamp to strut, remaining weld "bead" from factory perches will hold it up, they have them in 50 mm (bilstien strut is 50.5mm.. i can take off the .5 or request it to be that size) and this has an outside diameter of about 3 inches. perfect size to hold up the threaded sleeves

[bimmer630]

I've come up with the solution. These split shaft collars were only around 30 bucks and they will provide something for the Ground control threaded sleeve to rest on, and the collars rest on the welds. I put loads of locktite on the threads and I'm even thinking of just welding the two halves together to make sure everything stays put. (I wont be welding ON the strut so I dont see why it wouldnt be safe)
Then i'll paint everything to make it look shnazzy..
The sleeve is sized to the larger upper tube section. Ordered the GC kit yesterday, should be pretty cool once its all together.

These are BRAND NEW struts if you can believe it.. they were being kicked around a bit and the paints been ripped off in the process of cutting off the perches. They are early 91-92 E36 struts, so I get the M3-style swaylink mounts and the struts were half the price of M3 ones. I do wish I knew about this larger upper tube before I bought them though

[Cha Ching]

I've come up with the solution. These split shaft collars were only around 30 bucks and they will provide something for the Ground control threaded sleeve to rest on, and the collars rest on the welds. I put loads of locktite on the threads and I'm even thinking of just welding the two halves together to make sure everything stays put. (I wont be welding ON the strut so I dont see why it wouldnt be safe)
Then i'll paint everything to make it look shnazzy..
The sleeve is sized to the larger upper tube section. Ordered the GC kit yesterday, should be pretty cool once its all together.

These are BRAND NEW struts if you can believe it.. they were being kicked around a bit and the paints been ripped off in the process of cutting off the perches. They are early 91-92 E36 struts, so I get the M3-style swaylink mounts and the struts were half the price of M3 ones. I do wish I knew about this larger upper tube before I bought them though

Good work & keep us posted if you make it work. It sucks to be the guinea pig, but someone has to take one for the team!

[bimmer630]

ground control kit will be here tomorrow I think.. Ill post some pics when its all together. should be nice but im kinda wondering about the strut length.. I guess billys are ok if you dont slam the crap out of the car but if you do they hit bumpstops alot from what ive read. im not planning on running it too low so i think ill be ok

[DRTSRFR]

Those are not "inverted" Billys. There is no internal bumpstop. You will need to add them to the chrome shaft.

[bimmer630]

Yeah but they didnt recommend using billy sports with their coil over kit because they say when you go really low with it the shocks bottom out. like i said im not going that low anyway. Ill just use the boots and bumpstops from my old struts.

I got the kit today but the threaded sleeves werent the right ID to fit over my struts. Jay at Ground control was cool on the phone and hes shipping the correct sleeves out asap. I put everything together without the sleeves to show what im goin for with this setup

[bimmer630]

ok maybe not the boots.. Early production E36 (first two years) has a different strut and upper mount design and it uses this plastic tube that grabs onto the bumpstop.
you can see it as the uppermost pic on realoem.. and actually the center pic shows something similar also but the strut mount spacer makes me think thats a rough-road package suspension (??)

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/partgrp.do?model=CB33&mospid=47498&hg=31&fg=10

Im trying to figure out what kinda boot im gonna use. Ground control told me to cut my bumpstops pretty much in half, which prevents usage of that plastic boot.. plus my coilover sleeve interferes with it anyway.
Also Got my E30 GC camber/caster plates from Ebay. Guy said "never used" and they dont look used but they are missing some clips/spacers.. and the holes in the upper bearings are 5/8" while my strut diameter is 16mm. Very close but im not gonna hammer them on there, screw that. GC said they can modify my bearings or sell me new ones for 25 bucks each.. but im wondering if i can just get a 16mm drill bit somewhere and drill these bearings out by using some kind of inside clamping device on one side of the bearing to keep it from spinning whilst I drill