Drop hats rubbing

[Sagaris]

About 6 months ago I had an incident where my steering locked up as I was getting on the freeway. I diagnosed it to be the drop hats rubbing on the inner strut tower. I was right in my theory and now here is proof for anyone who thought I was nuts.

This is the inside of the strut tower where the drop hats are rubbing (when making sharp right turns)





The portion of the drop hats rubbing is from approx. 4 o'-clock to 6 o'-clock in this picture, this is what needs to be ground down a bit:



As you may have seen in the project forum I will be taking care of this this weekend as I get in and change all the brakes. I figured this information would be valuable here and might help someone avoid a bad accident like I almost had.

[N2MYE30]

Dude, your not nuts. I've got something goin on too with them. Its only when I turn sharp when at a stop or barely moving (driveway or Parkin spot). I've gotta get into mine as well to we what's goin on.

[e30lyf]

where do you get those drop hats?

[xwill112x]

which drop hats e90?

[Sagaris]

I bought them from richardkeith so no, not E90 hats.

[AlpinaE30]

Whew! Good thing i bought the E90 hats..

[Anguz]

any updated sagaris?

[Sagaris]

Over the summer when the steering locked up, it only happened that one time though the hats continued to rub slightly which would cause the spring to wind then pop back into position as the force in the spring overcame the resistance caused by the hat interfering with the inside of the strut tower . This was the cause of the popping noise I would hear when backing out of the driveway and turning. Normal driving never required enough steering angle to cause the noise.

I had a small thread in the project forum that I threw together http://r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=189122 as part of my brake system work and correcting the spring hat issue that nobody cared about because I wasn't installing M-tech bodywork while swapping in an S50 and perfecting the stance with some new 17" BBS wheels :p.
In that thread, I shared a few pictures of the spring hats after grinding them down, coating them in POR15 then adding a top-coat with a rattle can. I also cleaned up and POR15'd the inside of the strut towers where it had rubbed down to bare metal.


After grinding, POR15, and rattle-can. The hat on the right looks a bit oblong still from the picture but I definitely removed enough material from it (~4 mm?) to keep it from interfering while still being wide enough to fit with the spring as well as the stock hats do.


POR15 on the inside of the strut tower. Perhaps a bit overkill, but the strut tower is the last thing I want rusting out, especially when I cant monitor it easily.

So with everything back together I can turn the wheels both directions as much as I want and there is no rubbing and no noise. I dont imagine I will have any further problems.

[Todd Black 88]

Anyone else have issues with these hats? Howabout thee90 hats?

[einstein57]

My e90 hats rub with my kmacs when i put them at full camber.

[bmwstephen]

are you guys that are rubbing running on oem strut mounts? if so what condition are they in?

[Ryann]

I had a small thread in the project forum that I threw together as part of my brake system work and correcting the spring hat issue that nobody cared about because I wasn't installing M-tech bodywork while swapping in an S50 and perfecting the stance with some new 17" BBS wheels

[Sagaris]

All of my suspension had less than 1000 miles on it when it happened to me. New O.E. strut mounts.

[bmwstephen]

All of my suspension had less than 1000 miles on it when it happened to me. New O.E. strut mounts.

sagaris, were you strut mounts made by boge? if so do you have any pictures of it? looking down at the strut tower, are the top of your strut mounts rounded and concave? I've heard there are 2 variations of strut mounts. the OEM one being shorter (with a flatter/convex top) thus partially contributing to the rubbing issue.

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=188237

if you see in this picture, it looks like the OEM ones are 5mm shorter than the newr style boge ones

[Sagaris]

I have Boge front mounts.