I'm supposed to be good at this wrenching stuff. At the least, I would like to think I don't suck that much.
Well, last night, I hit new lows doing suspension work. I have my first organized driving event ever this Wednesday and the front shocks, front control arms, upper strut bearings, rear shocks, rear brakes and valve cover hose order came in from BMA yesterday afternoon. The car was all disassembled this past weekend and sitting ready on jackstands, and Ryan C (portlax1) was going to give me a hand so I thought I was in good shape. Oh boy, how wrong I was.
Rear shocks went first. Ireland rear shock mounts went in last year so nothing major here, just bolt in and torque to spec. Except the damn inner rod just spins and spins when torque is applied. Twenty minutes, vice grips and a slightly damaged rubber shock boot later, the rear shocks are installed and done.
Ryan is the man because he's the only one who got anything done last night. He took care of the entire rear brakes (pads, rotors and wear sensor) while I made a fool of myself with the spring compressors and front struts.
In my defense, this was the first time I'd touched the suspension. I've turbo'ed my car and Ryan's car, but it's mainly engine and drivetrain work. This was all a first.
I dropped the new front shock cartridge insterts into the front struts and wondered what to do with the white plastic ring thingy that drops over the blue Bilstein shock protective boot. Ryan found a pic on the e30tech How To section, but the caption said "don't put the white thing where it is in the bottom of picture 15." It said where to correctly put it but I didn't understand what position the guide was referring to. I just left it close to the top of the boot and Ryan put a zip tie at the bottom of the boot to try and prevent debris from getting inside.
Spring compressors went on the first spring without issue and it was time to bolt on the upper strut bearing. I take a look at the bold bearing and the ball bearing inside the mount has black grease in it. The new strut bearing is completly dry with no grease. I call up Patrick at BMA and he says put some grease in it. I search Google to find out what kind of grease and the most common results are CV Joint Grease or Wheel Bearing Grease. I have neither, but I have "chassis lube" from my previous Chevy (Sancho) 94 pickup's ball joint work. It's the red chassis lube that you can buy in tubes at parts stores and put in a grease gun. Anyone know if I just sentenced those bearings to death by using the wrong grease?
The next part is just retarded so I'll briefly summarize. I spent another thirty minutes or so compressing and uncompressing the spring until I got the ends of it properly lined up with the upper and lower perches. The spring kept rotating while I was impact gunning the spring compressor tools until I figured out to use some handy vice grips to keep the spring in place. I had also tried to actually torque the top shock nuts to 47ft-lbs, but I couldn't get the vise grips to hold the center shock shaft still for the life of me. All said and done, the first strut assembly took about two hours to assemble. The second one took about twenty minutes. GREAT SUCCESS! lol
Now if that had been the only specimen of idiocy, I wouldn't bother writing this up, but it wasn't. I then proceeded to commit the cardinal E30 sin of install the wrong control arm bushing on the wrong control arm. I had read over and over to specifically be careful to not do this. I had really tried to make sure I put it on the right arm, but I persevered against all odds and managed to screw it up! DOH!
I tried banging the control arm out of the bushings with a hammer on the floor. No go senor. Then I tried banging it out against a metal slab on a bench. Once more, no go senor. By this time I had bashed my thumb in pretty good and was having a rip roaring good 'ol time. In a last move of desperation, I decided to bolt the driver side CAB/passenger side Control Arm combination to the factory bolt holes on the driver's side. Now with the CAB solidly mounted to something that wasn't going to move (the whole car), I grabbed the crow bar and started prying the control arm out of the bushing. Well by this time I had racked up enough bad luck points to buy me a win on the karma exchange and with Ryan's help the control arm popped out. It took about 10 minutes of careful prying.
By this time it was past 11pm (we'd started around 7) and I was happy to just bolt in the two front strut assemblies. Ryan, the mvp of the evening, even got the passenger side control arm, steering linkage and brake calipers bolted to the p-side strut assembly. I was happy just to leave that stuff hanging and get the driver's side strut assembly bolted to the e30 shock tower with those three top nuts.
So now it's Tuesday and there's still 1.5-2hours of work left on the e30 to get it off jack stands and on the road. We'll toss it off the stands and throw in on the road, then see what bolts we forgot to tighten!
All the pics are at home so I'll upload them probably after the madness is over on Thursday.
Well, last night, I hit new lows doing suspension work. I have my first organized driving event ever this Wednesday and the front shocks, front control arms, upper strut bearings, rear shocks, rear brakes and valve cover hose order came in from BMA yesterday afternoon. The car was all disassembled this past weekend and sitting ready on jackstands, and Ryan C (portlax1) was going to give me a hand so I thought I was in good shape. Oh boy, how wrong I was.
Rear shocks went first. Ireland rear shock mounts went in last year so nothing major here, just bolt in and torque to spec. Except the damn inner rod just spins and spins when torque is applied. Twenty minutes, vice grips and a slightly damaged rubber shock boot later, the rear shocks are installed and done.
Ryan is the man because he's the only one who got anything done last night. He took care of the entire rear brakes (pads, rotors and wear sensor) while I made a fool of myself with the spring compressors and front struts.
In my defense, this was the first time I'd touched the suspension. I've turbo'ed my car and Ryan's car, but it's mainly engine and drivetrain work. This was all a first.
I dropped the new front shock cartridge insterts into the front struts and wondered what to do with the white plastic ring thingy that drops over the blue Bilstein shock protective boot. Ryan found a pic on the e30tech How To section, but the caption said "don't put the white thing where it is in the bottom of picture 15." It said where to correctly put it but I didn't understand what position the guide was referring to. I just left it close to the top of the boot and Ryan put a zip tie at the bottom of the boot to try and prevent debris from getting inside.
Spring compressors went on the first spring without issue and it was time to bolt on the upper strut bearing. I take a look at the bold bearing and the ball bearing inside the mount has black grease in it. The new strut bearing is completly dry with no grease. I call up Patrick at BMA and he says put some grease in it. I search Google to find out what kind of grease and the most common results are CV Joint Grease or Wheel Bearing Grease. I have neither, but I have "chassis lube" from my previous Chevy (Sancho) 94 pickup's ball joint work. It's the red chassis lube that you can buy in tubes at parts stores and put in a grease gun. Anyone know if I just sentenced those bearings to death by using the wrong grease?
The next part is just retarded so I'll briefly summarize. I spent another thirty minutes or so compressing and uncompressing the spring until I got the ends of it properly lined up with the upper and lower perches. The spring kept rotating while I was impact gunning the spring compressor tools until I figured out to use some handy vice grips to keep the spring in place. I had also tried to actually torque the top shock nuts to 47ft-lbs, but I couldn't get the vise grips to hold the center shock shaft still for the life of me. All said and done, the first strut assembly took about two hours to assemble. The second one took about twenty minutes. GREAT SUCCESS! lol
Now if that had been the only specimen of idiocy, I wouldn't bother writing this up, but it wasn't. I then proceeded to commit the cardinal E30 sin of install the wrong control arm bushing on the wrong control arm. I had read over and over to specifically be careful to not do this. I had really tried to make sure I put it on the right arm, but I persevered against all odds and managed to screw it up!
DOH!I tried banging the control arm out of the bushings with a hammer on the floor. No go senor. Then I tried banging it out against a metal slab on a bench. Once more, no go senor. By this time I had bashed my thumb in pretty good and was having a rip roaring good 'ol time. In a last move of desperation, I decided to bolt the driver side CAB/passenger side Control Arm combination to the factory bolt holes on the driver's side. Now with the CAB solidly mounted to something that wasn't going to move (the whole car), I grabbed the crow bar and started prying the control arm out of the bushing. Well by this time I had racked up enough bad luck points to buy me a win on the karma exchange and with Ryan's help the control arm popped out. It took about 10 minutes of careful prying.
By this time it was past 11pm (we'd started around 7) and I was happy to just bolt in the two front strut assemblies. Ryan, the mvp of the evening, even got the passenger side control arm, steering linkage and brake calipers bolted to the p-side strut assembly. I was happy just to leave that stuff hanging and get the driver's side strut assembly bolted to the e30 shock tower with those three top nuts.
So now it's Tuesday and there's still 1.5-2hours of work left on the e30 to get it off jack stands and on the road. We'll toss it off the stands and throw in on the road, then see what bolts we forgot to tighten!
All the pics are at home so I'll upload them probably after the madness is over on Thursday.
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