Suspension and Driveline Overhaul 2016 (Photo Log)

[bmwman91]

I am going to document my partial-refresh of my suspension and driveline in this thread. It is an OEM+ type refresh since the car is mainly used on the street and in some autoX. From my experience, OEM suspension bits are really the best way to go on the street since they have enough compliance to absorb lousy road conditions, which helps a lot with traction. I ran all poly stuff and a 2.5" drop from 2002-2007, and while the "bcuzracecar" feeling was fun, it got old and made the car impractical for my needs. A big part of why I went with the poly bushings was the fact that I was a broke college kid and didn't want to pay a shop to press in new OEM parts lol. Anyway, in 2007 when I put in all new, all-stock parts, the car actually handled better on the street. Since it has been nearly a decade and around 70k miles, things are starting to wear out again and I am going to replace them, along with a bunch of other wear-items that probably need it.

All parts are either genuine BMW or made by an OEM supplier.

Stuff that is getting replaced:
- Front wheel bearings / hubs
- All front wheel bearing dust covers and the axle nuts
- Front control arm bushings (centered E36 M3 rubber bushings)
- All 16 lug nuts
- Rear wheel bearings
- All rear wheel bearing covers, circlips, nuts, etc
- Rear subframe bushings
- Rear trailing arm bushings
- Diff bushing (solid rubber 325iX version)
- Turner Motorsport rebuilt driveshaft (remanufactured by Beyer Driveline)
- New guibo and CSB
- EDIT: 325iX VLSD unit that was mistakenly sold to me as a Quaife (lol)...working on other options now
- Fuchs Titan Sintopoid 75W-90 gear oil and a new cover gasket
- Both axle half-shafts
- E-brake shoes and related spring bits
- E-brake cables
- Both sway bars (removing the beefy ST bars in favor of OEM/Mtech bars)
- All sway bar end links, shells and bushings

I installed Bilstein HD shocks about 25k miles ago, so those are most likely just fine still, hence why I am not replacing them.

Other than that, I am running stock springs and the car has ST sway bars in it still (22mm front / 19mm rear), but I am looking to go back to stock sways. This is because stiff sways don't really provide much benefit on the street (IMO) and I get nervous taking the car off-road with them since I already had one chassis mounting point rip out a while back. Once I find a set of OEM M-Tech sways (20mm front / 14.5mm rear) I will install those and all new links + bushings all around.

So, anyway, that's the background. Now it is time for some pictures and hopefully some useful how-to info for others. Today I replaced the front wheel bearings and front control arm bushings. These were super easy items and didn't require anything particularly special.

So, start off with the front wheels. Nothing too special here, just lots of brake dust!


Pop the wheel cap off and you'll see the dust cover in the middle. I was thinking that I could pry it out with the wheels on the car, but I would have banged up the paint so I took the wheels off. The dust cap is in there tight, and you will almost assuredly wreck it during removal.


So, to get the dust cover off you just need a few basic tools. I like to use a small hammer for stuff like this to reduce the risk of damaging other stuff, and it is a lot easier to aim the swings. Just take your punch and use it to pop the cap's lip off in a few places. From there, you should be able to pull it off with some needle nosed pliers.






With the cap off, you can access the axle nut. You will need to bend the lock tab out to remove it. A few careful smacks with the hammer and punch will have it out of the way in no time. Be careful not to catch the punch on the axle shaft though; part of it is right below the tab so don't put the punch in too deep. Also, I used the mallet and a flat blade screwdriver to push the rest of the nut’s bent edges away from the axle just to make sure that nothing would catch.




Now comes the fun part. This 36mm nut is spec'ed to 210 ft-lbs of torque, so you will need a breaker bar and 36mm socket to remove it. You must put the wheel back on for this because you don't want to load up the control arm's ball joints (or the shock) with your body weight. The wheel is just there to provide support to take the load off of the suspension. Get your breaker bar on there and step on it. Maybe give it a little bounce, just enough to get it to break loose. Do NOT turn the nut more than 30 degrees or so while the wheel is still on the ground. Once the nut is broken loose, jack the car back up and remove the wheel. Then you can remove the axle nut. This is because the bearing will probably come apart if the car's weight is on it when the nut is removed (the nut holds the inner and outer races together).




You will need to remove the brakes to get the hub off. This is pretty easy. Just take out the two 19mm bolts that hold the caliper carrier in and you can move the entire caliper + rotor assembly out of the way. Secure it to something so that the hydraulic line is not under tension (I zip tied things to the springs). Try not to get grease or anything on the rotor while you are handling it.




Next, you will be removing the bearing+hub assembly. Your results will vary here, but if the dust covers were intact there is a good chance that this will be VERY easy. In my case, I was able to get both bearings off of the axle by pulling with just my hands. Just make sure that you pull straight and don't cock things. Other people have reported that they needed a little help from gear pullers or that they were able to put the wheel back on and pull on that. A few unlucky souls have probably had to take it to a shop because things rusted somehow.




Removal of the inner dust covers is a little bit of a pain. These do not necessarily need to be replaced, and if you clean them off they are probably perfectly fine to re-use. I wanted to replace them anyway since they are inexpensive and I am sort of OCD about stuff like this. So, to get them out you should give them a few good whacks with a hammer and punch from behind, and then you should be able to pull them out with some needle nosed vise grips. Just be mindful of the axle shaft and don’t scrape it up.






With the old cover out, clean things up and scrub off any rust or brake dust that has built up in the back.


Installation of the new covers is pretty easy. You can use the old bearing assembly, the 36mm socket and a mallet to press the cover onto the axle shoulder. Make sure to leave a little grease on the axle shaft so that the bearings slide on without binding, and make SURE that they are straight so that they don't cock. The inner race can pop off, and you will be screwed if it gets stuck on the inside of the shaft. Anyway, smack it until the new cover is all the way on (flush with the end of the axle shoulder).




Now you can install the new bearing + hub assembly. Wipe any remaining crud off of the axle shaft and apply a tiny bit of grease to it so that the bearing will slide on easily. I had some Molykote left from a clutch job, so I used that. Installation will be super easy if the axle shaft is clean and not pitted with rust. Slide it on, and again use the 36mm socket and mallet. Do NOT push on the hub assembly or put any sort of load on anything EXCEPT the inner race. The bearing can come apart if you push on anything other than the inner race.


Here you can see the parts that were replaced. The old bearing was not in great shape. There was a bit of runout, and the balls' plastic inner race was totally destroyed. In fact, the inner metal race fell right off when I was removing it (but thankfully it was easy to slide off of the axle).




A small aside...when I was putting the passenger side stuff back on, I noticed that the rotor's dust shield was loose. At first I thought that the top M6 bolt had fallen out since it was not present, but it was actually (surprisingly!) the case that the top hole had never been tapped in the first place! I have done 3 or 4 brake jobs on this car and I can't believe that I never noticed this! So, I drilled the hole to the right diameter and tapped the needed M6x1 threads into it. As for the fastener, I have a box of spare E30 nuts and bolts, so I got an M6 one with a captive washer and chopped it down to size. Problem solved! This might explain a weird rattle/buzz that has been bugging me for quite some time lol.

Also, at this point you should put the new axle nut in. Do not torque it down yet since you will need the wheel for support again. Just get it on there and apply enough torque to seat everything firmly (maybe 50 ft-lbs or so).




With that bit of nonsense taken care of, I cleaned up the brake carrier bolts a bit since they were full of crap. With these bolts, it is also a very good idea to use a little thread locker since they experience a lot of thermal cycling and cyclical mechanical loading.




Now you will put the wheels back on and tighten the lug bolts a bit to make sure that the wheel is seated on the hub. Lower the car so that the suspension compresses an inch or two, ensuring that the wheel will take the vertical load when you tighten the axle nut. The axle nut needs to be torqued to 210 ft-lbs. I accomplished this with an 18" breaker bar and my own 165lb weight. With my weight applied at ~15", I got around 210 ft-lbs on there, and I bounced on it a little so it probably ended up closer to 240 ft-lbs. Unfortunately, the nut is sort of shallow and it can be tricky to keep the socket on it. On one side, it did manage to slip off and bang up the nut a little, but I still got it torqued down just fine. So, just be careful when you are doing this and make sure that you don't apply any lateral force when standing on the bar.

Once the nut is on at full torque, you need to make a lock tab. I got a slightly larger punch and used it to hammer the lip on the nut into the axle's lock groove. You want a punch that is only slightly narrower than the groove so that the lip will shear as you mash it in. Just be sure to aim carefully so that you don't mess up the axle.




Finally, you need to put the on the new outer dust cap. This is pretty easy. I used a mallet and the 36mm socket again. You can also try hitting the cap's lip a little at a time in a circumferential pattern to seat it. Just don't whack the middle of it or it will just collapse in. The dust caps are SUPER important, and you need them installed properly or your new bearings will not last very long.


And there you have it, nice new front wheel bearings!






The other order of business today was to replace the front control arm bushings. Mine were almost a decade old, and while they were not torn, I had installed them in the wrong orientation (patience was not my strong suit back in college haha) and they were probably close to needing replacement anyway.

Removing them from the control arms was simple. I shot them with some PB Blaster and then used some gear pullers to get them off of the arms.




Getting the bushing out of the bracket was a little bit of a pain, but still doable with a bench vise. I hit it with some more PB Blaster and used some sockets as spacers to start pushing it out. Once it moved the first 3mm or so, I was able to stick a 1.5" (~38mm) socket in there and push on the rubber web to push the bushing out. Your results may vary here, and if you have a shredded bushing or just a standard E30 one (this was an E36 M3 bushing) the rubber might not be strong enough. Note that the 1.5" socket is still smaller than the outer metal ring and it was pushing on the rubber just inside the ring. It was the biggest socket I had on-hand, so I decided to give it a shot.




Once the bushing is out, clean out the bracket. I blasted it off with some brake cleaner to get the oil off. After that, you need to press the new bushing in. It is about as much of a pain as removing the old one. You can get the bushing in 95% of the way very easily by just sticking the bracket and bushing in the vise and paying attention to make sure that it goes in straight. Stick a piece of wood or plastic between the vise's jaw faces and the bushing so that you don't chew it up. Note that with the centered E36 M3 bushings, you will have the "holes" on the sides, and the little square nubs in them are supposed to align with the mark on the bracket.

To finish installing the bushing, just use some sockets as spacers again. Once it is pushed in enough to be evenly centered, you are done. Easy!




Getting the bushings onto the control arm is also VERY easy. A lot of people have trouble with this (I used to as well). Well, a little trick that I read on the forums was to use some glass cleaner on the bushing to make it slide on. This worked FLAWLESSLY. I sprayed the bushing down and was able to get it onto the control arm with 3 whacks with the mallet. From there, a 23mm socket was all I needed to get the bushing pressed the rest of the way on. The glass cleaner also made it super easy to rotate the bushing once it was on so that the bracket would be aligned with the chassis without adding any unwanted torque pre-load to the rubber.

Here's the progress after a few whacks.




And after some whacks with the socket...


And here's a nice pile of junk parts. I am particularly looking forward to having fresh front wheel bearings since at least one of them was starting to crap out.


So, that's it for today. Tomorrow I will start ripping apart the rear end. All of the related bushings and wheel bearings will get pressed by a local suspension shop though. My vise only opens 5" which is not enough for most of these, and I am pretty sure that it would break if I tried to do the diff bushing with it. I have done all of the rear bushings myself in the past using pipe fittings and threaded rod, but it was a pain in the ass and I was not able to get the subframe bushings all the way in (came up ~3mm short).

[burkey001]

This is well written with great photos, good on you

Cant believe the front bearings came off with your hands.. unless you have hands of <insert name of superhero with strong hands here> "HandZo" maybe?? ;)

[bmwman91]

I made lots of progress today. The entire rear end is apart now, and I just need to unbolt a couple of odds and ends tomorrow (remove the driveshaft and front sway bar). All in all, it only took me around 3.5 hours to get everything out. This is the 3rd or 4th time I have had an E30 rear end apart, so it helped a lot knowing what was what. Also, I applied anti-seize compound to all of the bits that usually get stuck/fused back when I did the last overhaul in 2007, so it was a piece of cake to separate things.

I also found that my stainless brake lines, which I ordered from Pelican a few years ago, may not be DOT-Approved. The other thread in here which goes over what legal ones look like has some good info, and I don't know what to think since Pelican says that these lines are DOT-Approved in the product title, but they lack the features that make them so. Anyway, brakes are what keep me alive, so I ordered a new set from Ireland Engineering since those are known to be reputable and have DOT approval.

So, without further ado, here are some pictures of today's activities. I began by loosening the rear axle bolts. Obviously this is most easily done with the wheels on the car and on the ground. To get at the bolt, you need to get the locking plate out. It is pretty easy. Once again, a hammer, sharp punch, flat blade screwdriver and some needle nosed pliers are all you need. Take care not to bang up the hub when bending the lock plate away from it. Once you have it bent in a little, you can grab the lip with the pliers and wiggle it out pretty easily.









With the lock plate out, you can now get the axle nut off (). You will need a 30mm socket and breaker bar. The torque spec is 145 ft-lbs so you will probably need to stand on the breaker bar to break things loose. Again, just break the 30mm loose, but don’t do much more than that until you jack the wheels up off of the ground.


Now you can jack it up and put it on stands. Supporting it under the subframe is obviously not part of the plan since the subframe is coming out, so you will need to use the unibody. On the passenger side, my stands would end up mashing into the gas tank if I used the hardened factory support points, so I moved the stand an inch or so forward to clear the tank. I like to fold up a rag and put it between the stand and car so that things don’t get scraped or mashed up.




Take the wheels off and start disconnecting shit. Unplug the speedo sensor (easy one to forget!), unbolt the sway bar links and unbolt the shocks. When doing the shocks, support the hub with a jack so that it does not slam down (the shock holds the rear springs under tension).






Next you will want to take the brake calipers off. Unbolt the two 17mm bolts that hold the caliper carrier to the hub and put the caliper assembly up out of the way so that the hose is not under tension. Take the brake disc screw out and pull the brake disc off (remember to disengage the e-brake!). Once the disc is off, you will have to disconnect the E-brake cable. Start by taking off the two tension springs that hold the brake shoes together. Needle nosed pliers are all you need. Note that there are two springs, and they are different. The straight one (shown in photo) goes on top, and the offset one goes on the bottom with the straight wire on the bottom to clear the hub.




The next part is a bit of a pain sometimes. You need to disconnect the E-brake cable from the yoke. You can do this by rotating the yoke assembly open and pushing the little pin out. I took some pictures of this after it had been removed since things are very tight between the hub and dust shield. You can see how things are put together, and it is not too hard to separate them in the small space provided behind the hub.




Next, unplug the brake pad wear sensor and the ABS sensors, and stick them up out of the way.






The next few steps can be done a couple of ways. Some people like to drop the entire rear end out as one piece (subframe, differential and trailing arms). I have done it that way, and it is sort of a hassle when you are working alone because it is hard to balance the assembly on the jack when trying to lower it. So, this time around I decided to remove things one at a time and it was very easy (again, probably because I used anti-seize compound on things and generally kept fasteners clean when I did this overhaul 9 years ago). Your results will vary depending on the condition of things, and if you have helpers it might be best to drop it all out as one. There are still a few things to be done though, such as disconnecting the brake hydraulics, unbolting the driveshaft and unbolting the 3 main connection points of the rear suspension (2 subframe bolts and 1 diff bolt). Since I did things one at a time, I will detail the steps involved in that process.

So, I began by removing the axle half-shafts. It was pretty easy. Leaving the car in neutral to allow things to rotate made it easy to get a good angle on everything, and a whack with the mallet had the socket cap screws loosened right quick. Once the 6 screws were out, it was just a matter of pushing the splined shaft out of the wheel hub. A long punch and hammer had it out pretty quick. Normally I would use pullers, but since I am replacing these (and the wheel bearings) I was not concerned about banging on things.






The shafts were generally in OK shape, but the boots had major cracks forming and there was a little runout in the u-joints.




With that out of the way, the next step was to unbolt the driveshaft from the diff. I shot the nuts with some PB Blaster, had a cup of coffee, and then came back to attend to them. You can put the transmission into first gear which should hold things while you loosen two of the nuts. Then put it into neutral to rotate it 180 degrees, stick it in first gear and remove the last 2 nuts.


Stick a jack under the middle of the diff and support it. Now you will remove the four 19mm bolts above it. They are pretty easy to get at with a combination wrench. Also remove the big nut and bolt that hold the diff mount/cover to the chassis.






Now it is almost time to drop the diff. The driveshaft may be stuck to the input flange, which is easy to fix with some gentle prying with a screwdriver. Once it is separated, you can lower the diff out, being careful to make sure that it does not catch on the driveshaft as it separates.




Now you should disconnect the hydraulic soft-lines that connect the chassis to the trailing arms. Make sure to seal them off. I like to use a zip tie and nitrile glove. This will both prevent a mess, and keep the system from draining out and filling with air (you do NOT want air to get up into the ABS unit…it is an expensive PITA to deal with).


Up next was the removal of the trailing arms. The driver’s side is pretty straightforward. A 19mm combo wrench and 19mm socket are all you really need. Again, I hit things with PB Blaster and went and had a cup of coffee while it worked its magic. Then I returned, loosened the nuts and slid the bolts out. As long as the bolts were installed from the inside, this works.




The passenger’s side is a little more involved (just a little). The gas filler hose blocks the outside bolt from coming out.


So, take the bracket and 22mm nut off of the subframe on both sides! Support things on the passenger side with the jack, lower it a little and the bolt will slide right out.






Unbolt the exhaust support bracket from the subframe.


Now comes the fun (read: shitty) part. You need to pound the giant knurled-head bolts out of the chassis. If you remove the cat-back exhaust, you can probably just slide the subframe down and off of the bolts. In my case, I left the exhaust in for various reasons, so I needed to pound the bolts out. Chances are that you will need to do this anyway. So, go into the car and pull up the rear seat bottom since that is where the bolts come out. Thread the 22mm nut back on and wail on it with a small sledge. Framing hammers probably won’t do much for you here. Smack away until the bolt breaks loose, and then remove it from inside.






Again, anti-seize compound for the win. It kept these suckers from fusing into the mounts and chassis. Still, the driver’s side took a hell of a beating to get loose!


Here it is, in its dirty glory. You can wiggle it out without removing the cat-back exhaust, although the driveshaft makes it a little bit of a pain.


Anti-seize for the win! No corrosion or other BS going on here.


There was indeed some BS to be found in the mounts themselves though. They were definitely shot to hell, which explains the rear end’s squirrely tendencies and the loud CLUNK I got from the rear end from time to time.






To finish the day, I pulled the rear sway bar out since I will be replacing it with a 14.5mm M-Tech OEM one. This ST bar is too stiff for what I do with the car. Unfortunately, getting the bar in and out is a bit of a pain due to the Turner Motorsport reinforcement brackets that bolt in through the trunk. It added an extra 20 minutes to what would normally be a 5 minute job. BUT, these suckers do serve a good purpose, and considering I had a chassis mount point rip out with this rear bar, they are worth the hassle.






So, that’s it for today. I just need to pull the driveshaft and front way bar, which should take 30 minutes. The new suspension bushings, diff bushing and wheel bearings are going to get pressed by a shop this week as well. Once I have those items, some OEM sways and DOT-approved brake lines I will put it all back together.

[bmwman91]

This is well written with great photos, good on you

Cant believe the front bearings came off with your hands.. unless you have hands of <insert name of superhero with strong hands here> "HandZo" maybe?? ;)

Thanks.

Ha, I just got lucky. I have read all sorts of varying tales of ease and woe from people that have changed these. They are supposed to come off that easily since the 210 ft-lb nut is what keeps them in position. Obviously water/salt spray/dirt/etc will have an effect. This car has spent its life in sunny California, so rust is extremely minimal!

[bmwman91]

Alrighty, I dropped the rear subframe, trailing arms and medium-case diff cover off at a shop this morning. I should have my parts back with new bushings and bearings in a couple of days. This car should feel like new with nice fresh rubber in the back!

[rzerob]

Subscribed.

[bmwman91]

Subscribed.

Thanks, glad you are enjoying the greasy toiling.

So, since my e-brake shoes are chipped and shot all to hell, I am replacing all of that stuff (shoes, springs, lock screws, tension adjuster). I also decided to order new cable assemblies since the ones on the car are cracked and rusty. Does anyone have any pro-tips for getting fugly, rusty e-brake cable housings out of the hard tubes in the chassis? I am soaking things in PB blaster tonight so they can sit for a couple of days, but I assume that this will still be a big chore. Advice is appreciated!

[2mAn]

This definitely needs to be a sticky in the DIY.

Also, hurry up and get this done so you can go take some new pictures ;)

[bmwman91]

Hey now, there are LOTS of new pictures in here! You mean I can't use grainy photos of old dirty bearings? Say it ain't so!

Also, any word from your pal with the stock sways? Since everything is stripped out right now, it is like prime-time for swapping the bars. I hate doing the rear bar with the diff in there lol.

Thanks for the sticky recommendation. I used to document my projects really well, and then got burned out for a couple of years. This is the first big wrenching project in a while in that I have put the effort in to document...mainly so that others can save some time and labor! Initially I was going to format this like a build log, but I decided to just really try to make it more of a huge DIY instructional experience lol.

[2mAn]

I haven't heard from him, shame I'm not closeby. I'd probably just trade you myself. Honestly at this point, I would post something in the NorCal group. Its a great deal that you're offering, Im over trying to help him out.

[bmwman91]

Got it. Yeah I will check around in there now and hopefully someone local will have parts for trade.

Any plans to be back up in the bay area at any point? I'd be willing to drive without sway bars for a little while if you are serious about the 20/14.5mm trade. Doing the rear bar with the diff in there sucks, but it isn't the end of the world. We could probably swap bars between both our cars in my garage so you wouldn't have to drive back down south without any lol.

[2mAn]

Mines a Cabrio front and iX rear though

[jpod999]

Thanks for the writeups and awesome pictures, I'm about to undertake a lot of this work as well so I really appreciate it!

[bmwman91]

Oh yeah, right. The slightly beefier rear that you have is the harder one to track down, and I would imagine that the stock 20mm front is pretty easy to locate. Since you are a cool dude, I can just run the ST bars for a few weeks or something if you want to try to track down a 20mm front and then pull them (and ship or do a bar-swap party if you think you might be in the area). No pressure or anything, but I'll hold onto the deal for you if you want. At this point is not looking like I'll find the bars before the weekend anyway lol.

EDIT:
Looks like someone local does in fact have what I need and can make the trade before the weekend. I think I am going to pull the trigger on the deal so I can be up and running (and done wrenching) this weekend!

[bmwman91]

Thanks for the writeups and awesome pictures, I'm about to undertake a lot of this work as well so I really appreciate it!

Hey, good to hear. I hope this saves you some time and busted knuckles!