another mtech II thread...

[PaladinReed]

After a year and a half, it has begun~...


these initial pictures are not particularly in order of progression,. the following update post will be.




started off and maintained a nasty little rain/sprinkle all day. but we made it through. Didnt get started till late. just got back inside.




everything is successfully covered in liquid wrench and I plan on having a number of brews and tear apart the fronts tomorrow. ^^



And finally, some (most) of the parts ive gotten in so far and will be applied to the above auto this week.

Plans: this will be my first suspension rebuild/uprade that Ive completed and I am super excited. Started collecting parts in late may and This is what I have today. Upgrades look like;

Vogtland lowering springs (-1.8F,-1.8R)
Billstein Sport shocks/strut inserts.
M3 offset CABs
GC camber plates (spec e30)
IE RSMs.
BMP Design TABs
BLW LTW replicas

Misc. Upgrades;
Newish (crackless) dash
new 13 button OBC
misc. switches
lotus white rear headrests and brackets
new ebrake console section

Paint and body;
Spraying wheels Alpine White II
Repspray/work on front valance
new tread

still waiting for sparco front strut brace, mtech II badges and splitter, skid plate, and mason xbrace.

Will update tomorrow! ^^

[CorvallisBMW]

Nice! Please post up some pics of the rear headrests when you get them installed, I've been considering doing them on my car but would love to have some pics to check out first.

[cactusjacks1]

Subscribed - looks like you took the best of the "cabrio suspension thread" and are putting it to use. Can't wait to see the stance. Pix of the work are a must!!

[Court M3]

Nice build only thing I'd do is leave the wheels silver on this one.

[e30this]

Nice wheels, Wonder where you got them from. :)

[Ruffian]

Also looking forward to the rear headrests. My wife and I were just discussing that for her car.

[Bimmerista]

Rear headrests are where its at! Sorry for the poor quality pic.

[TrentW]

Details on the wheels?

[e30this]

17x7.5 et20 LTW reps.

[PaladinReed]

what he said ^^^^

[PaladinReed]

Made some more progress this morning. Tim (member Philo) came down from KC and is lending an extremely helpful hand (many thanks) and we're getting down to it. Mid day update with some pics.



tearing apart the drivers front strut. Springs off. Having a hard time with the old strut insert removal. blasted it with liquid wrench. its settling atm. Any good way to get these off? Pipe wrench??


Poor Tim going to town on the manual spring compressors. Loosening those huge ~16in springs all the way out. one 24mm wrench turn at a time. Thats after about 12 minutes



nothing cooler than a fellow e30 in the driveway


fucking inspector gadget anyone? what you dont see is him launching 15ft into the air after jumping! :D





in need of a good clean~


engine bay shot.

So anyway~ plan is, put down a few more beers. clean up for the night and go get some grub and chill out and hit it again tomorrow. Ran into a slight bit of confusion as will be detailed in the post directly below this. Otherwise all coming together.

[pporcaro]

fuck spring compressors. I just used an angle grinder on my old springs. front and rears. yeah, they made loud noises and it was scary when they popped, but no one got hurt. are you really going to ever use those springs again?

nice work though. i subscribed

[machined]

Those 4lug LTWs are going to look sweet! Good choice.

[PaladinReed]

On to the problem.
The springs are a e30 specific lowering spring from Vogtland NA. They are made for the coupe but are cabrio compatible. Upon delivery and inspection some questions came up in my mind about their structure. What seems to be the top of the spring starts out fine and seats into the hat/rubber gasket with no problem and continues down in concentric circles until (what seems to be) the last ring which flattens out and is no longer completely circular. Now this is apparent in both and Im having a hard time thinking its a manufacturer defect but it also does not seat properly into the rubber boot and I do not think it will seat properly into the strut sleeve. Pics below. Any idea anyone?..



this is the apparent dry fit in the strut housing for the "bottom" of the spring. Shown is the end of the spring that flattens and is no longer circular and doesnt follow the edge of the housing.



similar pic from further out. the spring is a close match. Id say 60-70% around the housing edge but cuts in towards the tail of the spring.


^^
top


^^
"bottoms". see the weird curvature?

what do you all think? this is the ONLY way these would be able to fit. Im just concerned about the seat on the bottom against the strut sleeve.

thanks~
Paladin

[e30this]

The spring upside down?