Subject: 335i Update to the update Author: 77320i : member since August, 2004 : 113 posts Posted on: 2010-06-01 00:17:18

Well, I was off up north helping my folks out getting the lawn cut and their dock put in but and managed to get in a round of golf even. Yea, yea, I know all the classic comments and you can all hold them to yourself. I like golf, I own a BMW, shut it

Coming back Sunday I headed over to the car and we got working on it again. I managed to get ALMOST all of the tar out of the car. The only thing left is what's on the rear seat and what's right under the pedal assembly. Also, the HVAC system didn't come out, the only part of the car left in I swear, so any carpet and tar under that was left in the car.

After that we managed to get the rest the rotors taken off, suspension out, both front and rear, swapping them to the H&R Race setup with Bilstein Sport springs and also managed to get the E36 318i power steering rack tie rod ends off. We've got the new tie rods but I wasn't sure how exactly they were put together, and at the time didn't have an E36 Bentley so when we ordered the tie rods we forgot the special locking nut...thing... that's used to prevent the nut from backing out.

We ran into a couple issues that were not documented in the Bentley or Pelican for that matter. Basically, for the suspension, everything came off normally with one exception, the control arms. These suck. They get old and rusty and collect crap and well, guess what, the nut that is used on the balljoint is a nylon locking nut. This means that there is less tolerance for the threads and it becomes VERY tight when you are removing on from an old, well used ball joint. We wound up trashing one balljoint and after this, discovered a few tricks to get the next one off cleanly. Basically, clean the threads, spray on PB Blaster, clean some more, use a wire brush and clean, then thread on a normal nut carefully ensuring that it will be able to turn all the way down. Once you have that done, begin to undo the nylon locking nut. If you feel it starting to tighten up, STOP! Tighten the nut back down a little bit, clean up the grit, wipe clean, and then start to loosen it again. With this back off, clean, loosen tactic it seems to take a bit but at least it works out well and it comes off.

Once you get the front strut assembly out, you are supposed to remove the nut at the top of the strut. To do this, you must hold the shock's shaft to prevent it from turning when you unscrew the bolt. Not a big deal right? Well the nut on the top is a nylon locking nut which adds a little bit of toughness. Now, on top of that, add in some rust from an old car and you have an issue. Basically what happened was the nut held on tight to the strut mount, which was pushed onto the spring seat which was fused to the strut shaft. No matter what I used I was unable to get the nut loose. I even busted out the strap wrench, pipe wrench, locking pliers, channel locks, you name it. The trick I found wound up being to use a vice grip on the spring seat where it bends to hold the spring. This held the seat and prevented it from moving, allowing the shaft to break free and the nut to move more easily reducing the pressure and hence the amount of force required to hold the shaft thereby allowing me to undo the nut completely. Weird and I'm still not quite sure how that worked but it certainly did the trick on the other one as well. I have a diagram in the pictures of where I placed the vice grip so you can avoid the hassle I had.

For the E36 steering rack, it looked like the system was setup for a power assist with a greased rack and pinion gear. This should be good for me since I will re-grease the rack and then plug the other holes and have a nicely converted manual power steering rack! Why you ask? Simple, less weight up front due to hoses and pump delete, and also less draw on the engine due to the effort to move the pump so more power to the rear wheels. If you remove the AC at the same time, it looks like the M30's pulley system will allow you to remove some bolts from the crank pulley and eliminate the extra steel for the AC and PS Pump pulleys so you will gain torque from removing that weight and increasing the engine response at the same time. Talk about a win win! Note, because of the design of the BMW steering rack, I do not think you will gain any more road feel as they are already a good design, basically a rack and pinion power assisted manual steering rack, or at least that's how it seems. Also note, to decrease the turn to turn lock (amount of turns from full left to full right) you would want to go with a Z3 1.9L steering rack. As I didn't have one of those lying around and they were expensive, I decided to use what I had on hand.

Now, without further ado, here are the pictures with explanations as usual!

Here's the picture of the interior and what's left. From here, the only pieces getting put back in are the two front seats, dash, and the center console piece around the shifter which will hold the power window switches, lighted of course. I know, I didn't sacrafice the weight of the power windows. I'm still a little unsure if I should convert to the manual windows and may do this in the future.







Here's two comparisons of both front and rear springs. Our springs were marked with a RED mark. If I remember right the red springs are stiffer stock thought the rubber top and bottom seats are 9mm whereas the other springs only have 3mm of rubber.










Here's the strut assembly, I didn't get any pictures of the disassembly persay but I did wind up using the strap wrench on the shaft to hold it. Aside from the side of that particular strap wrench being too big it did work well.







Here's the picture I mentioned earlier which shows you where I put the vice grip on to hold the strut mount to prevent it from moving while my other hand held the strap wrench and prevent the shock shaft from moving while I used the 1/2" wrench with a 19mm socket on the top strut nut.








Strut assembly disassembly. Totally disassembled and broken down to the basic parts.







Here's what's left of the bumpstop. There's not really much left of this bump stop and the shock protector was falling off. These are not going to be put back in as the Bilstein shocks have internal bumpstops.







Here's what's left of the strut retaining nut. Not much here, even after being cleaned up and PB Blasted it's still crusty. Note, the torque rating here is 95 ft/lbs.







Here's what's left of the strut itself. Yea, these were TOTALLY trashed, all 4 shocks were shot with 3 of them leaking badly. This one couldn't even support the weight of it's own shock shaft. Terrible. I had to drain the hydraulic fluid from the strut housing itself. You can't really tell it here, but this think it CAKED in the hydraulic fluid still.







Here's the parts for putting everything back in minus the strut. The boot has a piece of white plastic that goes around the threaded end of the top of the strut housing and this his how the boot is secured to the strut housing itself.







Now that everything is out I can begin to put it all back together by first placing the white plastic boot retention clip on the strut housing. This just slides on with a little bit of wiggling and pressing by hand.







Now you want to slide in the strut. To reduce the chance of damage, I left the strut retaining nut on the shaft while I slid it into the housing. This way the sensative part of the shaft would not get damaged as the tolerances on the nut is very small and is difficult to slide and could easily scratch the shaft.







The kit from Turner included the wrench for the shocks so with the 1/2" drive and a fairly sizeable pry bar I managed to get the 95 ft/lbs of torque required to set the struts inside the housing.







NOW is the time to slip the boot on. Not earlier, not later. Earlier and you CANNOT get the wrench on around it, and later, well, it will be a pain or impossible and also, with the boot on this will help to protect the shaft when you slide the spring on. NOTE: Do not slip the boot around the clip at this time as you will need access to prevent the shaft from spinning later when you tighten the strut nut at the top of the assembly.







Next, slide on the spring and the rubber seat. It's starting to look all purdy now ain't it?







Add the strut hat. The assembley looked like it was not correct in mine but I left it as it was. Basically it was in this order from the bottom up, spring, rubber seat, metal seat, washer, bearing seal for strut hat, strut had, small washer, strut nut, cap.







Now you are ready to tighten and torque everything down. Note, you should check the torque again after driving the car for a specified period of time. I forget the time but here's how I tightened the nut to the correct torque. Basically, I slid up the boot so I could gain access between the springs with my strap wrench. The Bilstein was much easier because it was a thicker shaft and the larger wrench worked better here. With that holding the shaft in place, it was easy to turn the 1/2" wrench and tighten it all down.





Another shot of the strap wrench on the strut.







Tada!!! You are done and it should now look like this!







Here's both of the strut assemblies together







Meanwhile, here's what happened to the rear suspension while I did the front:










That's all for now. When we get the parts for the steering rack we should post some more. Basically, we are almost done getting the car back into a rolling chassis state and will be able to work on the engine and tranny seal replacement and then we will be ready to work on fitting it in! Woohoo!



1977 320i
1990 325i
1989 535i 5-speed
1988 735i (Parted)
1997 318i (Parted)
1985 325e (Sold)
1985 735i (Parted)
1989 325ix (Sold)
1984 318i (Sold)
1989 325i (R.I.P)

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