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E34 540 suspension upgrade - Oodles of Pics - Bandwidth warning
- Thread starter zaleonardz
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zaleonardz
Well-known member
Howdy all.
Here we go.
This is not so much a mechanical DIY, but more focused on building the shock towers with the H&R's.
1. Put up the car on four tressels as high as possible. (SAFETY FIRST !!!!)
2. Remove the wheels, put all four under the car for added safety
This is for the front side of the car
3. Start by removing the brake calipers (See my brake rebuild thread, but its done by removing the two pins that holds everything in place using a No 7 allen key). Use a piece of wire to hang the brake caliper on
4. Remove the caliper mounting bracket, remove the front disc.
5. Have a look at the bottom of the shock tower, (forgot pic, sorry) you will see there is a plate that mounts onto the shock tower, and where all of the control arms mount onto. Its held down by three bolts, remove the 3 bolts, and move the bracket away with the control arms still attached.
6. Right now that the bottom of the shock tower (or strut tower, or strut) is loose, there are three bolts on the top that actually holds the strut in place. Once you have removed that, you should be able to remove the entire tower from the car, takes some fiddling.
7. Unlug the brake sensor, and the ABS speed sensor, not from the hub, but against the firewall
Tis the yellow plug
8. Shock Tower out
9. WIth the tower out on the ground, you can start by compressing the springs using a spring compressor, I used 3 (tankies Uber)
10. With the spring suitably compressed, you can remove the top nut, careful your fingers as you compress the spring and noosen the nut.
11. Right onto the bench, this is the differance between the stock spring and the H&R's, should be a 30 to 35 mm drop
12. Onto the shock iteself, the Monroe shock that I had fitted perfectly into the shock housing, the gabriel shock was thinner but had a collor that went on which was exactly the diameter of the shock housing. I checked and this is perfectly fine.
13. You will note that your stut tower has some oil in it, Werner explained to me that the reason for this to help with heat transfer, so what you do is using the actual shock as a dipstick fill the shock tower with oil until your level is about 3 quarters of the way though.
14. With the shock installed into the tower, and filled with adequate oil, fasten the collar nut using a monkey wrench, careful not to cross thread.
15. Ok now its time to start building up all the components, start by installing the white plastic clip that holds the boot in place
16. Lets discuss the bump stops quickly, the purpose of the bump shock is to stop the shock from bottoming out, ie being depressed so far down that the shaft hits the bottom of the shock.
However, as you can see, my bump stops were destroyed, now what to do, BMW did not have stock anywhere in JHB, no scrapyard will sell it to me, and most of the spares shops did not have a clue what I was on about. So you phone up Werner who just happened to have a set, and a quick drive up to Secunda and spending some time with Werner, back home with shiney new bump stops. Here you can see a full one with my two broken ones that I removed... shocking is it not.
Now, the new one was of course made for a standard ride height, I was dropping mine, thereofer the bump stops have to go shorter as well (thanks rick), I cut them in half as you can see here.
17. So now you start building the bits back up. Add the dust boot back on and clip it into the plastic ring discussed in 16.
18. Place onto shock tower
19. Time to put the spring on, here I battled, I first tried compressing the new spring using three spring clamps, but does not matter how many times I tried, I just could not get all three to grip, and one would slip, and the entire thing will be skew..
This did not work
However, I evenutally figured out that if I just use two clamps, and use a vice, that its far easier, I battled for an hour on the first one, second one took me 5 minutes, so this is my preferred method.
Ok spring compressed, put back onto tower, just note that you need to seat the spring properly, both top and bottom.
20. Pop back on the plate
21. Install back the top boot, align, put back on the top nut, and you can slowly start recompressing everything.
You have now built yourself a shock tower that can be re-installed. I am not going to cover the procedure, its just a reverse. do the other side and done.
K.. Here is a extract from realoem with all of the parts as they get assembled, so this should give a better idea
I will do a post tomorrow with the rears and final pics of the car..
Here we go.
This is not so much a mechanical DIY, but more focused on building the shock towers with the H&R's.
1. Put up the car on four tressels as high as possible. (SAFETY FIRST !!!!)
2. Remove the wheels, put all four under the car for added safety
This is for the front side of the car
3. Start by removing the brake calipers (See my brake rebuild thread, but its done by removing the two pins that holds everything in place using a No 7 allen key). Use a piece of wire to hang the brake caliper on
4. Remove the caliper mounting bracket, remove the front disc.
5. Have a look at the bottom of the shock tower, (forgot pic, sorry) you will see there is a plate that mounts onto the shock tower, and where all of the control arms mount onto. Its held down by three bolts, remove the 3 bolts, and move the bracket away with the control arms still attached.
6. Right now that the bottom of the shock tower (or strut tower, or strut) is loose, there are three bolts on the top that actually holds the strut in place. Once you have removed that, you should be able to remove the entire tower from the car, takes some fiddling.
7. Unlug the brake sensor, and the ABS speed sensor, not from the hub, but against the firewall
8. Shock Tower out
9. WIth the tower out on the ground, you can start by compressing the springs using a spring compressor, I used 3 (tankies Uber)
10. With the spring suitably compressed, you can remove the top nut, careful your fingers as you compress the spring and noosen the nut.
11. Right onto the bench, this is the differance between the stock spring and the H&R's, should be a 30 to 35 mm drop
12. Onto the shock iteself, the Monroe shock that I had fitted perfectly into the shock housing, the gabriel shock was thinner but had a collor that went on which was exactly the diameter of the shock housing. I checked and this is perfectly fine.
13. You will note that your stut tower has some oil in it, Werner explained to me that the reason for this to help with heat transfer, so what you do is using the actual shock as a dipstick fill the shock tower with oil until your level is about 3 quarters of the way though.
14. With the shock installed into the tower, and filled with adequate oil, fasten the collar nut using a monkey wrench, careful not to cross thread.
15. Ok now its time to start building up all the components, start by installing the white plastic clip that holds the boot in place
16. Lets discuss the bump stops quickly, the purpose of the bump shock is to stop the shock from bottoming out, ie being depressed so far down that the shaft hits the bottom of the shock.
However, as you can see, my bump stops were destroyed, now what to do, BMW did not have stock anywhere in JHB, no scrapyard will sell it to me, and most of the spares shops did not have a clue what I was on about. So you phone up Werner who just happened to have a set, and a quick drive up to Secunda and spending some time with Werner, back home with shiney new bump stops. Here you can see a full one with my two broken ones that I removed... shocking is it not.
Now, the new one was of course made for a standard ride height, I was dropping mine, thereofer the bump stops have to go shorter as well (thanks rick), I cut them in half as you can see here.
17. So now you start building the bits back up. Add the dust boot back on and clip it into the plastic ring discussed in 16.
18. Place onto shock tower
19. Time to put the spring on, here I battled, I first tried compressing the new spring using three spring clamps, but does not matter how many times I tried, I just could not get all three to grip, and one would slip, and the entire thing will be skew..
This did not work
However, I evenutally figured out that if I just use two clamps, and use a vice, that its far easier, I battled for an hour on the first one, second one took me 5 minutes, so this is my preferred method.
Ok spring compressed, put back onto tower, just note that you need to seat the spring properly, both top and bottom.
20. Pop back on the plate
21. Install back the top boot, align, put back on the top nut, and you can slowly start recompressing everything.
You have now built yourself a shock tower that can be re-installed. I am not going to cover the procedure, its just a reverse. do the other side and done.
K.. Here is a extract from realoem with all of the parts as they get assembled, so this should give a better idea
I will do a post tomorrow with the rears and final pics of the car..
Gerhardm32
///Member
Nice write up as usual LZ! Would love to see the drop you got with this.
clutchplate
///Member
very nice dude ! I will remember this post for when I do my E34 ... cause I will be doing it soon...
zaleonardz
Well-known member
Hi All,
Would you believe that since last week sunday till today I have not had time to work on my baby. Suspension was done just had to put the wheels back. But of course me being me, I wanted to clean all my rims inside and outside properly first... hence the delay in follow up post.
Today I did just that, man I love my wheels but are they a bastard to clean...
That done, wheels on, and holy shite what a differance, the car is not even all that low, it was standing next to the mini, and believe it or not the mini is lower.
However, I then figured that the stupid sagging bumper that does not line up properly has to get fixed, and wouldnt you know it, all the clips are stuffed, so off to BMW on monday, and before I have that done, no final follow up pics.
I did drive her today, and there is a significant differance, she is more connected to the road, and turns feel sharper and far more responsive, ride quality is compromised but not that much. This was indeed a good move...
Would you believe that since last week sunday till today I have not had time to work on my baby. Suspension was done just had to put the wheels back. But of course me being me, I wanted to clean all my rims inside and outside properly first... hence the delay in follow up post.
Today I did just that, man I love my wheels but are they a bastard to clean...
That done, wheels on, and holy shite what a differance, the car is not even all that low, it was standing next to the mini, and believe it or not the mini is lower.
However, I then figured that the stupid sagging bumper that does not line up properly has to get fixed, and wouldnt you know it, all the clips are stuffed, so off to BMW on monday, and before I have that done, no final follow up pics.
I did drive her today, and there is a significant differance, she is more connected to the road, and turns feel sharper and far more responsive, ride quality is compromised but not that much. This was indeed a good move...
zaleonardz
Well-known member
Howdy all,
Pleasantly surprised by the bumper clips at BMW.
Bought 2 of the brackets that goes against the body, and one of the sliding clips. Total 350 bucks...
Goes to show, always ask the dealer as well, I would have paid similar at a scrap yard I am sure...
However when asking the dealer normally, factor in the cost of some KY
Pleasantly surprised by the bumper clips at BMW.
Bought 2 of the brackets that goes against the body, and one of the sliding clips. Total 350 bucks...
Goes to show, always ask the dealer as well, I would have paid similar at a scrap yard I am sure...
However when asking the dealer normally, factor in the cost of some KY
zaleonardz
Well-known member
navigator, thats my pontiac dude, I have a thread floating around, her motor is currently laying open in my garage...
So I have officially been crapped out over email and facebook for lack of photo updates. Since the suspension upgrade (only test drove the car) I have taken off rear bumper, replaced brackets and clips. Still need to put bumper back.
I also figured I want to take a look at the screwy alignment on my headlights, and then figured while they are out, I'll just put in some clears which I did today, and landed up with the nightmare of trying to return everything to more or less OEM as the stupid twit that worked on the car before me figured his design is much easier.
Crux of the matter, pics will follow tomorrow with a few cosmetic updates...
So I have officially been crapped out over email and facebook for lack of photo updates. Since the suspension upgrade (only test drove the car) I have taken off rear bumper, replaced brackets and clips. Still need to put bumper back.
I also figured I want to take a look at the screwy alignment on my headlights, and then figured while they are out, I'll just put in some clears which I did today, and landed up with the nightmare of trying to return everything to more or less OEM as the stupid twit that worked on the car before me figured his design is much easier.
Crux of the matter, pics will follow tomorrow with a few cosmetic updates...
zaleonardz
Well-known member
Hi Guys,
Long delayed, but here are some pics after the drop
I quite like it, ride is a bit rougher, but not bone crunshing.. I can feel her much tighter in the turns, and while I used to sense a bit of body roll, thats now fully gone...
The drop also ties in my wheels much better, they actually fit the car now, and I dig em...
What ya think ?
Long delayed, but here are some pics after the drop
I quite like it, ride is a bit rougher, but not bone crunshing.. I can feel her much tighter in the turns, and while I used to sense a bit of body roll, thats now fully gone...
The drop also ties in my wheels much better, they actually fit the car now, and I dig em...
What ya think ?
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