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Ron Stygar Carl Buckland Dale Beuning Forums Help
From digest.v7.n345 Sun Sep 28 22:11:14 1997 If you have an E36 with oh say, over 70,000 miles, it would be prudent to examine your front end for signs of suspension wear, particuarly the lower control-arm ball joints and the control-arm bushings. If one day you notice a slight to moderate "clunk" when going up or down that little 1 inch drop on the concrete apron at the end of your driveway, (or leading from your asphalt driveway to the concrete portion of your garage floor), then thats a pretty good sign the ball-joints are bad. Noticed lately that when you are exiting/entering those curving on/off ramps that have the metal expansion joints, that your front-end kind of "skips" sideways a bit more than it used to? Theres a good possibility that your control arm bushings have worn, allowing your control arm/strut assembly to actually move from side to side slightly. You can also test for ball-joint wear by raising the car up on jack stands and then attempt to lift the wheel assembly straight up..if you feel any free-play going up/down, and can see the play in the ball-joint area, its the joint. (Obviously having helper here is needed) If you can push in/pull out on the wheel assembly, and can see the control arm moving around in the bushing, time to replace the bushings. (I've heard that on E30's, if a joint is bad, usually its cheaper to simply replace the whole arm...thats apparently not the case with E36's). This past Saturday was the Do-It-Yourselfers session sponsored by the National Capital Chapter of BMWCCA, and hosted by one of the D.C. areas finest BMW Independent Repair specialists, Excluservice in Rockville, MD.(12224 Parklawn Drive) I was fortunate enough to have the assistance of one of the shop's technicians as he walked me step by step through the entire repair/replacement process. I can't imagine performing this job without air tools, the two different BMW specialty tools used to remove/replace the ball joints and the bushing, the experience and short-cuts used, and of course the use of the lift. O.E Bushings were $30 for the pair from Steve D. in New Jersey (steved3_at_village.ios.com), and the ball-joints were $33.00 for the pair at Excluservice. I _think_ the replacement joints are of an improved design. They certainly look different. The difference was felt before I could even leave the lot. That clunk that I had actually grown used to? Gone. The excess jiggling of the steering wheel that occurred when rolling over small sections of rough pavement? Gone. The sideways "skip" that used to happen on those ramps. Gone. Steering feel and handling are much tighter, crisper. Overall solidity has returned. If anyone feels they must do this repair themselves, you can email me with any questions.
Ron Browne PS...The tech who assisted me mentioned that the above two suspension components were fairly common "weak" points in the E36 suspsnsion. I asked if there was anything else to look for, he stated no, the factory struts/shocks/springs are of excellent quality and the other bushings and upper control arm ball joints _usually_ last much longer. Although I was specifically referring to suspension components, he went on to state: "since you have a 318, you better keep a lookout for leaking coolant, BMW made a big design mistake with these engines. They have this piece called a Profile Gasket that always goes and needs to have the head removed to be replaced. We get lots of customers with this problem....." I replied with "Ya don't say"? ;-) |
