suspension help needed

[markus]

well guys looks liky me E34 is sleeping at my buddys house tonight. 2 problems we cant seem to figure out. We already broke 2 ratchets and decided to call it quits at 9pm. anyways the 2 problems I have are:

1. how do you get the thrust arm bolt out? BMW did a bad job designing this thing. No room to hold the nut.

2. cant get the balljoint on the centerlink separated from the pitman arm. how does one do this? other than that everything else is apart.

[632 Regal]

1' you will probably have to drop the cross member to get to the nut so you can loosen it from there. There isnt any room and if never replaced than this pretty much will be the only chance. You will need to modify a wrench to hold the nut upon reassembly under the weight of the car. Over torque the bolt from the front about 15 lbs to get the correct backwards torque spec.

2' #20 hammer and a lot of concentrated swings, they have heavy duty balljoint seperator tools that can break if a stubborn joint. First time I did mine I had to use a aceteline torch to heat the arm to get it to pop. You can also remove the whole assembly and do the Bill R method of pounding it out on the concrete.

edit: you have to have the cross member bolted in to get the thing torqued correctly under load. Grind and grind the wrench so it will slip out after torquing. I had probs removing the wrench a few times...I can mail it to you...lol


well guys looks liky me E34 is sleeping at my buddys house tonight. 2 problems we cant seem to figure out. We already broke 2 ratchets and decided to call it quits at 9pm. anyways the 2 problems I have are:

1. how do you get the thrust arm bolt out? BMW did a bad job designing this thing. No room to hold the nut.

2. cant get the balljoint on the centerlink separated from the pitman arm. how does one do this? other than that everything else is apart.

[markus]

lukcily my buddy has a grinder we can use. so we are gonna try this tommorow and keep fingers crossed. I was thinking about that but wasnt sure iof the engine or somethign would fall on us. Anyways when we get new ratchets we are gonna try it. Also I plan on removing the thrust arm, control arm and steering plate all as one piece. how would I loosen the nut for the control arm once its off? also I have new tierods, center link and idler arm going in. How could I tighten those without having the balljoint spin? these balljoints were so old and frozen they werent even spinning when removing the nut.

[632 Regal]

tighten them with non locking nuts then after they are set torque them.

there is soo much good info you should look at I cant even direct you to the write ups. I replaced the whole front end and it was still in specs and didnt need an alignment..

book mark this link:
http://www.bimmernut.com/wwwboard/e34/si.html

look up thrust arms?


How could I tighten those without having the balljoint spin? these balljoints were so old and frozen they werent even spinning when removing the nut.

[92E34]

I took my left one out by turning the steering wheel all the way to the left. Then I put my Impact air gun on the head and the wrench on the other side.

As for the ball joint side, Spray some Pblaster on the top after you get the nut off. Insert a BALL joint pickle fork. Then Get a 15lb sledge, pound in place. Hit on the top 5 times. Do this for about 5 minutes and it will pop right out. You might have to insert a second pickle fork.

As for your tierod. Torch and pickle fork. A burnzomatic works just fine.