More stuff seized...

[Ferret]

I got fed up of the car wandering all over the road, and with a suspicion took it to QuickFit to get a free alignment check.

Apparently after the lower control arms have been done, the car's running 0.5 degrees toe-out :( no wonder the damn thing's all over the place.

When the guy's gone to adjust them, both of the traitor track control arms are seized solid. Jackpot! More expense. I suppose these should be easy to change... but in reality they're going to be an absoloute bastard to get off?

At least I'll have gotten rid of the creaky balljoints I suppose.

Next question: what causes the car to eat the inside edge of the rear tyres? In 4k miles, the car has eaten the inside edge of a part worn tyre and is just about to get dangerous again.

Do the rear trailing arm units come pre-fitted with bushings or am I gonna have to go postal again?

PS... the diesel diff is well wierd!

[filip00]

the rear wheels are meant to eat the inside of the tire more than outside, because they have negative camber. the reason for all that is more stability in the back.

the solution? swap your rear tires every 10k miles.

[Barney Paull-Edwards]

What is your normal load? Mine wear evenly but its a saloon.I am sorry to say that I think you have a bush gone or an alignment problem, is the wear even on both sides of the car? What is the ride height, lowered can create a problem?

[Barney Paull-Edwards]

What is your normal load? Mine wear evenly but its a saloon.I am sorry to say that I think you have a bush gone or an alignment problem, is the wear even on both sides of the car? What is the ride height, lowered can create a problem?

[ironie]

subframe bushes...you will feel it tend to lightly bunny hop the rear, in turns.

[E34-520iSE]

My rear tyres wear evenly, & over a long period of time. My rears have been on about 18 months and still have loads of tread on them. The fronts, however, are something else lol - usually 6 months until the front left hand tyre is worn away on the inside!

HTH,

Shaun M

[Ferret]

What is your normal load? Mine wear evenly but its a saloon.I am sorry to say that I think you have a bush gone or an alignment problem, is the wear even on both sides of the car? What is the ride height, lowered can create a problem?

I have a suspicion that the back end has been lowered, the top of the wheels sit inside the arches...

It's wearing more on the left than the right. There's a suggestion of subframe bushings rather than the trailing arm bushings...

[Ferret]

subframe bushes...you will feel it tend to lightly bunny hop the rear, in turns.

I dont understand how the subframe bushes would cause this rather than the trailing arm bushes?

Is the subframe bushing allowing the car to sit down into the mounting more than it should?

[ironie]

I dont understand how the subframe bushes would cause this rather than the trailing arm bushes?

Is the subframe bushing allowing the car to sit down into the mounting more than it should? The body goes one way, the axales another, hence the correcting hops.
When the bushes go bad it is possible to take a prybar and pull the subframe from the body

My rear looks like it is lowed too, but I suspect it is just tired springs.
It looks real low with my two dead corpes worth of tool boxes in it

[Ferret]

The body goes one way, the axales another, hence the correcting hops.
When the bushes go bad it is possible to take a prybar and pull the subframe from the body

My rear looks like it is lowed too, but I suspect it is just tired springs.
It looks real low with my two dead corpes worth of tool boxes in it

I went out and snapped some pictoors:-
Back Right tyre low in arch:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Ferret101/Car/DSC00017.jpg

Back Left low in arch:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Ferret101/Car/DSC00018-1.jpg

Parallel box to show camber:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Ferret101/Car/DSC00019-1.jpg

EDIT: - You can see the difference in the front and rear arches in this shot:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Ferret101/Car/DSC00021.jpg

I'm wondering if the rear suspensions starting to collapse/has a weak spring - the front end looks like it's pointing at the sky at the moment - theres a silly gap between the top of the front wheels and the arches.

I'm wondering if the back left has a weak spring/shock on it as it's always the one that skids/wheelspins if I hoof it.

[Ferret]

This is the kind of tyre wear it's producing:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Ferret101/Car/DSC00047.jpg

The spare, that got like this before I realised there was a problem:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Ferret101/Car/DSC00048.jpg

[bsell]

This is the kind of tyre wear it's producing:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Ferret101/Car/DSC00047.jpg

The spare, that got like this before I realised there was a problem:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Ferret101/Car/DSC00048.jpg

What kind of TP (tire pressure, not toilet paper!) did you run in your rears?

I was kind of wondering why BMW requires a pretty high rear tire pressure, but maybe its due to the amount of negative camber they dialed into the back end?

My car is pretty low, as in you can't see half of the 45 series sidewall at the top of the tire. I wonder if lowering the car makes this condition worse? I've been running the same tires in the rear for something like 4k kilometers now and I don't see anything like your wear pattern. I figure I should as there is definitely some negative camber going on out back.

Brian

[Ferret]

What kind of TP (tire pressure, not toilet paper!) did you run in your rears?


Ha, running 34 psi up front, 38psi at the back...

EDIT- I think these tyres might have been a bit knackered from the start to be honest as I think they were rotated front to rear when they started to wear by the PO. The front had knackered LCAs and was eating the inside edge of the tyres.

[filip00]

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Ferret101/Car/DSC00048.jpg

this wasn't made by a negative camber, this is a result of either a powerslide or sth very rough.

[Ferret]

this wasn't made by a negative camber, this is a result of either a powerslide or sth very rough.

Yeah, that was caused by wheelspin I should imagine - but it shouldnt have been wheelspinning on the inside edge only. The rear left wheel is always the first one to go, it's getting very annoying. Even moderate power out of a junction - when the turbo kicks in that wheel starts spinning...

My last E34 didnt do this, and was almost impossible to get it to wheelspin.

Besides, I'm now wondering if the rear end has been lowered - as the front seems waay too high.

[Omega]

Ferret, don't wish to state the obvious but don't compare the tire-to-arch height from front to back. The front arches are higher and cross the swage line, where as the rears dont.

What is your sill-to-ground distance like front to back? This would give a better indication if the back is low. From the photos it does look like the rear has sunk and the camber looks like the back is squatting.

Most BMW's will grind out the inner rear tires due to the camber. If you choose to lower the rear you can buy camber adjusters to realign the rear end, something most e30 325 owners neglect.

Also my e34 always span the rear left as well. It's due to the torque reaction twisting the car clockwise (viewed from the rear) and unloading the rear left tire.

[Ferret]

Ferret, don't wish to state the obvious but don't compare the tire-to-arch height from front to back. The front arches are higher and cross the swage line, where as the rears dont.

What is your sill-to-ground distance like front to back?

I'll go out and measure the sils later on, but just as comparison:
Before I changed the front shocks over, the arch gap on the front end was a lot less:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a190/Ferret101/DSC00037-1.jpg

Now, it seems huge by comparison.

[ironie]

My camber is actually pretty straight but I didn't get a shot of it
One reason I suspect my car hasn't been lowered.
(click pics to open high res in another window)

My rear with a good 300lbs of tools sitting in the axle Without the tools there is a good 1-1 1/2 between the top of the tire and the arc of the well
http://www.lonesomecrow.net/smileys/drop_rr_tb.jpg (http://www.lonesomecrow.net/smileys/drop_rr.jpg)

Front
http://www.lonesomecrow.net/smileys/drop_rf_tb.jpg (http://www.lonesomecrow.net/smileys/drop_rf.jpg)

But I have the same feathering that will lead to your advanced case
and my car likes to bunny hop around corners if I am rough on it and accelerate before out of the turn
I know my bushes are bad as I was admireing them the last time I jacked the rear up from the diff and watched the gap between the base of the bush and the seat it seats in grow. Probably not a good thing for them to begin with.
The funny thing is, I am pretty sure someone put a lsd in at some point, My rpm's at 80 are too high (35k-38k or so) and if I turn one wheel while it is jacked up the other goes the opposite way. One of these days I should check the number. And it isn't a Total dog off the line. Then again I pays for my launches in petrol.

Getting wheelspin out of my 520 only happens in the wet or on a puddle of oil ;-}

[Evan]

(( off topic barney cant PM you)

[icesoft]

Don't the dog-bones (rear pitman arms) cause the toe to go out on the E34's? That looks like more of a toe issue than camber, notice how it's only wearing the shoulder blocks, camber will usually wear from once side to the center of the tire unless you're running some ricer-extreme camber...

The rear may also be saging a bit. I found one of these on the rear of my E34:
http://www.fp32.com/icesoft/e34/brokenspring.jpg

You may have something similar going on...

[Barney Paull-Edwards]

Thats the one mate! Rear springs and dog bones. If you get new rear springs I have a spare set of progressive fronts and shocks going V cheap. Off topic, EVAN E mail me.

[Ferret]

Thats the one mate! Rear springs and dog bones. If you get new rear springs I have a spare set of progressive fronts and shocks going V cheap. Off topic, EVAN E mail me.

I've just changed the front shocks for oe ones, though some nice shiney springs might be interesting.

Once I've got the tie/track rods changed, the front end is pretty much done - someone's changed the uca/thrust arms over to 750i bushings.

I've definitely got a weak spring/shock on the back left - I took it to a carpark on my way to work this morning and pushed it around in tight left and right turns, pushing to the point of lost traction.

If you swing right heavily the back left of the car sinks horribly, and if you swing left heavily, the back left wheel lifts and skitters badly...

Having the back left sunk slightly may be why I'm getting whining noises off the rear axle - as the half shafts are opperating in a position out of normal over the last ten years.

That reminds me, need to order a ball joint separator at the moment to change the tie rods, but christ I wish this rain would go away so I could play outside for a while. That and having to work to 9.30 pm puts a real damper on your evenings playing with the car :/ I thought I'd got rid of this **** once I'd graduated and left working for Debenhams.

[M20Turbo]

Take a look at the video in this thread, could be part of your problem. 30 min. per side to fix. http://www.bimmer.info/forum/showthread.php?t=34598

Joey



Don't the dog-bones (rear pitman arms) cause the toe to go out on the E34's? That looks like more of a toe issue than camber, notice how it's only wearing the shoulder blocks, camber will usually wear from once side to the center of the tire unless you're running some ricer-extreme camber...

The rear may also be saging a bit. I found one of these on the rear of my E34:
http://www.fp32.com/icesoft/e34/brokenspring.jpg

You may have something similar going on...