E30 Zone

hey guys, just spent the day crawling around under the car dropping the rear beam, thought id start with that first as im giving the car a full rebush and lots of x.mas prezzies and tlc..

there was me thinkin it would be a breeze eh.. lol at that!
its been a fukker!! to say the least, from start to finish! well i say finish.. i got to fit it all bk up again yet
if it wasnt nuts ringing off it was snapped bolts!! and if not that it was the bloody 2 allen key bolts that hold the beam cup to the underside.. they rang off and when i slipped i punched the floor with so much force i was pickin grit out of my knuckles for 30 mins!! well that was after i raged and grabbed the grinder and attacked em
and after it all i find my blow torch is fooked so i have no means to get the bushes out
oh yh and im also gonna have fun drilling out the tops of the beam bushes that have broke off in the hole all nice and flush!!

well i have to say i do feel better now ive had a moan lol

sometimes its better just to give it to a garage and pay for someone else to sort the problem jobs.

how long would a garage on average need to change the rear beam bushes?

danryan wrote:how long would a garage on average need to change the rear beam bushes?

When i used to use Moseley Motors, i would drop the E30 of in the morning around 8, and it was ready around 1-2....

the bushes are cheap enough, but quite labour intensive then. i was going to get danthe to powdercoat a spair rear beam and fit the bushes. then i was going to ask my local bmw garage to fit it. ££££

id much rather do it myself, plus this is the only job the the e30's ive not actully done before, you should see the handbrake shoes lol, there is a spot of about 10mm of meat on the whole shoe, the rest has broken down...

danryan wrote:how long would a garage on average need to change the rear beam bushes?

im sure i got charged £100 and i supplied the parts from a local small garage but that was a couple of years ago now.

been there done that,bonding is what it's about.



have a read of this.

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... &start=600

wow, theres alot more involved when changing the beam, bushes etc. might as well do it all properly. its getting even more expensive

tell me about it,

at least it'll survive Poddington 2012

Dont forget these once your on the rebuild -

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... c&t=208635

check

I know what you mean. I took the allen key bolts off in December, and the beam is still sitting on my garage floor! Allen bolts had to be sliced off, bush rubber had to be drilled out, it still took crowbars to prise the beam down, took a day to bash the old bushes out and wind the new ones in...

and I still haven't done the trailing arm bushes yet! 20 broken nuts and a whole meter of broken threaded bar, and not one of the coonts has gone back in.

Still, at least the car and I are having some quality time together.

Grrrmachine wrote:
Still, at least the car and I are having some quality time together.

immit

I just dont understand how so many people make such a meal out of removing a rear beam

DanThe wrote:I just dont understand how so many people make such a meal out of removing a rear beam

beam virgins

magpie wrote:

DanThe wrote:I just dont understand how so many people make such a meal out of removing a rear beam

beam virgins

Read some threads on here before you start then!

I'm due to do this over the coming months, how does it compare to an e36? As I did my tourer a couple of months back and apart from removing the old bushes it was a piece of cake. Obviously the e30 has been exposed to crust for 10 years longer

DanThe wrote:

magpie wrote:

DanThe wrote:I just dont understand how so many people make such a meal out of removing a rear beam

beam virgins

Read some threads on here before you start then!

some like to share their pain .

I will break it down into 12 easy steps -

1 Remove exhaust
2 Remove driveshafts
3 Separate diff from prop and remove diff from beam
4 Release handbrake cables from lever and pull through to outside of car, if seized use 5 mole grips to free from body tubes.
6 Separate ARB links from trailing arms
7 Separate brake pipe hard line from flexi at trailing arm to body point
8 Separate damper from trailing arm
9 Remove rear springs
10 Remove trailing arms
11 Remove bush base plates
12 Remove rear beam BY HAND WITH EASE, no pry bars, sledge hammers, gas axe, blood, swearing or jumping up and down like a red faced farmer required

clear as mud Dan

DanThe wrote:I will break it down into 12 easy steps -

1 Remove exhaust
2 Remove driveshafts
3 Separate diff from prop and remove diff from beam
4 Release handbrake cables from lever and pull through to outside of car, if seized use 5 mole grips to free from body tubes.
6 Separate ARB links from trailing arms
7 Separate brake pipe hard line from flexi at trailing arm to body point
8 Separate damper from trailing arm
9 Remove rear springs
10 Remove trailing arms
11 Remove bush base plates
12 Remove rear beam BY HAND WITH EASE, no pry bars, sledge hammers, gas axe, blood, swearing or jumping up and down like a red faced farmer required

wow if i knew it was that easy i would have got the missus to do it
you make it look so easy, if only...
yes i am a beam virgin but gotta learn somehow

DanThe wrote:I will break it down into 12 easy steps -

1 Remove exhaust - using an angle grinder to lop off the nuts
2 Remove driveshafts with whatever poxy allen key you can get into the nuts
3 Separate diff from prop and remove diff from beam using one arm to support the 40kg while you effortlessly undo the nuts located on top of the thing
4 Release handbrake cables from lever and pull through to outside of car, if seized use 5 mole grips to free from body tubes which you will manipulate with all five of your arms at once...

Piece of cake

What most dont understand is by leaving the diff and arms attached you are making it much more difficult to remove, the weight all at the back is just twisting the beam bushes against the studs, if you knock the studs out the twisting force is on the alloy sleeves which are located in the body, the weight/twisting force (not corrosion) will break these off as many experience.

It is possible to remove the lot in one go but you can only do it by keeping the weight off the beam as it comes down which is very difficult with the car on axle stands.

DanThe wrote:I will break it down into 12 easy steps -

1 Remove exhaust
2 Remove driveshafts
3 Separate diff from prop and remove diff from beam
4 Release handbrake cables from lever and pull through to outside of car, if seized use 5 mole grips to free from body tubes.
6 Separate ARB links from trailing arms
7 Separate brake pipe hard line from flexi at trailing arm to body point
8 Separate damper from trailing arm
9 Remove rear springs
10 Remove trailing arms
11 Remove bush base plates
12 Remove rear beam BY HAND WITH EASE, no pry bars, sledge hammers, gas axe, blood, swearing or jumping up and down like a red faced farmer required

Did you mean to miss hammering the bolts back into the car?

I have to say that I followed those exact steps and the beam didn't just drop off. The metal tubes in the bushes had bound themselves to the car. So I got an old flat blade screwdriver, put it down the hole from the inside of the car so it stuck out the bottom, then wound the biggest screw extractor I had into the steel bush liner so it gripped both the screw driver and wall of the liner, then hit the screw driver a few times from the inside and it eventually fell out. I don't care if it's a bodge, it worked for me.



I had tried with the crowbar, but the rubber just stretched, my way (if you use an already knackered screwdriver) you don't stand a chance of ruining anything.

Well yeah thats one way to do it, you can also remove the bolt, push it up the sleeve from underside and wiggle it free

All depends on what kind of life your car has had..im positive the rear end on mine had never been apart untill i got to it

i didnt enjoy it at all! handbrake cables seized..bushes seized onto the bolts..

but the end result speaks for itself well worth the late nights after work and hassle!

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... sc&start=0

^^ go to page 3 if you want to see my rear end overhaul mate ^^

i totally enjoyed snapping bolts and getting covered in sealer,underseal and waxoil .

nice

i did leave the arms on but did remove the diff for the twisting reason. was still a pain though.. well at least that job is jobbed

next up the front end

Yep been there done that!! Worst job on my e30 so far!

DanThe wrote:I will break it down into 12 easy steps -

1 Remove exhaust
2 Remove driveshafts
3 Separate diff from prop and remove diff from beam
4 Release handbrake cables from lever and pull through to outside of car, if seized use 5 mole grips to free from body tubes.
6 Separate ARB links from trailing arms
7 Separate brake pipe hard line from flexi at trailing arm to body point
8 Separate damper from trailing arm
9 Remove rear springs
10 Remove trailing arms
11 Remove bush base plates
12 Remove rear beam BY HAND WITH EASE, no pry bars, sledge hammers, gas axe, blood, swearing or jumping up and down like a red faced farmer required

Mine went pretty much like this, except for stage 12!
The bush centres were wearing some corrosion which had kindly bonded them pretty well to the mounting points. Luckily I had a piece of foot long straight bar which fitted almost perfectly into (or should that be up? ) the bush. A bit of WD40 and some hefty hammer blows fore and aft did the trick, but it was by no means a breeze.

After doing a few of these the best way i've found is to drill/saw out the rubber and remove the beam then gently tap the tube side to side, or use a round pry bar up the hole and wiggle it by hand.

No-one else does these in place then? I've done these a few times just by removing wheel, lower shock bolt, undoing subframe bush nut and carrier etc, whacking the bolt through into the interior then getting the bmw extendable wheel wrench, sticking it into the subframe bush and giving it a good wiggle (oo er) (actually sometimes needs the persuader to come free) to free the subframe. Then burn/crowbar out old bush, drift in new one. On a good day, half hour a side.