E30 Zone

Just need some advice on lowering the front of my 325is. I'm happy with the ride height at the rear but looks a little high in the nose, just had some new lower springs fitted today but has hardly made a difference. I only want to go down 15 to 20mm.

let it settle. it'll take a few miles

As above.

Don't get dis-heartened just yet. It will settle

empty the boot lol

tassiedevil wrote:Just need some advice on lowering the front of my 325is. I'm happy with the ride height at the rear but looks a little high in the nose, just had some new lower springs fitted today but has hardly made a difference. I only want to go down 15 to 20mm.

Cough

60mm/40mm drop before and after, you know you want to

Is it possible to change the front springs without removing the struts from the car (i.e., avoiding all the pollava of having to remove the calipers, track rod ends, anti-roll bar fittings, etc, etc.) - can they just be dropped and pulled out of the arches far enough to change the springs?

Thanks!

in a word
nope

Changing springs without removing the front struts is possible, but it is a bigger hassle than removing the front legs.

Now I'm even more confused!

How come it's a bigger hassle than removing the struts altogether (which on the face of it, sounds an almighty hassle?) - I guess it helps to have a number of people pulling the struts away from the body while you attempt to remove the spring (I have a pair of Draper spring compressors which are quite good...)

Cheers for any advice.

To remove the front legs you simply need to split the two ball joints, undo the calpier bolts and undo the top mount nuts. Then its a quick spring swap as mentioned above.

To change springs without removing the legs, you need to get you compressors in the limited space available in the strut tower, opposite eachother which makes it tricky, compress the spring, then undo the top nuts, remove the top mounts and other bits, then you quickly need to compress the shock and pull the spring away, making sure you don't scrape your wheel arch in the process (minimal clearance when doing this) Then you have to get the springs swapped, put the new ones on, totally compressed, and thenyou have to line everything up and decompress the spring. Your compressors will be rubbing away on you strut tower, and its basically a pain in the arse, and will require 2 people.

First method is so much easier!

Thanks for explaining it - I see what you mean now! Sorry for the dumbarse questions - I just hoped to save a bit of graft with a short-cut method

I remember the pain I had with an old Merc 190E compressing the springs enough to fit new spring pads (someone had lowered it too much and I needed to raise it again.)

A job best left 'til warmer/dryer weather maybe...

Cheers,