Exhaust bracket

Mon Jun 26, 2017 9:54 pm

Hi hopefully someone can shed some light on a little issue, my exhaust seems to have moved sideways and is now touching the cutout in the rear bumper and it's vibrating and driving me crazy!
I have looked underneath and the 2 rubber hangars for the back box are present and correct..... for info car is a 325i and has a 3 piece system....looking at pictures online the centre box pipework is showing another hangar near the subframe? Mine does not seem to have this....possibly it has sheared off? The centre box does need replacing but I can't see where exactly this mount lives on the body...
Any help or pictures would be great!!!

Tue Jun 27, 2017 12:04 am

where your exhaust-pipes pass under the subframe there should be an L-shaped bracket bolted to the rear-face of the subframe ready for the pipes to hang from.

If the bracket is missing-in-action then the the boss it bolts to will almost certainly still be present on the subframe.

Tue Jun 27, 2017 12:13 am

my 325 was missing this bracket,and new one from BMW is about £30,so i ended up getting one off e-bay for about a tenner,though it was meant to be for a 318 it looks damn near identical.

Tue Jun 27, 2017 1:29 pm

Thanks for the answers....however I have been under the car properly today and I can't find any evidence of where this bracket should be? Also the current centre exhaust shows no sign of ever having a bracket on the pipework....any pics of the exact location of the bracket would really help if anyone has any !!!!

Tue Jun 27, 2017 4:57 pm

A 325i exhaust should have a gearbox bracket, hanger just in front of the rear subframe and 2 brackets around the back box.

http://bmwfans.info/parts-catalog/E30-T ... st_system/

Tue Jun 27, 2017 7:27 pm

Those are links I've been looking at....just a thought do all subframes have the provision for this bracket? Because the subframe was changed a few years ago maybe it's not there on other models? Or are subframes universal

Fri Jun 30, 2017 6:10 pm

Ok I received my new centre section exhaust today and it does not have a bracket in the position to hang from the mount on the subframe that's not there?? I'm confused do I have the only car without this bracket on the subframe? How have both of the centre sections not had this bracket on the pipework?
Does everyone have a bracket in this position? Please let me know it's driving me mad

Tue Jul 11, 2017 8:36 pm

Just for info had the rear and centre section replaced today, I went for a klarius centre section from eurocarparts and a scorpion lemans rear silencer....looks good sounds much better...klarius centre section was a bitch to fit onto both the front section and the back box... for info the bracket onto the subframe was not present and the exhaust sits perfect in the aperture in the bumper....

Tue Jul 11, 2017 10:40 pm

jcm325 wrote: Does everyone have a bracket in this position? Please let me know it's driving me mad

Been on every E30 that I've seen. All that is on the subframe is a single 8mm threaded hole that the supporting bracket fixes to.
IIRC, the only difference between a M3 subframe and other E30 subframes is the position of this threaded hole.
You can see the supporting brackets in this diagram: http://2009.bmwfans.info/parts/catalog/ ... stem_rear/
Parts 2,3 and 4 are the ones in question.
Most E30s use the two clamps around the rear box for support, but I have one (auto) 325 touring that uses parts 11 and 12, which clamp around the tail pipes, close to the silencer, instead.

Wed Jul 12, 2017 1:20 am

I'm 95% sure that my subframe doesn't have the hole (87 325i). It certainly wasn't obvious when i fitted my new exhaust. I remember getting bored looking for the hole so just fitted it without the middle bracket, even though i had gone to the trouble of buying the bits i needed for it.
The oem exhaust i was replacing didn't have the bracket mount on.