This the project I began this past March.
The six had no real issues with the suspension, just some creaks and moans when turning sharply, which, if you did not drive it often, you may not even have noticed. However, late last year I pulled it out of the garage to make room for a quick shuffle of some other things in my bottomless black hole of a garage and noticed the left rear appeared to be leaning a bit more than the right side. Upon backing it into the garage again after said move of crap was done, I took some measurements and sure enough the left side was about 1 and a half inches lower than the right rear. I sucked it up and began to plan a suspension overhaul.
My logic was that if Im going to replace one thing as in the spring/shock, I may as well replace many parts as long as Im under there. After all, the car just turned 21 years old and many of the parts are original. The car now has a notch over 120k on the clock so with that in mind, there needs to be some proactive maintenance done on it.
The plan was to replace the following items:
-All four springs
-all four shocks/struts
-rear dog bones (these eventually were not replaced, after evaluation, they are not original and were fine)
-front thrust arms
-front control arms
-ties rods
-sway bar linkage
These parts were ordered and came in over the next few weeks. Note that most of the parts to be replaced have bushings, and seals which upon examination were WAY over due to be changed simply due to age. The mileage on the car was not reflective of wear and tear, these things were just O-L-D.
My plan was to begin on the rear first given that, there are two routes in which to remove the rear springs from an e24.
Through the trunk, or by removing the rear seats. My first task was to evaluate which was easier. Here I began by looking into the trunk area to see if this was possible just because I was hpoing to avoid removing the seats.
In the pic below, there are the two panels that need to be disconnected in order to view/feel around the rear shock towers.
After removing the snaps that hold the side sound insulation, I could then remove the top sound insulation as seen here.
The L6 model differs a bit from the regular 635CSi in that there are additional sound proofing components. I figured this out through many discussions with my fellow sixers on BF.c and other forums. A HUGE amount of debt gos out to al those guys for their input.
After removing the top insulation panel and feeling around, I determined that removal of the shock tower components through the trunk was not going to work. There was simply not enough room to navigate and work.
Plan B, remove the rear seats.
Action time:
The plan is to now, get the rear end up for some evaluation, closer inspection to see if anything else needs to be replaced as in the sub frame bushings. These pics illustrate the process.
I secured an extra set of jack stands to insure a safe resting place for an EXTREMELY heavy car despite its small size.
The rear lugs loosened and jacked up.
Armed with WD40, JDs best and PB blaster I began to look at the parts to replace.
Here I examined the dog bones and determined that despite being dirty, they are good for a little longer. If a significant car show was not on the horizen, I may have added these to the replacement list as well, but in the interest of time, I left them alone.
The next inspection began of the subframe bushings shown here.
A little closer.
In the pics, I have my block of wood covering the bottom where you actually need to view the bushings themselves. After snapping these pics, I lowered and raised the car again so I could see the bushings directly.
Despite their age, and they should have been replaced, I decided against it due to the extensive time needed and a good level of difficulty associated with the process. Not some much difficult, just a real ball-breaker.
So I opted to leave the subframe bushings for the upcoming winter project when the six will be stored away during the foul weather.
I did some basic snooping around to see if there are any obivous issues that need to be addressed as long as I was on the job.
The rear shocks.
Again.
Here is the view up into the tower assembly where it meets the car frame. There is some corrosion that can be seen on the spring, nothing too significant.
Inspection of the rest of the rear suspension components shows nothing else in dire need of replacement, just some accumulated road grime.
Arrival of the parts.
Here my assistant has caught me doing the actual inspection of the rear components.
Ok, now that I have an idea of what needs to be changed, and how I am going to tackle it, I begin. With the car lowered again on the wheels, I begin disassembling the rear seats.
They are remarkably easy to remove, two screws under the front of the seat and out they come.
They basically slide up and out at a 45 degree angle.
With the seats out, I need to look around to see how to remove the deck in the back near the rear window. First the speaker pods need to come out to allow access to the other clips holding the deck in place. Note the long screws holding the speaker pods in.
another shot.
The rear center brake light assembly had to be removed also.
Once the seats were removed, I wanted to check the condition of the rear refrigeration unit.
This appeared fine, all the connections were intact so no fix required here.
After both seats were removed, I needed to remove the center console that rests between the seats. This was easy to remove, just a pair of screws on each side.
Once the seats and console were out, and the speaker pods removed, I could begin removing the rear deck to allow access to the shock tower connections.
A shot of the rear with all the parts removed from the seating area.
Showing where the tabs are, a close up.
These were held down be approx 8 plastic tabs as shown.
The difficulty here was not to break any of the parts as in the rear deck itself. Many of these interior part are very hard to come by when/if they are available.
Once the deck was free of the connections, I could pull it up and out part way. The deck would not come all the way out due to the seat belt straps threading through a slot on each side. I disconnected the seat belt from the bolt holding it on each side of the car, but, could not get the belt unfastened from down inside the deck area. Unfortunately, I dont have a lot of pics, I think I may have deleted several of the set. Although it is not incredibly difficult to intuitively follow through and see where you disconnect the seat belt from the side of the car (where its hidden under the side of the seats), and this was enough to allow me to slide the deck up and away from the rear to access the shock towers.
Here is a repeat of the rear deck and you can see where the arrow (ignore the circle) points to the place where the shock tower nuts are attached.
I was now able to access the three shock tower nuts to release the shock tower from the frame and allow me to pull it down and out of the wheel well area.
I had several pics showing the awkward access to the shock tower bolts, here again, I believe I deleted them by accident. Despite the better access from inside, they where still extremely difficult to access with a ratchet. The bolts were in just under the structural frame of the car, requiring the use of a regular wrench which made the process very tedious. There was limited room to turn the wrench requiring far more short turns again adding time and frustration to the process. Once you pull the rear deck off, you will immediately understand what I am referring to.
This is not impossible, just tedious.
Here is another view from the inside and the arrow indicates where the access to the shock tower bolts are.
Once both shock towers were free, I left the inside torn up and returned to the floor to raise up the car and remove the shock towers.
The rear towers/shocks were relatively easy to remove. Despite being on there many years, I was able toe breal the nut loose using a 1/2 drive ratchet and a small cheater. The single nut is shown here by the arrow.
Once the nut is loosened, the tower slides right down and out.
Some side notes. I have a set of spring compressors, I was not sure if they would be needed to remove the tower from the car, they were not needed.
Once the shock towers were removed, I wanted to remove the springs from the tower assembly as soon as possible, so, I immediately began to compress the springs (after they were out of the car) and then removed the self locking bolt on the top of the tower assembly.
Obviously care has to be taken with compressed springs, I however, had no problems just using common sense in the placement of the compression rods and equally tightened each side down.
I reused the rubber spring seats as I forgot to order new ones. I made the decision in part because they were actually in very good shape almost looked new. Once I removed those, I cleaned them well and applied a silicone preservative to them (several times to soak them well) and then let them sit for a while.
The shocks need to be released from the tie down strap at least 24 hours before installation, so, following that prep period, I was able to begin re-assembling the shock towers.
They went back together again very easily, I placed a small amount of motor oil in the bottom of the tower, this helps reduce friction when the shock rubs inside the shock tower. Replacing the spring in the seat, and attaching the self locking nut on the retainer prior to releasing the compressors all wen smoothly. Since this was done solo and needed two hands I do not have a set of pics to illustrate.
The tower went back into the wheel well and attached easily as well, the only complaint was as was stated when removing the nuts, they were a pain to retighten after the shock tower was in place.
I lowered the car and replaced the interior before taking it for a road test. Success! The rear part was done. Some of you may remember, I drove the car to a meet that night.
The Front suspension.Ironically, the front looked a lot easier, at least on paper. Boy was I wrong.
For the front I purchased another set of jack stands, I would spend a greater amount of time underneath and am a believer in safety.
My plan was to remove the shock towers first, and then begin removing the other components when that was out of the way.
Before removing the shock towers, I need to off course remove the brakes, calipers/rotors, these came off quickly, I have had them off several times and properly torqued them for future ease of removal.
Before removing the shock towers, I did a little inspection of the parts. Here it is clear that the bump stop is toast.
Because the control arm knuckle was still tightened to the control arms, in order to remove the shock towers, I had to loosen the nuts that held the arms to the knuckle. That would allow me to lower the knuckle and slide the shock tower out/off. These nuts, the ones on the knuckle were not very hard to break loose, I was expecting a real struggle.
I also removed the sway arm linkage, the condition of the joint can be seen here.
Another view from below.
At this point, upon inspecting the tie rods, I decided it would be good to replace them. I was considering this initially, but, once I have a clear view of them, they needed to go. The joint connection to the knuckle is circled here.
And here is another view of the tie rod connection in the lower right.
Once the tie rod is off, it is clear that the seal has seen better days.
At this point I could either continue removing the control/thrust arms from the knuckle, or from the frame, or I could start working on removing the old struts from the tower. I choose to begin with removing the struts from the tower.
This was another of the glitches I ran across. Once the knuckle was loosened, I slid the tower free. There is a cable that is the abs sensor unit attatched to the tower assembly that (I dont have a direct pic of) links up behind the rotor and of course "senses" when the wheels are locking up. This is attached to the tower with a 5mm allen type screw. As I tried to remove it, of course it stripped.
In the interim, I turned the tower over and placed it on the ground as seen here.
At this point it was late and I didnt have a screw extractor and everything was closed so I switched gears and began the attempt to remove the ball joints using the pickle fork. This can be seen above, and some additional below.
Here trying to remove the lower arm.
The attempt to use the pickle fork to remove both arms failed. I ended up going to rent/buy a ball joint separator the next day as well as my screw extractors.
When I went to advance auto parts, their ball joint removal set was like $150 (deposit if returned), so I opted to buy a single pitman arm puller. I know not the correct tool exactly but it was worth a try and a lot cheaper. I also picked up some cheapo screw extrators there (against my better judgement).
I do not have a lot of pics of this process, it was usually done late in the evening and I was just trying to get it done.
