you’re an absolute legend for this one man. people really spending a whole day tearing apart their entire car when i did this in 20 minutes with your help. wasn’t even hard to get out, thank you so much
Thanks. Glad it helped. I couldn't believe that it was as convoluted as the DIYs showed, so figured I'd just figure it out as I went, and made a video of the process.
Great video, thanks a lot. This way one saves a lot of time comparing other tutorials. I did the replacement also for E61 RWD car. Only thing that was difficult was to remove and attach the trunk floor witch is one piece and one does not have much room to open the screws.
Thanks so much for the vid. Just did this in my LCI e61 and the trim removal is a bit different (there is one single hatch instead of two smaller ones and because it only opens up to about 45 degrees it's kinda difficult to remove it). Overall pretty straightforward job.
Be careful not to leave the brake hose under tension as it looks to be at 8:10 in the video. Without the shock absorbed connected, the wheel will sink a bit lower than normal and stresses the hose. Good video though - thanks.
Good eye! I did notice that, but felt that although the lines were certainly tighter than normal, they weren't under any great stress. If you look closely, you can see that there is still a noticeable bow in the lines, indicating that they're not really supporting any weight or big stress. But your suggestion is spot on. It's always critically important to make sure that you don't put any real stress on those lines, as you are going to need them sometime. :-)
@@Mark_H_DIY yeah I'm sure your lines were fine. The only reason I noticed this on your video is because I did the same thing on my own E61 2008 535D last weekend while replacing the rear suspension bushes. But worse still, in my case the rear hoses are badly in need of replacement and have visible perishing of the rubber and feel like plastic. Fortunately I have a set of hoses which I had never gotten around to replacing so I'll probably do that next weekend. The suspension rebuild was a bit of a nightmare to be honest despite me having plenty of experience of DIY automotive engineering. I just didn't quite have the right tools to deal with the problems I was faced with, and so I had to do a lot of things the hard way. Also, the bushing puller/pusher kit that I bought for the lower wishbone inboard bushes just wasn't up to the job. It was just a threaded rod type kit and although pretty sturdy, it used weird nut sizes of around 1"1/16 or 26.7mm for the rod nuts also I was struggling to drive it properly. The thing is, my bushes were actually in pretty good condition so I ended up leaving them and will come back to them someday soon when I have a hydraulic press. That said, the balljoint replacement kit I bought for the integral joint balljoint actually worked pretty well but just couldn't quite seat the joint far enough to get the snap ring into place comfortably. I should have paid more attention to cleaning up the faces where it seats I think. The other thing I had trouble with was the upper "guide arm" which is the one which controls toe. This simple little arm had the bolt stuck inside the bore of the bush and although I could turn it fine, it would NOT come out no matter how much penetrating oil I used or how much effort I expended. I didn't have a reciprocating saw so in the end I had to make do with a Dewalt Multi-Tool with worn blades which were not suitable for cutting high tensile suspension bolts. That took a while but I got there in the end. A reciprocating saw is now high on my wish list! The other upper arm wasn't too bad to replace although access to the nut and bolt was tough to get it tightened back up. No chance of getting a torque wrench in there so had to do it with the double spanner method and just go by feel. I have just ordered a bunch of extra tools including offset ring spanners, deep impact sockets, needle nose vice grips, penetrating oil, extra 18mm and 16mm spanners plus a 24mm and 21mm spanner. I had a 22mm spanner but needed a 21mm. I did have a 21mm socket but that wasn't quite deep enough. I also had a 24mm socket but it also wasn't quite deep enough. I also need a larger torque wrench for the integral joint bolt but will make do with 200NM plus a bit extra rather than buying a 300NM wrench. So, next weekend I'll be tackling the other side but instead of starting at 12pm on Sunday, I'll be starting at 9am on Saturday and will be tackling the difficult bits first while the shops are still open for last minute purchasing of even MORE tools! :D
@@craigchamberlain there is a lot of great, real-world experience in what you just wrote, and I hope folks who find this video take the time to go through it. There's a big difference between the theoretically easy job, and the way it usually turns out. ;-)
It's always possible that BMW uses the same spec shocks and struts on different vehicles, but you need to be very careful about checking this. The easiest way I've found to do that is to look up both vehicles on the excellent rockauto.com website, and see if they list the same parts for both cars. If so, chances are it will work. If not, I wouldn't think of trying it, as it's doomed to fail. :-)
@@GamerPro-nw5lf I would doubt that would work. There are so many different types of E60, that it's impossible for me to tell. There are also lots of different variants of the other models you list, so the only way to know for sure is to look up the two cars you want to interchange, and see if they use the same part number shocks and struts, or not.
Just about to do this exact thing to my 2007 wagon. Thank you! (How bad was getting the lower long bolt out? It looked like it had thread locker on it)
It was cake, because I recently did ALL the suspension (I skipped the rear shocks because they seemed to ride just fine, and didn't squeak or leak). I was chasing a minor shake at 70+MPH that ended up being a rear tire that was just a tiny bit "lumpy", coupled with a rear shock that didn't have the damping to compensate. So that's not thread locker, but grease. The car spent a few years in the frozen north when it was young, so getting suspension bolts out can be less than fun - but once I get 'em out, I grease them so next time (like today) it's a non-issue. I just turned it about 1/4 turn with a breaker bar, then spun it out the rest of the (long!) way by finger. Just make sure that you're not putting torque on the shock while removing / installing it - I just adjusted the floor jack to put the shaft through the body to the right position, and then unbolted / bolted in the bottom of the shock.
Happily, yes. I've never had to replace the air bags, but don't think it would be a terrible job. I think they were replaced by a previous owner (love free - to me - maintenance) ;-)
They're KYB shocks (had great luck with many of their shocks and struts over the years). I got them from Rockauto (as well as the shock mounts). FWIW, I went with Bilstein struts up front (to keep the ride as close to original as possible). I've found (over a large number of cars) that rear shocks make very little difference to the ride / handling of the car - UNLESS the old ones are shot, of course. Also, I wasn't concerned about tracking my wagon, so "pedestrian shocks" are really what's called for.
