Superb instructional. The tasks is definitely more challenging in the home garage without a hydraulic lift, but doable as long as you practice safety measures using jack stands with your hydraulic jack. I used a small bottle jack to expand the opening to insert the new springs. Easy peazy. Not everyone has a mechanic friend available. I had to adjust doing the work on the left side shock/spring since the trim is slightly different and took me longer it reassemble because I removed all the trim and forgot the sequence how the parts fit together. I figured it out reassembling the parts on a workbench. Isn't DIY fun? I also discovered bent trim connectors, missing nuts and fasteners from work done by the shop that installed my new AV system and amplifier. Par for the course. It's why I enjoy DIY, you know everything is replaced and attached correctly.
After replacing both rear coils on our 2007 E83 two months ago, we noticed that both rear wheels are splayed outward a bit (at the bottom). During a 3-day trip soon thereafter, the left rear wheel splayed out a bit more than the right under load with luggage and gear for the three of us. As we're going back into both rears to install new shocks and adjust our new parking brake hardware next few days, what should we look for in regards to correcting the wheel splaying?
Hi Thom, the shocks will most likely correct the camber you are seeing in the rear wheels. Aside from that, you will want to check the bushings for any tears or cracks. An alignment will also help dial in the rear. We had the same issue on this X3, but the broken spring was the main cause for our poor camber. Once we did this DIY and got it aligned, everything was sitting proper.
@@fcpeuro Many thanks for this reply...excellent...will do as you suggest re shocks and alignment. By the way, I just completed installing the FCP water pump / thermostat kit and followed your excellent video on that one. Certainly a challenge however do-able by going slowly and carefully ... most of the bleeding was done by the new electric pump (only a little bit of human bleeding, as you said the space is very tight ;)
Many thanks again Mike; our father-son X3 rear shock project went very well per your excellent video. Switching topics to cv axles, we're doing both front cv axles, hubs and bearings on our 07 X3 E83 and cv axles, links and shocks on the rear. The question is cv axle nut torque: there is quite a range of opinions on RU-vid as well as bimmer forums about the correct axle nut torque, from 200 Nm to 310 foot pounds. 310 foot pounds is above the max range of most torque wrenches and would seem to be excessive. There is good agreement however that the final torque should be done on the ground. We trust FCP and would appreciate your views on cv axle nut torque, front and rear (this might be a great opportunity for an FCP video on cv axles and wheel bearings for first gen X3s). Lastly, if you do such a video, it may be helpful to many to point out that not all wheel bearings marketed for the X3 include the magnetic encoder; thus many folks have probably been disappointed for completing their DIY only to discover that their ABS/DTC systems are non-op (the $20 magnetic card reader takes the guesswork out of deciding which side of a bearing should sit near the knuckle sensor). Cheers!
