Seeking advice about fixing my BMW's suspension.

Here's the thing. My little daily driver 1992 318i is old. The struts and bushings, especially the big important ones in the control arms, are worn and Pelican Parts sells a kit (Called "Stage 2" or "Stage 3") with Bilsteins, control arm and trailing arm bushings, shock mount reinforcement plates, sway bar links, etc. This would be a significant expense and I'm not getting paid until the new job starts up in July so I was just going to wait until then. Soon as possible though, because I don't want my nice new tires to wear out from worn/wonky alignment.

Anyone have any experience with the Pelican Parts suspension kits? They claim to have kits with Bilstein shocks that fit with early E36 318i suspension (Mine is, pretty sure)

But recently one of the rear shock mounts has started clunking. So should I be careful with it and wait and replace everything with the Pelican kit or similar when I start getting regular paychecks in a few weeks? I could probably do it all at once and bum a ride to work while the car is on jackstands.

Or... would it be better to do things piece by piece over time. Then I could get new control arms and maybe all upgraded bushings instead of just replacing the two main bushings that come with the kit. Would that be worth it?

I'd like to be replacing the differential and subframe mount bushings eventually too. Would my life be easier if I do that "While I'm in there."

Third consideration: This isn't a track car by any means. It may lean that direction if it ever becomes engine swap fodder but I don't see any full coilover/race setups in the future. This is a street car.

I'm relatively new to the world of E36 suspension so any advice is appreciated. The Escort was so simple compared to this.

Check with Blunttech: https://www.blunttech.com/ They are usually very competitive on pricing and know BMWs well; they may or may not have a package kit set up, but call them to see what they can do.

I keep forgetting about Blunttech.

The word "stage" makes me wonder if this kit then upgrades the suspension. Then, I wonder if what you need is an upgraded suspension or if a non worn out, stock suspension would be okay?
Said another way, would a new, refreshed "stock" suspension be more within your budget?

I would start with just replacing the rear shocks (and using the significantly more robust upgraded mounts Turner, et. al. sell) since they're already toast, from the sound of it. You don't need to do everything back-to-front all at once, just do jobs by components you will be touching along the way anyway; rear shocks and mounts as one job, front control arms as another, then the front struts in a job by themselves, and so forth. That way you're not constantly taking the same parts off.

Pelican isn't a bad retailer, but you can pretty much always piece together a kit of the exact same parts they sell at ECS or FCP and save 10% or more.

In reply to JohnRW1621: I'm pretty sure it's just almost all stock replacement components; They just make "stage" kits because they know many of the suspension components fall apart at the same time.

just remember with the rear.. unless you trailing arm bushing are totally shot.. you can worry about them last. They take the least amount of "load" of all the suspension bushings in the car. Definitely fix the shock mounts though

also check out fcpeuro.com they recently changed to warrantying everything for life and free shipping over 49 buck and price matching. Those policies moved me from buying 10% of my parts for my e28 from there to buying 80% of my parts from there.

I had a 92 325, they have front struts with the sway bar mount on the shock and not control arm.

I did everything in the suspension and steering in 2 phases. The front is not too bad to do, the rear beat me senseless with a couple of the bushings, I can't recall which. I ended up having to take them to be done by a sympathetic specialist.

In reply to SlickDizzy:

Sweet. This is exactly what I wanted to know.

former520 wrote: I had a 92 325, they have front struts with the sway bar mount on the shock and not control arm. I did everything in the suspension and steering in 2 phases. The front is not too bad to do, the rear beat me senseless with a couple of the bushings, I can't recall which. I ended up having to take them to be done by a sympathetic specialist.

That's what I've heard but I'm pretty sure I looked and the sway bar was attached at the control arm. I looked up the vin and I think mine is an early built car so I'm wondering if the 318 is different than 6 cylinder cars or if mine was modified somewhere along the way. I'll give it a closer look.

Good idea to go ahead and replace the front control arms (NOT from ebay) while you're there, as well as the inner and outer tie rods. The suspensions on the E30 is pretty simple to work with. The real bitch is the rear subframe bushings.

Also, I think that Turner Motorsports has the best price on Bilstein sports or HDs at about $580 a set.

the big bushings that hold the rear subframe on have long bolts that can usually be undone. Getting the old bushings out can be a right pain, I found fire worked best.

On my old 318ti (very similar rear suspension) the bolts that held the trailing arms on appeared to be backwards. I have no idea how they got them in, but I could not get them out due to interference with other parts of the car

92.. is an E30

Ok, more questions about this:

I've done the struts/mounts and new front control arms are on the way. Next I'd like to replace/upgrade all the bushings in the rear, including the big subframe bushings.

I'm going to try to do as much of the work myself as I can, so I can save money and gain knowledge/skillz. This should be manageable, right? This is outside my limited range of experience but I'm willing to work through some frustration and I think it would be worth it to buy/learn how to use some new tools for the job. I'm sure I'll get good use out of them.

So, what kind of tools would I need to be replacing bushings? Some kind of press contraptions, I assume. Big and small tools for big and small bushings? I dunno.

I'm such a noob. Give me a Harbor Freight shopping list

You may need a 20 ton press. Also, your sway bar endlinks are probably shot too, so look at those to know for sure. I was able to tap mine out with a chisel and hammer, but it was for the front bushings in the "lollipop" mount.

You can do the rear subframe bushings with it still mostly mounted to the car by using a special tool that is typically sold by BMW parts places (or renting one from someone on the forums). A lot easier than dropping the whole thing and taking everything apart all the way, but I suppose it doesn't make a lot of difference if you're not in a hurry.

In reply to SlickDizzy:

That's what I've heard. I figure since I'll be taking things off to get new bushings in the control arms and diff mounts back there I might as well just take it all apart.

former520 wrote: I had a 92 325, they have front struts with the sway bar mount on the shock and not control arm.

Correct. Actually, '92 e36 front suspensions came in two configurations - both unique to '92.

Early cars had both a different top strut mount and had the sway bar mounted to the strut tower (like the M3). Somewhere around January 1992 they moved the end-links for the bar to the control arm but kept the 1992 only top mount.

The '93 and later stuff bolts in, but you can't always mix and match.

It's not impossible to remove and install BMW suspension bushings with hand tools. It's not pretty, but it can be done. Jigsaw from the center housing out, to get pieces out in pie-shaped wedges. Big cold chisel and a hammer to knock the edge of the outer bushing sleeve out of the suspension unit. Freezer and a bench vise to install new bushings.

But it's slow and miserable. Compressor and an air hammer is a great way to knock the old ones out.

There are specialty tools out there, like the Bimmerworld RTAB tool, for reasonable prices. I just don't know what's available for the E30; all my BMW suspension work has bracketed that car (E21 and E36).

Jamey_from_Legal wrote: But it's slow and miserable. There are specialty tools out there, like the Bimmerworld RTAB tool, for reasonable prices. I just don't know what's available for the E30; all my BMW suspension work has bracketed that car (E21 and E36).

My car is an E36. So it might be worthwhile to invest in or rent a special Bimmer tool?

Slow and frustrating I can do. Slow and miserable maybe not

If you live near me (DistMarVa) you can borrow mine for the RTABs when you get around to it.

Just buy new control arms and the lollipops for the front with the bushings already installed.

Ultimately, you're going to have to do some of them the hard way, like the subframe bushings.

If you are doing the ball joints and wheel bearings you will likely be taking the control arms out of the rear anyway because it's so much easier to clean and press everything together off the car. So, my advice would be to drop the subframe and do the bushings off the car as well. That will allow you to clean and paint all the parts, undercoat/de-rust the unibody, check thoroughly for any cracking or deformation and deal with it, etc.

A MAPP gas torch is your friend when removing the old ones. Go out in the driveway, get the subframe hot enough to make thick black smoke and push. The bushings will practically fall out. If you have neighbors who do not like the place smelling like a tire fire... you can drill out the rubber, stick a sawzall in there and do it that way.

I would not replace them with rubber. AKG, Bimmerworld, etc all sell delrin or nylon replacements that are very easy to install w/o special tools. They sharpen up the handling, do not create much detectable NVH, and last pretty much forever. I'd also buy these type for the RTABs.

With regard to the ball joints - use the M3 part for both upper and lower. They are MUCH stiffer and more accurate than the old rubber bushing uppers on the non-M cars.

While you are in there - ditch the factory camber arms get a set of adjustable ones with spherical bearings. They make home alignments a LOT easier and are stronger than the stamped steel ones. Those OE ones can buckle under very heavy loads generated with very sticky rubber if they have any slight bend to them already.

Since this is a non-M e36 consider buying the reinforcement plates for the subframe mount points and control arm front buckets and welding them in (or having them done) if you have any plans to race, rally, auto-x on R comps, etc. They are cheap, and easy to do when the car looks like this:

Because, yes, you can drop the entire thing out of there like that in about an hour. Drop the rear exhaust. Disconnect wiring and brake lines. Bottom damper bolts. Pull out the e-brake cables. Disconnect driveshaft. Take out the three bolts from each trailing arm bucket. Remove the subframe bolts. Done.

Ok, this may be a silly question... From what I know I should also replace the bushing in the differential mount sooner rather than later. Would a stiffer poly material mount in that spot be overkill for a street car?