shocks
Apparently, and somewhat to my surprise, there are at least a couple of people out there in blog reading land that actually want to know more about me working on the car. So, for lack of a better subject about which to post, here's what's happened so far...
The suspension on the car needed a little attention. One of the struts was leaking, so it needed to be replaced. The others didn't show any obvious signs of distress, but if one was leaking, the others couldn't have been in the greatest shape. So I ordered new shocks all around, with fun little knobs on the top that let you adjust the stiffness. So for normal every day driving you can have them nice and soft (well, okay, kind of soft), and then on autocross day you can stiffen them up.
Sexy.
Installing the rear shocks is pretty easy. Take off a bolt at the bottom, couple of bolts at the top, grab the new one and bolt it back on. Took me less than an hour and I didn't even have the car jacked up. The front, well, it took a little longer. Ordinarily, when you replace struts, you replace the whole strut, but for some reason Koni doesn't make struts for this car, they make "inserts". What you do is hack apart your old worn out stock strut, drain the oil, remove the internals, and then shove the insert into the tube that's left. It's easier than it sounds, there's even an instructional video on youtube. But on my car, someone had already installed Koni's so they had done the hard work, all I had to do was slide out the old insert and slide in the new insert. Easy as pie.
Or not. The old strut tube and the old insert were apparently fond of each other, and refused to be parted. I tried everything I could think of, up to and including complete destruction of the old insert, but I could not get the old insert out. What this meant was that to use my new inserts (and indeed, to drive the car at all, since I destroyed the old ones), I needed some "new" worn out stock struts that I could hack apart. Which isn't really the kind of thing you can stroll down to autozone and pick up.
Fortunately for me, there is the internet. And a whole slew of m3 owners in the Denver / Fort Collins area willing to offer advice and, occasionally, parts. Turns out there was a guy in Denver with old struts sitting in his garage, and he was willing to sell them to me, cheap. And I was even headed that way, to pick up Lara and the kids from the airport.
From then on, things went a lot smoother. Still not quick, but at least no major setbacks. Cut apart struts, add new inserts (coated liberally in anti-sieze compound so if I ever need to do this again I can get them out), and bolt them back onto the car. Of course, now that the family was back, it took me a week of an hour here, an hour there to get them back on.
The next thing I needed was an alignment. I had replaced a few other parts, some bushings, that change the alignment when installed, so I needed to get everything lined back up again. Alignments are no big deal, right? 30 minutes, maybe an hour? One of the "internet people" that had been helping me with the struts and bushings happened to work at a local shop, so I went there. And waited. And waited. And got a tour of the shop. And waited. The owner came and told me that some parts were pretty rusted up, so the tech was having a little trouble. Okay, fine. As it turned out, the camber adjuster rusted so badly it was frozen in place, and he ended up breaking it trying to get it loose. Which meant that they needed a new part. Which would come tomorrow. Which meant I needed a ride home. This was, maybe, 2pm. Which meant that Anya and Evan had probably just started their naps. I called home, hoping for really early or really late naps, but no, they had just gone to sleep, which meant it would be an hour or two until Lara could come and get me. Okay. Fortunately I had my laptop along and managed to talk the owner into letting me on his wireless network, so I could at least work. It was a long afternoon.
So the next day I went back to get my car and finally got to drive it. Considering that I bought it, drove it home, and then pretty much had it parked in the garage, up on stands for the next month, it was like getting a new car all over again.
For anyone with a lot of time on their hands, really curious, or really bored, here's the four pages of discussion between me and the guys who were giving me advice. Link
Next up, racing school.
The suspension on the car needed a little attention. One of the struts was leaking, so it needed to be replaced. The others didn't show any obvious signs of distress, but if one was leaking, the others couldn't have been in the greatest shape. So I ordered new shocks all around, with fun little knobs on the top that let you adjust the stiffness. So for normal every day driving you can have them nice and soft (well, okay, kind of soft), and then on autocross day you can stiffen them up.
Sexy.
Installing the rear shocks is pretty easy. Take off a bolt at the bottom, couple of bolts at the top, grab the new one and bolt it back on. Took me less than an hour and I didn't even have the car jacked up. The front, well, it took a little longer. Ordinarily, when you replace struts, you replace the whole strut, but for some reason Koni doesn't make struts for this car, they make "inserts". What you do is hack apart your old worn out stock strut, drain the oil, remove the internals, and then shove the insert into the tube that's left. It's easier than it sounds, there's even an instructional video on youtube. But on my car, someone had already installed Koni's so they had done the hard work, all I had to do was slide out the old insert and slide in the new insert. Easy as pie.
Or not. The old strut tube and the old insert were apparently fond of each other, and refused to be parted. I tried everything I could think of, up to and including complete destruction of the old insert, but I could not get the old insert out. What this meant was that to use my new inserts (and indeed, to drive the car at all, since I destroyed the old ones), I needed some "new" worn out stock struts that I could hack apart. Which isn't really the kind of thing you can stroll down to autozone and pick up.
Fortunately for me, there is the internet. And a whole slew of m3 owners in the Denver / Fort Collins area willing to offer advice and, occasionally, parts. Turns out there was a guy in Denver with old struts sitting in his garage, and he was willing to sell them to me, cheap. And I was even headed that way, to pick up Lara and the kids from the airport.
From then on, things went a lot smoother. Still not quick, but at least no major setbacks. Cut apart struts, add new inserts (coated liberally in anti-sieze compound so if I ever need to do this again I can get them out), and bolt them back onto the car. Of course, now that the family was back, it took me a week of an hour here, an hour there to get them back on.
The next thing I needed was an alignment. I had replaced a few other parts, some bushings, that change the alignment when installed, so I needed to get everything lined back up again. Alignments are no big deal, right? 30 minutes, maybe an hour? One of the "internet people" that had been helping me with the struts and bushings happened to work at a local shop, so I went there. And waited. And waited. And got a tour of the shop. And waited. The owner came and told me that some parts were pretty rusted up, so the tech was having a little trouble. Okay, fine. As it turned out, the camber adjuster rusted so badly it was frozen in place, and he ended up breaking it trying to get it loose. Which meant that they needed a new part. Which would come tomorrow. Which meant I needed a ride home. This was, maybe, 2pm. Which meant that Anya and Evan had probably just started their naps. I called home, hoping for really early or really late naps, but no, they had just gone to sleep, which meant it would be an hour or two until Lara could come and get me. Okay. Fortunately I had my laptop along and managed to talk the owner into letting me on his wireless network, so I could at least work. It was a long afternoon.
So the next day I went back to get my car and finally got to drive it. Considering that I bought it, drove it home, and then pretty much had it parked in the garage, up on stands for the next month, it was like getting a new car all over again.
For anyone with a lot of time on their hands, really curious, or really bored, here's the four pages of discussion between me and the guys who were giving me advice. Link
Next up, racing school.
posted by Steve
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