2019-04-01 BMW Car

86 BMWcar

WORKSHOP WISDOM

Workshop guru Andrew Everett demonstrates a clever, time-saving way to change the front

suspension struts found on the popular E8x 1 Series and E9x 3 Series models

Simple str ut swap

I

f you follow the official, BMW service

instructions – or a Haynes manual

• you’ll find replacing the front
  struts on a 2004-onwards 1 Series,
  or a 2005-onwards 3 Series (the
  E90/91/92/93) to be a pretty awful and
  arduous task. It involves unbolting the
  calipers, and then fighting with ball joints,
  wheel arch liners, suspension arms and so
  on. However, the good news is that you
  don’t actually need to touch any of that!

Follow this guide and you’ll have the old

strut off the car in about 45 minutes, ready

to swap the springs and other bits over to

the new one – or perhaps you’re fitting a

set of lowering springs.

For some reason, BMW replaced the

old, taper-type ball joints with non-taper

types, and the idea is that you hold the

centre of the pin steady with a male Torx

bit, and then undo the 22mm nuts. That’s

the stage that makes the job such a pain

and, in the end, you only need to undo the

steering track rod end.

The other thing that makes this job

harder than it is on the E46, for example,

is that, like on the E39, the strut goes

through the hub but down quite a lot

further – you can’t just flex the suspension

downwards and hook the strut out like on

an E46. Thankfully, though, some clever

soul discovered an easy way of doing

them, and here it is.