Today I ordered front struts, upper strut bearings, and control arms (with bushings and ball joints) from FCP!

Any special tricks or tools I might need for this kind of task?

 

Jack both sides up. Otherwise, the sway bar will fight you.

Pay very close attention to how the springs are seated before you remove them.

Get an impact gun (air or electric) to get the top nut off the shaft. Hold the shaft with channel-lock pliers when removing the nut with the impact gun.

What brand struts did you get? Are your control arms bad?
Stan

 

Yes, I always lift the entire front when working on suspension.

Good advice. My BMW coil overs don't have a specific seat, so I'll need to remember this.

I don't have any type of impact, but I think I can work through it.

KYB Struts. OEM replacements, not high performance. I'm told the bushings are bad & the ride quality currently supports this theory. I opted to do the entire arm with bushings in place rather than try to press in new bushings.

Thanks for the info!

 

That is what I thought when I did them on my '02 S40. Carlos on S40Concepts recommended I get one but I didn't listen. I fought the first one for about 2 hours and ended up drilling through the nut along the shaft and splitting it off. I got an impact gun and it took 45 minutes to change the other strut. That said I have done other cars without an impact gun.

Good call.

Stan

 

Okay, so I finally got around to doing this. I picked up an electric impact from Harbor Freight and it helped A LOT! I should have gotten one years ago. It took 5 hours to replace everything listed above including coffee break, lunch break & beer break. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait till tomorrow to give it a test drive since there were several beer breaks today

 

Well, that didn't work. still clunking on bumps, and a weird grinding noise when accelerating or turning right. No sound turning left, or going straight (coasting, not accelerating). I'm at a loss as to what this might be.

 

Wheel bearing? CV joint?