Rear subframe assembly swap-difficulty factor

[sreavis]

Our 332ti conversion is completed (local BMW shop performed engine/trans/front suspension/brakes swap-excellent job). Phase 2 is swapping a complete '99 M coupe sub frame and rear assembly (everything from disc to disc). Considering doing the swap myself (as the conversion blew the budget). Any insight to the difficulty?

I do all the work on my vintage cars including motor/suspension swaps etc. But have had a hands off when it comes to my wife's Ti and M Coupe. I have shop, no lift but several floor jacks, professional stands, torch etc.

If so, would one of the Bentley manuals be benefitial?

thanks for any response

scott in NC

[DustenT]

Originally Posted by sreavis

Our 332ti conversion is completed (local BMW shop performed engine/trans/front suspension/brakes swap-excellent job). Phase 2 is swapping a complete '99 M coupe sub frame and rear assembly (everything from disc to disc). Considering doing the swap myself (as the conversion blew the budget). Any insight to the difficulty?

I do all the work on my vintage cars including motor/suspension swaps etc. But have had a hands off when it comes to my wife's Ti and M Coupe. I have shop, no lift but several floor jacks, professional stands, torch etc.

If so, would one of the Bentley manuals be benefitial?

thanks for any response

scott in NC

Its not that bad. Its work, but nothing overly difficult if you have a couple friends to help.

I just did this on my old 318ti before I sold it. I can walk you through it if youd like, just PM me for my number.

[zboot]

I did this, swapped the entire subframe between my 318ti to 325is. It was my first time ever doing something like this. It took me over 36 hours start to finish over a 2 day period. I started on saturday morning. Slept 4 hours saturday night. Worked all day and night sunday and finally got to go home and shower early monday morning before promptly returning to work.

There was a lot of time where I had to lookup how to do many things or spend an hour or two poring over drawings. Keep in mind I was doing this alone, and needed to learn the jack points for the 325is and a whole lotta stuff.

Luckily for me, the 325is already had it's exhaust and brake lines removed.

This is what I did in roughly that order:

1. Jack up e30
2. Disconnect e30 half shafts from diff
3. Disconnect speed sensor from diff
4. Remove e30 diff
5. Disconnect e30 brake lines
6. Remove e30 brake calipers
7. Remove e30 brake caliper carriers
8. Loosen e30 parking brake cable from inside
9. Remove parking brake assembly
10. Disconnect ABS speed sensors and remove.
11. Disconnect brake wear sensor cable
12. Unbolt e30 trailing arms and remove
13. Unbolt e30 subframe and remove
14. Repeat steps 1 - 11 on 318ti with the following additions:
a. Disconnect driveshaft from differential
b. Remove exhaust system up to the coupler under middle of car
15. Swap and reassemble reversing all the above.

Here were the stuff that were total bitches and took up so much ****ing time:

1. Putting the e30 lsd onto the 318ti. It is much heavier than the ti's open diff and damn hard to maneuver.
2. Unbolting the 318ti trailing arms. The e30 ones were ok, I had more room under the car to work with. The 318ti ones took so much wd40 and using a large wrench to lever a breaker bar all within a really small space mostly on my back.
3. Disconnecting the brake lines. I broke some stuff on the ti trailing arms. . .luckily, I had spares from the e30.
4. Working with brake fluid dripping around your face.
5. Parking brake reassembly. It took me forever to figure out how to get the shoes back in and that was after it took me forever to figure out how the whole thing was supposed to be connected up in the first place.
6. Connecting the half shafts back to the diff. I torqued the head off one of the bolts and it took me about 3-4 hours to finally drill/cut/etc until I could get the half shaft off, remove what was left of the bolt, and put the damn thing back on.

I spent much of that saturday and sunday being very pissed, but i was one happy sob early monday morning when I was able to cover up the e30 under a tarp and drive my ti back home to shower so I could get back to work an hour later.

The bentley manual is helpful, but ultimately, you don't really need it. Most of the help I needed came from finding actual pictures of the parking brake assembly from some writeup online and the "poor man's supercharger" writeup on swapping an open diff for a lsd. Because it was my first time and I was so scared of screwing things up, I kept reading everything to make sure I was going ok. But if you already have some experience in this, then you won't need the reassurance of a bentley manual.

[zboot]

Originally Posted by DustenT

Its work, but nothing overly difficult if you have a couple friends to help.

I could have saved so much time and stress if I even had one person helping me. If you've got someone who owes you a favor or can be bought with hard cash or cheap ugly women, I suggest you jump on that opportunity.

[DustenT]

Originally Posted by zboot

I could have saved so much time and stress if I even had one person helping me. If you've got someone who owes you a favor or can be bought with hard cash or cheap ugly women, I suggest you jump on that opportunity.

Same here, did it by myself.