Quote:
Originally Posted by tjswarbrick
Thanks!
Glad it wasn't just me. Same problem.
Unfortunately my assistant was a 10 year old girl who was already up past bedtime. 1 man pry bar attempts just made me mad. So I bolted it all back together and paid an arm and a leg to have a pro do it.
Sorry 
I guess I'm still dwelling on it because if it was "simple" DIY I'd source some BMWP springs, swap 'em out in the garage, and try to recoup a little by selling the Swifts. But if I've gotta pay a shop, it costs just as much to swap front springs as to R&R the entire strut.
Rears should be fairly straightforward, at least.
But at this point I just don't have the courage to try again. |
I was amazed at how much shops were charging to do the install, some quoted close to a grand before alignment costs!
Quote:
Originally Posted by BAN_M2
@ Matticus91 glad you were able to finally install these! Looks good!  |
Cheers man thanks!
Quote:
Originally Posted by chris_flies
I got the same tool, it was also too small. Just carefully used a crow bar, spread the knuckle gently, and removed the old strut. Easy peasy.
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Same, works fine just need to be careful
Quote:
Originally Posted by WDE82
Glad you went with the DIY. Struts and shocks aren't too hard but seem intimidating. Only a few potential sticking points.
For the strut clamp, I'm pretty sure I just put a large flathead screwdriver in the gap and tapped it with a hammer to drive it into the gap. I did the same thing on my E46.
BTW, the B12 Pro Kit is B8 shocks with Eibach springs. So maybe a better post title would be B8 Shocks and Perf Springs. I have the B12 kit installed, though I sourced the springs and shocks separately. It's a great pairing.
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I'm glad we did as well, it really wasn't to bad and saved a fortune.
And yeah I linked the tool in my post, the one I got was too small to be of any help sadly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gjm120
I assume you all are referring to separating the steering knuckle clamp. A tool is around $25 and makes it very easy and no chance of damaging the clamp.
I'm impressed you were able to get this done with the spring compressors in your pictures. I gave up and took the parts somewhere to have it all assembled. I was trying to compress sport springs so maybe they were a bit longer, but, it made me nervous.
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Like I mentioned before I have the tool but it was too small. When turned to the position that should spread the knuckle open it was still completely loose.
The spring compressors were fine, a little sketchy when tightening since they kept sliding around on me but nothing too bad at all. Had to compress both the stock Msport springs and then the BMW Perf springs since I used some of the stock hardware off the original struts.