RSFB

[WDE82]

Originally Posted by Biginboca

After reading about them in this thread I decided to install Condor Speed Shop UHMW subframe inserts this weekend.

This is as low as I could get this drivers front corner of the subframe to drop with 3 bolts still in on my car (328 but I think would be same for 1 series). The trick that worked for me was to support the subframe with a jack and get all 4 subframe bolts all the way out (only remove one at the time so the subframe stays in place!!) and then give them each like 5 turns reinserted. Then you can remove your jack and go back to remove the one bolt from the bushing you want to work on and then tighten the mounting screw diagonal from the screw you removed. The subframe teeter totters and as you tighten the diagonal screw the corner of the subframe with the missing screw will lower more.



This is why I could not lower any more than what I showed. On the drivers side on my car there's 2 soft brake lines that connect the hard lines on the chassis to the hard lines on the subframe. And they get tight! Watch out for them:



So here's where I hit a snag. The brake lines are tight and it isn't looking like there will be enough room to get this top insert installed...



I went ahead anyway and used the eBay tool to remove the bushing. It worked great! This tool is a lifesaver and the bushing removal was super easy with it. No issues at all!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/BMW-E82-E90...-/333158778716





So once that was out back to the problem. There just wasn't enough room to get the insert installed. And I did not want to mess with disconnecting the brake lines and actually drop the subframe out of the car. So time to improvise...

I decided to cut the top front inserts in half. I still used both the halves i made with my cut in the subframe though, so in essence I made a 3 piece bushing out of the 2 piece bushings . I decided to do this when I checked the stack height of the 2 bushing halves and found they were about 2-3mm shorter than the subframe housing they press into. So that means they actually wouldn't touch end to end when installed, there would be a 2-3mm gap between them. So I figured I would make a cut and remove another 2mm of material but get the inserts installed easily. There's a metal sleeve that goes inside the inserts that is what the bolt tightens against. The plastic pieces just float around that metal insert.



This is where I cut. Seems to me like these bushing inserts should be made with the bottom part 2/3 the thickness and the top part 1/3 the thickness. Then they would be an easy install without dropping the subframe too far at all.



After the bushings were cut I drew a line on them with a sharpy so I could keep them oriented the same as they were before the cut. It seemingly wouldn't matter but if there were any high and low spots where I cut this way they would mate more squarely:



I installed the now 3 piece inserts with the metal sleeve they came with and everything went together nice and snug.



For the rear inserts they went in easily no cutting required. Just installed as they came. After it was done I was so glad to be rid of all this junk! The whiteline inserts were garbage from the start...



I was only able to do a short test drive after install. I just wanted to confirm the alignment didn't change, which it didn't. I noticed a little more nvh with these vs stock rubber with whiteline inserts. My diff has some whine it's on upgraded mounts and the whine went from like a 5 out of 10 to like a 6 out of 10 with these inserts. So even though the word is that they wouldn't change NVH they will slightly. Very glad I didn't do aluminum inserts I would not want more NVH than I have and I would not want to have to completely drop the subframe.

Hopefully someone will wise up and start making a 1/3 & 2/3 bushing insert set for the fronts. Can't see any reason the inserts need to be a 1/2 & 1/2 set.

Um dude you're supposed to just disconnect the brake lines. You just plug them and/or wedge the brake pedal all the way down to keep the system from draining. Bleeding brakes is trivial and takes minimal time.

[Biginboca]

Originally Posted by WDE82

Um dude you're supposed to just disconnect the brake lines. You just plug them and/or wedge the brake pedal all the way down to keep the system from draining. Bleeding brakes is trivial and takes minimal time.

I didn’t want to risk having to bleed the abs pump and deal with all the headaches if air got in there. To me the risk of annoying complications was lower with cutting the bushings than disconnecting the brake lines, although I think the time/effort involved is much less with cutting the bushing. I ran a piece of tape around them as a guide and band saw cuts them in less than 20 seconds because the UHMW plastic is very easy to work with.

I was also working alone and after fussing with all the screws it’s looked like there was no way to get the subframe lower than that with 3 screws still in it. Even if I disconnected the brake lines it seemed to me I would only be able to get the subframe lower than I had it by taking a second screw out (2 or more screws out total) and I felt like it starts to get sketchy working on it balanced on a jack or 2 jacks. That stuff makes me nervous I don’t want my kids to come outside and find me on the driveway crushed under the subframe, and then I would not be able to come here and share what I did with you lol.

It might sound paranoid but I do always consider that because I’ve seen jacks fail and even know of one person who was crushed when a jack stand failed while he was under the car, so I always try to play it safe.

So that’s also why I did it this way lol

[WDE82]

Originally Posted by Biginboca

I didn't want to risk having to bleed the abs pump and deal with all the headaches if air got in there. To me the risk of annoying complications was lower with cutting the bushings than disconnecting the brake lines, although I think the time/effort involved is much less with cutting the bushing. I ran a piece of tape around them as a guide and band saw cuts them in less than 20 seconds because the UHMW plastic is very easy to work with.

I was also working alone and after fussing with all the screws it's looked like there was no way to get the subframe lower than that with 3 screws still in it. Even if I disconnected the brake lines it seemed to me I would only be able to get the subframe lower than I had it by taking a second screw out (2 or more screws out total) and I felt like it starts to get sketchy working on it balanced on a jack or 2 jacks. That stuff makes me nervous I don't want my kids to come outside and find me on the driveway crushed under the subframe, and then I would not be able to come here and share what I did with you lol.

It might sound paranoid but I do always consider that because I've seen jacks fail and even know of one person who was crushed when a jack stand failed while he was under the car, so I always try to play it safe.

So that's also why I did it this way lol

The brake pedal being depressed fully will keep the fluid in.

Get on Amazon and also buy some silicone plugs for future use. They're good to have on hand if you need to remove a caliper or other brake lines for some reason.

As far as the subframe falling. It only weighs a few hundred pounds. For your jack that's nothing. You undo the front two fully and the rear two about half way. With the lines disconnected there is more than enough clearance.

[gjm120]

Originally Posted by Biginboca

After reading about them in this thread I decided to install Condor Speed Shop UHMW subframe inserts this weekend.

This is as low as I could get this drivers front corner of the subframe to drop with 3 bolts still in on my car (328 but I think would be same for 1 series). The trick that worked for me was to support the subframe with a jack and get all 4 subframe bolts all the way out (only remove one at the time so the subframe stays in place!!) and then give them each like 5 turns reinserted. Then you can remove your jack and go back to remove the one bolt from the bushing you want to work on and then tighten the mounting screw diagonal from the screw you removed. The subframe teeter totters and as you tighten the diagonal screw the corner of the subframe with the missing screw will lower more.

This is why I could not lower any more than what I showed. On the drivers side on my car there’s 2 soft brake lines that connect the hard lines on the chassis to the hard lines on the subframe. And they get tight! Watch out for them:

So here’s where I hit a snag. The brake lines are tight and it isn’t looking like there will be enough room to get this top insert installed...

I went ahead anyway and used the eBay tool to remove the bushing. It worked great! This tool is a lifesaver and the bushing removal was super easy with it. No issues at all!

So once that was out back to the problem. There just wasn’t enough room to get the insert installed. And I did not want to mess with disconnecting the brake lines and actually drop the subframe out of the car. So time to improvise...

I decided to cut the top front inserts in half. I still used both the halves i made with my cut in the subframe though, so in essence I made a 3 piece bushing out of the 2 piece bushings . I decided to do this when I checked the stack height of the 2 bushing halves and found they were about 2-3mm shorter than the subframe housing they press into. So that means they actually wouldn’t touch end to end when installed, there would be a 2-3mm gap between them. So I figured I would make a cut and remove another 2mm of material but get the inserts installed easily. There’s a metal sleeve that goes inside the inserts that is what the bolt tightens against. The plastic pieces just float around that metal insert.

This is where I cut. Seems to me like these bushing inserts should be made with the bottom part 2/3 the thickness and the top part 1/3 the thickness. Then they would be an easy install without dropping the subframe too far at all.

After the bushings were cut I drew a line on them with a sharpy so I could keep them oriented the same as they were before the cut. It seemingly wouldn’t matter but if there were any high and low spots where I cut this way they would mate more squarely:

I installed the now 3 piece inserts with the metal sleeve they came with and everything went together nice and snug.

For the rear inserts they went in easily no cutting required. Just installed as they came. After it was done I was so glad to be rid of all this junk! The whiteline inserts were garbage from the start...

I was only able to do a short test drive after install. I just wanted to confirm the alignment didn’t change, which it didn’t. I noticed a little more nvh with these vs stock rubber with whiteline inserts. My diff has some whine it’s on upgraded mounts and the whine went from like a 5 out of 10 to like a 6 out of 10 with these inserts. So even though the word is that they wouldn’t change NVH they will slightly. Very glad I didn’t do aluminum inserts I would not want more NVH than I have and I would not want to have to completely drop the subframe.

Hopefully someone will wise up and start making a 1/3 & 2/3 bushing insert set for the fronts. Can’t see any reason the inserts need to be a 1/2 & 1/2 set.

The cutting idea is pretty clever.

One question - do you think there is any way cutting compromised the strength / integrity of the bushings ?

[Biginboca]

Originally Posted by WDE82

The brake pedal being depressed fully will keep the fluid in.

Get on Amazon and also buy some silicone plugs for future use. They're good to have on hand if you need to remove a caliper or other brake lines for some reason.

As far as the subframe falling. It only weighs a few hundred pounds. For your jack that's nothing. You undo the front two fully and the rear two about half way. With the lines disconnected there is more than enough clearance.

Good info there, I actually have rubber caps for the brake lines and a power bleeder I just preferred not to open any brake lines for this swap for the reasons stated already.

[Biginboca]

Originally Posted by gjm120

The cutting idea is pretty clever.

One question - do you think there is any way cutting compromised the strength / integrity of the bushings ?

The bushing material sits around a metal insert that bears the vertical loads entirely. (The top and bottom inserts do not even touch end to end when installed.)

So the UHMW bushing is absorbing lateral loads only as far as I can tell. So basically what you are asking is would it be harder to crush a stack of washers or a single piece of metal the same thickness. Seems to me like it wouldn’t matter much, and if I had to do this job again I would absolutely do the cut again vs disconnecting brake lines and bleeding brakes and all the while risking spongy pedal and annoying ABS bleeds with a laptop. The cut is adding about 5 mins to this job which is faster than disconnecting brake lines and bleeding brakes even if nothing goes wrong doing that route.

Not saying my way is the best way just putting it out there as another option.

[gjm120]

Originally Posted by Biginboca

The bushing material sits around a metal insert that bears the vertical loads entirely. (The top and bottom inserts do not even touch end to end when installed.)

So the UHMW bushing is absorbing lateral loads only as far as I can tell. So basically what you are asking is would it be harder to crush a stack of washers or a single piece of metal the same thickness. Seems to me like it wouldn’t matter much, and if I had to do this job again I would absolutely do the cut again vs disconnecting brake lines and bleeding brakes and all the while risking spongy pedal and annoying ABS bleeds with a laptop. The cut is adding about 5 mins to this job which is faster than disconnecting brake lines and bleeding brakes even if nothing goes wrong doing that route.

Not saying my way is the best way just putting it out there as another option.

Was thinking more of lateral forces being concentrated on one of the 3 sections and splitting it. Probably nothing to worry about, just throwing it out.

I think it's a great idea and I can't think of any way it is detrimental to the bushing strength, will probably do the same eventually.

[WDE82]

Originally Posted by Biginboca

Good info there, I actually have rubber caps for the brake lines and a power bleeder I just preferred not to open any brake lines for this swap for the reasons stated already.

Hey you got it to work! So that's something.

[gjm120]

Been looking into rsfb's from various manufacturers. I'm definitely going 2 piece just so I can install (relatively) easily myself.

I found a couple of places with the Whiteline kit at a very good price. One is Amazon - $150 and with Amazon rewards nets out a little less.


Question is - are these bushings something that would be counterfeited?

[tracer bullet]

Maybe write to Whiteline and ask for a discount code for their website where it's a little more expensive. Or if you go through the particular Amazon vendor if they can vouch for it.

[WDE82]

Originally Posted by gjm120

Been looking into rsfb's from various manufacturers. I'm definitely going 2 piece just so I can install (relatively) easily myself.

I found a couple of places with the Whiteline kit at a very good price. One is Amazon - $150 and with Amazon rewards nets out a little less.


Question is - are these bushings something that would be counterfeited?

Probably pretty low risk of that. I bought mine off the Walmart marketplace for like $130.

[gjm120]

Originally Posted by tracer bullet

Maybe write to Whiteline and ask for a discount code for their website where it's a little more expensive. Or if you go through the particular Amazon vendor if they can vouch for it.

Thanks

Logic tells me this isn't a part likely to be counterfeited because it's probably pretty low volume.

Since I posted I found another vendor at a very good price. It's someone I bought Koni Sport dampers from so may just pull the trigger with them.

[gjm120]

Originally Posted by WDE82

Probably pretty low risk of that. I bought mine off the Walmart marketplace for like $130.

Good to hear. I went ahead and ordered from the vendor I'd used before. The price was a slight bit better than Amazon and I had good luck with this company when buying dampers in 2018.