11-09-2018, 11:30 PM | #1 |
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DIY Guide - H&R Springs on 650i xDrive Gran Coupe
Hi everyone,
Being involved in the E38 world, I am spoiled by having detailed write-ups of basically any repair or modification you can think of for those cars. I was having trouble finding any write-ups of the 6-series lowering spring install, specifically dealing with xDrive and also the Gran Coupe model. Recently I was quoted $1,100 to install the springs, so I figured why not give it a shot . There were definitely times during the process I was thinking "Now I see why people charge $1,100 for this," but I was able to get the two front springs done with no special tools except a couple of free loaners from AutoZone. In all it took me about 5 hours for the front springs, but there was a lot of trial and error involved especially regarding the spring compressor placement. If you have any questions, or I missed something, please let me know! **DISCLAIMER: I am a novice DIYer and if anything in here looks horribly wrong, then don't use it Also not responsible for any use of this guide** Tools Used
Steps 1) Find a suitable location that is level and gives enough room to work. Loosen the lug bolts on the wheels. Jack the car up from the center jack-pad between the front wheels. Place jack stands under the jack pad locations under the front doors. Remove lug bolts and wheels. I set the wheels under the front bumper as added security from any unexpected falls! 2) Using your hand or a dental hook, remove the hoses and wires shown below in red circles from their attachment points along the suspension. The red box on the right houses an electrical connection that must be separated (the write connects to the strut). *NOTE* This picture is of the passenger side. The driver's side is identical except there is an additional wire running parallel along the long wire on the right side of the picture, and disconnects similarly. This is how the wires and hoses look disconnected from their anchors. Other than the connection in the red-squared box, nothing else needs to be disconnected. 3) Loosen the 18mm nut holding the sway bar to the strut. It takes quite a bit of force. 4) Once the nut breaks loose, use the 18mm pass-through ratchet to continue loosening it. If the inner Torx part begins to spin with the 18mm nut, you will need to use a Torx T-40 bit/driver to hold it in place and only spin the 18mm nut. 5) Push the swar bar link out the back of the strut. I did this later in the process on my first side, and it was a pain to move the carrier/hub assembly around to get the link to line up with the strut so it could be pushed out. Just push it out once it is loose. 6) Use an 18mm socket and breaker bar on the bolt connecting the bottom of the strut to the lower wishbone. The 18mm side is towards the front of the car. This was the hardest part to break loose so I would recommend a breaker bar and not ruining a ratchet. I literally had to step on the breaker bar to loosen this. 7) Once the bolt has loosened, use a 21mm crescent and/or ratcheting wrench to hold the nut towards the rear of the car, and continue loosening the 18mm bolt from the front with a crescent and/or ratcheting wrench. Both my wrenches ratcheted which made quick work of removing the bolt once loose. 8) Next undo the top wishbone from the carrier by using an 11mm socket to hold the bolt (in reality it is actually some sort of reverse-Torx/star shaped bolt. See the first photos above.) Loosen the nut towards the front of the car using a 14mm socket. Once the nut is off, I have seen videos of people pounding out the bolt with a pick. I found just continuing to unscrew the bolt with the 11mm socket until it was completely out worked as well. 9) Once the bolt is out, use a ball joint separator is needed to separate the upper wishbone from the carrier. On my passenger side, the wishbone separated almost immediately. On my driver side, I needed to use a lot more persuasion with the separator. Once the ball joint is separated, you will be able to move the brake assembly around to assist when removing the strut. 10) Open the hood and remove the three 13mm bolts attaching the strut to the strut tower. 11) Remove strut from the vehicle. Sounds easy, right? Sort of. You'll need to push the upper wishbone up as far as you possibly can, while also using your foot (or a friend, in my case my wife), to push down on the brake hub. You need to be careful of how hard you push down on the hub, as the brake lines and electrical wires are still connected, remember? That's why we took them off their anchors earlier - to give a little extra slack in them to be able to push down the hub. I found wiggling the strut off of its lower mounts, then tilting it towards the back made for the easiest exit. Cover the top with a towel so you don't scratch your paint as you slide the top under the wheel well. 12) With the strut free of the vehicle, attach spring compressors to the coils as shown below. I've heard both "Always have the nut at the top!" and "Always have the nut at the bottom!" so this is how I did it. **USE EXTREME CAUTION WHEN USING SPRING COMPRESSORS** The point here is to compress the springs enough so that you can undo the nut on the top of the strut. If you were to just unscrew that nut without compressing the springs, the top mount would simply shoot off as soon as the nut came off and could injure you. However, compressing the springs puts a lot of potential energy into them, so do it slowly and evenly. I found that 20 half-turns (alternating 5 half-turns per side) got the springs compressed enough that I could remove the top nut with a very minimal "pop". Here are the springs compressed 20 half-turns per side. Remember, there is a lot of energy stored up there so don't mess around with it too much before you loosen the top nut. 13) Lay the strut on its side and loosen the 18mm nut on top. Go slowly and be prepared for a little pop once the nut is fully loose. 14) Once the nut is loose, set it aside and remove the upper strut mount. If the silver piece separated from the black piece, there are arrows showing how to line them back up. (Ask me how I figured that one out...) 15) Remove the spring and bump stop and bush. Here is how the strut looks naked and ready for the new springs. *LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES TIP* Installing and compressing the new springs was by far the most time consuming part of this project for me, probably because I did it in that order. Instead, I should have (and eventually did) compress THEN install them. The H&R springs are ever so slightly smaller than the stock springs, so the spring compressor wouldn't "catch" on the coils without getting hit by the fat black part of the strut. Long story short, compress the new springs while they are completely off the strut. You can see in the picture below where I attached the spring compressors on the H&Rs. It takes many more turns to compress the springs enough to get the top mount on than it did to take it off, so you'll need to put some muscle into it. Again, beware the potential energy, go slow and make sure nothing is able to pop loose or off. Also in the picture below you can see the very bottom end of the spring up against a designed stopper. Make sure the spring is lined up correctly with the detent! As you can see, I lost daylight fighting these compressors. Doing them up just to have to completely loosen them again takes a long time with no power/air tools. The picture above shows enough thread at the top of the strut to poke through the top strut mount and be able to start the nut on. 16) Place the rubber bush and bump stop over the silver pipe of the strut, inside the spring. Then put the upper strut mount back in place. Again, there is a specific detent built into the strut mount that needs to line up with the end of the top coil, just like the bottom. Make sure this is correct. Then, get the 18mm nut started to hold the top mount on. Now that everything is loose, the Torx opening on the strut itself might spin with the 18mm nut. One side of mine didn't, the other did. I think the Torx was T-40 but I am not 100% sure. Either way, like the sway bar link earlier, you'll need to pass the Torx through the 18mm socket and hold the Torx in place while tightening the 18mm nut. 17) Once the top strut mount is securely in place (about 3/4" to 1" of thread was sticking out of my mount), you can carefully remove the spring compressors. 18) Install the strut with new spring in reverse order of the removal. TIPS FOR REINSTALL
I hope to have the rear install and write-up done tomorrow! Last edited by board57796; 11-16-2018 at 08:27 PM.. |
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Havy303.00 Vorpel47.00 DerBosewicht111.00 BadForYourHeart3.00 VK_Technician5.50 Luftpost93.00 John H.230.00 |
11-09-2018, 11:31 PM | #2 | |
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7/18/2021 edit: Boss330 notes that the rear springs can be done without removing the rear shelf as I describe below. The steps other than removing the rear shelf should remain the same.
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Here are the steps for the rear spring install. Before you ask about removing just the rear speaker grilles and speakers to access the rear strut mount bolts, I tried. There wasn't enough clearance to get a wrench in to undo the 13mm bolts. If you can figure out a way, more power to you! Tools used
1) Lower the rear seats. Then remove the side cushions from the rear seat by pulling from the top and then towards the center of the car. You'll be releasing clip "1" then "2" as labeled below. 2) Pop the "AIRBAG" covers off of both C pillars, and then remove the Torx T-25 screw hidden behind them. 3) Pull at the top of the C-pillar trim, near the glass, as there are two plastic posts holding the trim on. Once they are loose, note that the C-pillar trim is connected to the rear deck panel next to each door with a small "hook" which I tried to capture in a photo. Just undo the hook from the rear deck panel, and pull the C-pillar trim forward and then out. There are small clips on the trim that slide forward to release it from the rear deck panel. 4) Remove the 5 plastic rivets holding the rear deck cover to the bodywork. I used a plastic trim remover tool to pry the center pin out then the rest of the rivet. 5) By laying face up from the interior of the car into the trunk, remove the 3 8mm screws in the "ceiling" of the trunk as shown below. 6) Disconnect the rear sunshade connection (if equipped) which is clipped to the passenger side C-pillar. Once you pull the connection point off of the pillar (it is held on with a plastic "rivet" that you'll just have to pull at until it released, you can disconnect the wire connection. 7) Lift up on the rear deck cover gently and disconnect from the speaker on each side ONLY the purple/red purple/brown connection. The yellow/red wire can stay connected. On my car this was the rear blue connector on the passenger side speaker, and the front blue connector on the driver side speaker. The rear deck panel can now be slid forward and rotated so the suede rests on the rear seat bottom. 8) Located the 3 (per side) 13mm nuts holding the strut. They are located under a "dome" of sound insulation, which can be flipped up. You don't need to do anything to these yet; just make sure you can access them and will be able to loosen them with without damaging the rear glass. 9) Jack the car up using the jacking point ahead of the rear wheel you'll be working on and remove the tire. This will be your view. Note the rear of the car is on the left, front to the right. Also note the orientation of the boxes attached to the strut. This will help you later! 10) Disconnect the wire (yellow circle) to the strut which is behind the plastic cover on the upper right. Also, disconnect the wire from the mounts (red circles) along the suspension. This wire will come out with the strut. 11) Next, you'll need to remove the 21mm bolt that holds the bottom of the strut to the wheel assembly. This bolt was a BEAST, and there's not much room to move around. I eventually got one to loosen with just brute force, but the passenger side would NOT budge. I had to go buy a small propane torch to heat the bolt up for about 30 seconds. It still required a lot of force, but it did come loose after that. This picture is taken from the rear looking forward and up into the wheel well. Once that bolt is free, the hub assembly will pop up an inch or two, just FYI. 12) Get back into the rear door and undo the 3 13mm nuts holding the strut in. Make note of the orientation in the picture below, as the strut mount bolts aren't equidistant and will only go back in place one way. This added about 30 minutes to the first re-install, trying to line up 3 bolts into 3 holes that would never align. There was a "5" stamped into the upper strut mount, which was pointed directly to the bolt that was towards the front of the car. Hopefully this picture makes sense. Once these three nuts are loose, the strut is free to be removed. I found it was easiest to point the bottom of the strut through the gap between the suspension pieces and the brake line. It really helped to have a second person to push down on the brake hub while I maneuvered the strut through the gap. This is a picture to try to illustrate how the strut came out for me. You can see how the brake line is towards the bottom of the spring. 13) Once the strut is out of the car, I didn't even need to compress the stock rear springs to remove the upper strut mount. I just loosened the 18mm nut on the top of the mount and the upper mount just popped off with very little drama or surprise. Your experience may vary If the Torx T-40 inside the 18mm nut starts to spin with the nut, you'll need to hold it as shown in the front spring install. 14) Compress the H&R springs. I did about 10 full turns per side. Install the springs over the strut with the compressors attached, making sure the bottom of the spring sits correctly in its perch. Put the upper mount on, again making sure its sits correctly on the perch on the top of the spring. Put the 18mm nut back on and tighten, holding the Torx T-40 as shown above. Here is the new spring installed. Install in reverse order. TIPS FOR REINSTALL
Last edited by board57796; 07-18-2021 at 06:06 PM.. |
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11-09-2018, 11:32 PM | #3 |
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Here are some before/afters and just afters. I love the amount of lowering.
Last edited by board57796; 12-07-2018 at 08:30 PM.. |
11-12-2018, 12:38 PM | #4 |
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If you had air tools (compressor, gun, etc) and the knowledge from the above DIY (excellent BTW), how long do you think the front job would take?
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11-12-2018, 12:56 PM | #5 | |
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Now, the rears, I am finding, is a different story... |
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11-12-2018, 08:54 PM | #6 |
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Excellent write up...
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11-16-2018, 08:29 PM | #9 |
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Thank you!
Just posted, thank you! Thanks as well. Sure you could! Rear install posted today. |
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11-17-2018, 11:41 AM | #11 |
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dear lord thats a nightmare job on the rear , but huge kudos for the write up
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11-20-2018, 03:01 PM | #12 |
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12-03-2018, 12:22 PM | #13 | ||
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Agreed! But I figured I'd just go for it and save $1,200. |
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12-02-2019, 04:16 PM | #16 |
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That is an epic write up, fair play. I remember having the same problem many moons ago when I wanted to lower my e39, and there was nothing online!
I'd heard the rears were a pain in the ass, but that is bloody ridiculous the amount of stripping out required to access the top mount bolts. It's like they went out of their way to make it as difficult as possible. |
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12-05-2019, 01:53 AM | #18 | |
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M-Sport RWD is so much more accurate to drive ! I hope that Eibach springs ( whenever I'll get those under) will fix the case. |
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12-05-2019, 11:12 AM | #19 |
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04-09-2020, 01:27 PM | #22 | |
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