The other day I got my set of Moosehead Engineering Rear Strut Mounts in the mail, and I decided to snap a few pics that I took during the install. I'd also like to add that Paul from Moosehead was awesome to deal with, very professional and helpful!
This whole job took me about 45 min. This is does not seem to be much of a performance mod as it is a reliability mod. I wasn't having any problems with my stock rear strut mounts yet, but I knew they were old, and from what I have read it was just a matter of time before they let go, so the Moosehead option seemed like a smart choice. I would imagine the more worn out your RSMs are the more of an improvement you might feel from the swap. I did notice a very slight refinement in the overall feel of the rear end of the car after the new mounts were in place. Not really a "performance" gain, but the rear of the car just feels a tad bit sharper...if that makes any sense. No real increase in NVH at all.
So, on to the picture show.
First step is to get your rear strut assemblies out of the car. I am not going to go into rear strut removal here. Compress the springs and remove the top nuts, you should be looking like this.
The next two pictures show the stock rear strut mount and rubber spring cushion.
You want to remove the three studs from the mount which will also separate the bushing plate from the lower cup. There are a couple of different ways to do this, I used a nut screwed onto the studs and a hammer, you could also use a block of wood. You just don't want to beat directly on the studs because you will damage the threads. The studs are M8 x 1.25
The bushing plate separated from the lower cup.
Here is the Moosehead RSM...pretty straight forward.
Just line up the holes with the lower cup...it is drilled for use with the E28 rear struts as well.
Then re-install the studs in the lower cup. Again, there are a few ways to do this. I chose to use a stack of washers and nut to pull the studs back through. You will need a vice to hold the RSM while you pull the studs back through. As you can see, I booger'd up the finish on my first mount with the vice, I avoided this on the second mount by just using a shop towel between the vice and mount.
At this point you are ready to reassemble your struts with the new bushings.
You are keeping all of the stock bump stop keepers below the original stock mount, the new moosehead bushings just sit on top. Like so...
The rest of the reassembly is pretty straight forward, you are basically just making a bushing sandwich on either side of the mount with the Moosehead components.
The End.
Last edited by Tenrac; 12-17-2011 at 01:31 AM.
Looks good. Will be doing this soon to the sedan. Thanks for the write-up.
very good mate, i was looking for aftermarket rear shock mounts and theres nothing aother than this available.
and i'm correct for thinking for coil over set ups you don't need to reuse the cup just the studs?
I may be installing these soon ... would they benefit from using a sleeve inside the bushings like this?
Has anyone used them with the Moosheads?
I installed these a month or so ago. Great buy for sure! No I have to do the subframe bushings!
thanks for the write up
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