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Thread: "To BMW or Arnott To BMW?" Finally time for airbags!

  1. #76
    Join Date
    Jun 2014
    Location
    Acton, IN
    Posts
    59
    My Cars
    330i ZHP, 03 525iT Sport
    All things being equal, couldn’t someone just measure one of the Arnott’s butt plugs?

  2. #77
    Join Date
    Dec 2016
    Location
    Canton, Ohio
    Posts
    617
    My Cars
    97 528i
    Quote Originally Posted by simmsled View Post
    All things being equal, couldn’t someone just measure one of the Arnott’s butt plugs?
    lmao ! If I had more time than sense, I'd pen the technical document based on the findings of this thread and that request... rofl...
    "two wrongs don't make a right...only three lefts do...."
    '79 Euro 635csi - gone and regretting it...
    '89 gsxr-750 - former traffic knife
    '97 528i sedan - holding on strong...(just sold after 16 years of ownership - sad day)
    '03 Euro 525it - something about a famous dolphin.....

    '06 Mercury Grand Marquis (don't ask....it gets the job done....)
    '84 Specialized Allez - full Campagnolo Super Record
    '99-ish Cannondale CAAD4
    "Stinky" - Kona Stinky Five
    '86 528e
    2008 E70 X5 3.0


  3. #78
    Join Date
    Jan 2015
    Location
    Tempe, AZ
    Posts
    7,657
    My Cars
    1995 525i/5
    One of my bags blew so I replaced both with new Arnott bags. I had both swapped out in under an hour, it was one of the easiest jobs I've ever done on this car. The amount of people whining about the SLS are being drama queens, it's such an easy system to service. With the new bags, my ride quality improved substantially. I guess the old bags were so worn that they were deforming and not acting like proper springs? Now my entire rear suspension is 100% brand new, so that's pretty rad.
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

  4. #79
    Join Date
    Dec 2016
    Location
    Canton, Ohio
    Posts
    617
    My Cars
    97 528i
    Quote Originally Posted by dannyzabolotny View Post
    One of my bags blew so I replaced both with new Arnott bags. I had both swapped out in under an hour, it was one of the easiest jobs I've ever done on this car. The amount of people whining about the SLS are being drama queens, it's such an easy system to service. With the new bags, my ride quality improved substantially. I guess the old bags were so worn that they were deforming and not acting like proper springs? Now my entire rear suspension is 100% brand new, so that's pretty rad.
    totally agree ! mine rode so much better with the new air springs. and....despite some difficulties I suffered with the jack point, it was super easy to swap them out. yes...easiest job on the car so far...by far...
    "two wrongs don't make a right...only three lefts do...."
    '79 Euro 635csi - gone and regretting it...
    '89 gsxr-750 - former traffic knife
    '97 528i sedan - holding on strong...(just sold after 16 years of ownership - sad day)
    '03 Euro 525it - something about a famous dolphin.....

    '06 Mercury Grand Marquis (don't ask....it gets the job done....)
    '84 Specialized Allez - full Campagnolo Super Record
    '99-ish Cannondale CAAD4
    "Stinky" - Kona Stinky Five
    '86 528e
    2008 E70 X5 3.0


  5. #80
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Location
    Bainbridge Island, WA
    Posts
    1
    My Cars
    2003 540i msport touring
    Well, I'm glad I found this thread. My "new" Arnott's have been sitting in my garage for a year. My 2003 540i touring still sags on one side overnight, so I may finally get them in. I decided to do one more round of research on the sport vs standard before going for it. To add to the earlier post which had comparison diameters for the base plug between factory standard and sport, I've just measured the Arnott's one size fits all base. I'm pleased to report, as a sport suspension owner, that the Arnott's base is closer to the sport base than the standard one, so I think it'll be fine. Here are my measurements alongside those from an earlier post for comparison. Small caveat: My digital micrometer's feelers are not deep enough to directly contact the widest points toward the bottom, so I had to eyeball and approximate.

    I'll do mine as a table:

    Diameters of base plug measured in 4 spots from narrowest (top) to widest (bottom excluding bottom edge lip)
    Standard Sport Arnott-one-size-fits-all
    3.21 3.41 3.437
    3.39 3.56 3.494
    3.45 3.60 3.565
    3.53 3.64 3.660

    My take away is that the Arnott's are closer to the sport, which is necessary to keep the sports from bottoming out too easy. That may result in a marginally firmer spring for a non-sport application, but perhaps not so much that anybody really notices the difference. The non sport on Arnott's will still have the original longer suspension travel due to being set higher by the air spring system, but it will take a larger impact to fully compress the spring than the factory version of non sport.

    I'm glad, because if this had been the other way around I'd have worried about my sport version hitting the bump stops too easily due to insufficient spring rate for the lower setup. If mine was not sport, I'd still just go for it with the Arnott's on account of being about half the price and reasonable compromise.

    Also of interest to anyone taking this on. In this video one can see a close up of the plastic retainer clip in action to better understand how it works. Clearly the idea must be to press down on the fitting to ease friction, then gently squeeze the plastic clip, but only a little bit, not all the way, or it breaks. Seeing how little it takes in advance is helpful:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkIvaSDiLps
    Last edited by frenna; 08-06-2018 at 03:48 AM.

  6. #81
    geargrinder's Avatar
    geargrinder is offline Having No Trouble Here BMW CCA Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Location
    AndoverRockport MA & Intl
    Posts
    14,856
    My Cars
    E46M3Cic E39.540iT E84X1
    LOL Good stuff man.

    Video is goofy music but I fully agree. One thing I would warn is - many aged car owners may find if you manhandle the plastic tubes and the clips like that guy does, that the old plastic has gotten super brittle and you could end up with broken parts. Since Arnott gives you new clips thats less critical but boy you wouldn't want to bust the plastic line and have to replace the reservoirs cuz you just janked 'em around 3 degrees too far...

    Also I'll repeat the warning to be sure the brass fitting is ALL THE WAY DOWN on the bag. Another owner has been messaging w/ me and he indeed had what I narrowly escaped happening: the fitting "false-clipped" on the first O-ring bump and not all the way down. The car will sit OK like that and even ride OK for a bit like that but then the fitting will pop off. Simple enough to make sure the fitting is all the way seated, just take pix / notes on how deep they are before you start the dis-ass.
    2003 M3CicM6 TiAg
    2002 540iT Sport Vortech S/C 6MT LSD TiAg
    2008 Audi A3 2.0T DSG (the daily beater)
    2014 BMW X1 xDrive28i (wifemobile)

    Former:

    1985 MB Euro graymarket 300SL
    1995.5 Audi S6 Avant (utility/winter billetturbobattlewagen)


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