Long story short - had a set of revalved rear shocks on my 840. They went bad about 3 years down the line. Olin mentioned he was using off the shelf rears with revalved front Bilsteins and had no issues. I am running rear reinforcement plates top and bottom with longer 30mm bolts.
Went to install new rear Bilsteins and immediately noticed the difference in the shocks:
20180324_142926.jpg
All is well and perfect until I drive it. There is a strange knocking, but not like a bumpstop hitting. Two weeks transpire and I go back in to do some inspecting. Finally notice there is play in the bottom bolt that connects the shocks to the large wishbones that hold the rear springs. This is annoying oversight that shouldn't really exist. Engineered a backyard solution:
1. Neoprene washers for each side of the bottom bushing. 4 total:
Ebay item: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Neoprene-Ru...72.m2749.l2648
2. Copper crush washers under the head of the lower bolt and the nut on the other side. 4 total:
Stolen: from a box in the garage.
3. Klapton tape wrapped around each of the lower bolts. Just enough to where you have to drive them in with a mallet to get them in the other side and the threads started. Suppose you could use heat shrink as well. Whatever will hold up. Klapton does.
Borrowed: from a box of specialty tapes in the garage.
4. Large neoprene washers to go under the retaining metal washers on each side of the rear shock mount. This acts as an extra cushion between any contact with the rear shock tower reinforcement plates and inner sleeve of the rear shock mounts. Most other cars and even BMWs of this era use this sort of setup. Odd the E31 does not. 4 total:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Large-Diame...72.m2749.l2648
Bonus: Made a set of noise covers for the top of each mount using some speaker baffles attached for easy removal and closed cell foam. Attached with butyl tape for easy removal. I may be back. Original covers were just pieces of some rug at this age. I don't shop at Walmart:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Design-En...&wl13=&veh=sem
Overall result: Much better ride quality and no more strange noises. Very happy for about $10 and 2 hours. Spent more time jacking up car and removing trunk panels than anything else.
Drive tastefully.
What "thumbs up" really means
Great Job as always
I ditched my bilsteins for Trw and am super happy
I also ditched my Bilsteins for the "Hyper Method" using CSI shocks in the rear in 840. I bought used front shock tubes to expand for the Konis and then put my rear Bilsteins and original front shock tubes with Bilsteins on the shelf. Just in case.
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