front strut mount job done, some issues.

[fo3]

I ended up fitting the lemforder front strut mount today and my knock is gone, but I'm wondering about some things.
First of all, the new stock lemforder mounts are made in China if you were wondering. Probably the same place as the cheaper corteco ones, so I'd probably search more for sachs or find out where the vaico ones are made if you care.

Also I'm not sure if it was the mount or the tube nut that secures the strut into the housing that was making my susp noise. Today after I removed the susp. spring I found the tube nut a little loose and that could cause knocking I guess.
But weird thing is I suspected that could cause the noise a month ago and as it's easy to get to by just taking the wheel off I already had tried tightening that tube nut. I couldn't tighten it any more at all while mounted in the car with a pipe wrench. That's why I gave up and ordered the mounts.
Either it got looser while I was taking everything apart with an air impact wrench socket, or maybe you can't tighten it with spring tension and the cars weight on it for some reason. Anyway, it was loose today and maybe it's because I did lots of ugga duggas with an air impact ratchet?

Lastly, my old spring mounts are weird. They are offset a lot for camber correction, but there's no '+' or '-' markings on it. I think that's why I never replaced them when I did my struts and other susp 18 months ago, I couldn't get a search result for the part# and the rubber wasn't cracked and the bearings seems OK so I just gave up back then. My car (09/1990 - first of the m50s) had the sports suspension option selected by the first owner (or dealer).
On the strut mount on one side it just has 88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95 where I guess the manufacture date was marked (illegible now)
On the other side it has '131563' alone and somewhere else it has '1139332'. If you put them together it looks like a BMW susp. part number but I get no results - too long, extra 2 digits. I get nothing for 1315631139332 or in case a '5' was a 3 I get nothing for 1313631139332.

When I look at realoem with my VIN and with reg or sport susp the options are
Standard
31331133292, 31331134096, 31331139437 (which is what I bought)
camber +30min
31331137233, 31331139448
camber -30min
31331137234, 31331139481

So what is on there is a mystery with 2 sets of numbers which when put together is too long for a part number. No logos or brands on it besides "oelastmetal"
Anyone here have any ideas with old parts>
If I remove the first '1' which doesn't line up with nomenclature, assume the '5' is a '3' the closest I get to a part number is 31331139332 which gets no results either

Safe to guess that my alignment is going to be very bad for now after swapping a camber mount for a regular straight mount so I can't drive it unless I want to trash a front pair of $450 worth of michelin pilot sport 3s.

E:
Tomorrow I'll do the other side, I just wanted to see it the knock would go away changing the problem side. It took longer than normal as my air compressor and impact gun are old, dry, tired and haven't been used for 18 months. I had my kid with me until 1pm so I had a late start.
Also if you do the right thing and torque your suspension down when the car is loaded like I did 18 months ago, it's a lot harder to get a strut back in! As soon as you pull it out the arms and steering plate want to rise so you need 4 hands to refit a strut (2 more than I have available) - a pair to lift the strut and guide the three studs at top and a pair to be pulling down on the control arms and steering plate really hard. Very hard to do yourself I found. It was easier before with old worn out suspension or before I torqued loaded new suspension.

[moroza]

China, huh? Bollocks.

A picture is worth a thousand words. It's possible (likely, even) that there were three different camber correcting mount pairs for each of the three normal mount styles, and the ones actually on your car belong to a different model, which is why VIN search doesn't show them.

It's also possible that the camber correcting mounts were used to set camber more negative than spec, not to correct accident damage. 0.5 degree change is quite low anyway; I drove for a while at -1.7 (stock is 0 +/- 0.5 I think).

No idea about the strut housing nut issue.

"Elastmetall" is Lemförder's (OE) trademarked material or something like that.

[fo3]

A picture is worth a thousand words. It's possible (likely, even) that there were three different camber correcting mount pairs for each of the three normal mount styles, and the ones actually on your car belong to a different model, which is why VIN search doesn't show them.

Here's the photos. I'm keeping them huge so anyone can see the details. I hope I can upload in this size.
You can see how eccentric the old strut mount is, while the new one is concentric.

[moroza]

131563 looks like an old Lemförder part number. The triangle is Lemf's owl logo. 1139332 is the second part of a BMW part number; add 3133 (front strut mount prefix) to get 31331139332, and that gives a few Google results suggesting an old superceded BMW PN.

Torquing the thrust arms at ride height is about the biggest pain in the ass I can think of on these cars, for those without an alignment rack - to do it right, you have to not only lower the car but steer it around and roll it back and forth to settle the suspension - and I avoid doing it unless absolutely necessary. My technique is: when reinstalling the strut assembly, loosely attach it to the body first, letting it dangle and wobble, then pry the knuckle down until it can fit under the strut.

[chislern]

Just replaced my strut/shock mounts with Lemforder and noticed on the box they are indeed made in China. Cheers, George

[TheStigg]

rollers.jpg

When finishing an R&R on the front suspension, lower both front wheels onto a 2x10 on top of pipe rollers. Bounce the front end up & down a few times and crawl underneath and tighten the control arms.

[moroza]

rollers.jpg

When finishing an R&R on the front suspension, lower both front wheels onto a 2x10 on top of pipe rollers. Bounce the front end up & down a few times and crawl underneath and tighten the control arms.

Yep, accomplishes the same thing. But leaves very little room underneath for wrenches. A fine-toothed 1/2" ratchet helps a lot.

[fo3]

When I changed my front suspension ages ago I just made ramps with some 6x2 lumber I had lying around. The car is too low for conventional bought wheel ramps but with a few metres of lumber I made my own.
But anyway, that was 18months ago, I only brought it up because it makes strut/mount changes harder in the future as the steering plate rises after removing the strut. Makes it hard when doing the job by yourself unless you have 4 arms, but when I did the second side I used a ratchet strap over the control arm and through over the other side's wheel to pull it down. A lot easier and quicker than brute forcing and levering and stuffing around I did for the first side I changed.
If suspension is old and tired, or wasn't torqued down with weight on it my observation was you wouldn't have that problem and that's the only reason why I mentioned it.

Also I wasn't impressed with the Chinese Lemforder mounts. When I did the second side the spring didn't seem sit right on the top mount. It was like the spring plate was bent because the end tip of the spring fit where it was supposed to be but there was a gap between the rest of the top of the spring, the cushion rubber and the metal plate.

Doesn't look like the best fit with the cushion rubber all loose there. I swear it didn't look that bad when I did the other side mount 2 days earlier. But I'm over it and maybe I was imagining things so just went ahead with it. This side was the side that didn't have any problems before, so I doubt it's the spring, strut, any other hardware in any way.


E: I thought about straightening the mount's spring holder/plate somehow but figured it may bust the rubber insert or bearing. I was stuck before because I couldn't just replace one noisy mount because the mounts were so different to anything I could find.
If in the future there is any problems I'll just get any other brand one to replace it and not bother with Chinese lemforder again. Now that the other side has a regular straight plain mount it will still match whatever I put in there.

[moroza]

I've seen a mismatch in the contour of the spring perch and spring with factory parts too. Nothing to worry about.

Casting and stamping metal is relatively easy, and Chinese metal parts rarely have problems these days (unlike hardware made in India). Casting rubber is however a finer art that's harder to get just right, and unlike metal parts there's a big gradation between right and wrong. A tierod is either intact or loose, no wiggle room (pun intended). A control arm bushing, or to a lesser extent a strut mount, can be too soft or too stiff besides being outright broken.

[Mixzzz]

131563 looks like an old Lemförder part number. The triangle is Lemf's owl logo. 1139332 is the second part of a BMW part number; add 3133 (front strut mount prefix) to get 31331139332, and that gives a few Google results suggesting an old superceded BMW PN.

Torquing the thrust arms at ride height is about the biggest pain in the ass I can think of on these cars, for those without an alignment rack - to do it right, you have to not only lower the car but steer it around and roll it back and forth to settle the suspension - and I avoid doing it unless absolutely necessary. My technique is: when reinstalling the strut assembly, loosely attach it to the body first, letting it dangle and wobble, then pry the knuckle down until it can fit under the strut.

Huh...I just leave them a little more than finger tight, then drive to nearest service where they allow me to use the pit...

[Itzakadoozie]

Regarding the issue with the tube nut that holds the shock in place, I experienced the same problem and knew something was up when I heated it red hot and it wouldn’t budge. A pipe wrench has a squeezing effect when torqued and this is pretty thin metal causing it to bind plus it was corroded. In my case I was able to grab it by the top instead of the thread area and it turned off easily. Live and learn lol