Hardest thing I've tried to do so far

[clovett]

I can see light at the end of the tunnel on my 325e restoration with one exception.

The stinking sway bar bushings.

Why would they not just put two bolts holding a bracket rather than a bracket that requires a lip insertion if they are going to make the new bushing 1/4 larger and make you compress it? And to top that there is no leeway at all. I've spent days of my limited life trying to get this in. I can get one side in but the the other is off by like 1mm

Having two bolts would have made this a cake walk. I love German engineering but this I don't understand.

[tomstin]

I struggled with this also, sorry but I don't have a trick for you. The one side you have on, don't tighten the bolt down, leave yourself some wiggle room.

[msservices]

The only two things that come to mind are
1. If you can c clamp the bracket to the frame/unibody rail, obviously requiring clearance on the top surface of the frame/unibody rail
2. Use a floor jack to apply upward pressure to the bracket while the car is on jack stands. The most precise way to do this would be to remove the jacks pad/cup and place a 12 point half inch drive deep socket into the hole (square drive down) where the jack pad pin sits. These holes are usually 1” or so diameter on a 2-3 ton rolling jack, and on mine a think 21mm fit well (for example). A piece of black gas pipe might work also, not usually as handy laying around but gas pipe could be longer and thus getting you up higher with the lifting point. Also the longer pipe would allow you to slightly angle the force towards the clip side (rather than straight up) allowing you to center the bolt holes accurately and not risk cross threading. Gas pipe is cheap and hardware stores all have them

[superj]

or, use a bit longer bolt with the same thread and pull the bracket up as much as you can. then back the longer bolt out and put your stock bolt in place

[sienayr]

I seem to recall struggling with this one too, one of those jobs that you think will be a quick 30 minutes and instead eats up an entire afternoon with rage and swearing. I think jacking up the sway bar is key as previously mentioned, with both front wheels off the ground.

Some e30s had 21mm sway bars (verts for sure) so make sure you’re not using a 20mm bushing on a 21mm sway bar that could have been swapped over or something.

[DRVN2WN]

I seem to recall struggling with this one too, one of those jobs that you think will be a quick 30 minutes and instead eats up an entire afternoon with rage and swearing.

This was my exact experience, and I've done lots of sway bar bushings on other vehicles.

I ended up being able to use a combination of pry bar and locking pliers to get things lined up enough to start the bolts, and then it was easy. It was figuring that out that took the time.

[clovett]

I've incorporated all of the above already, and thanks for the replies. I don't feel so stupid now

I've pulled it down now and am shaving a little off the front of the bushings on the bracket side that hooks into the frame. Then I will space them out and get them in.

It just shouldn't be like this

So my next attempt will be precise centering then getting the hole lined up with a phillips screwdriver and clamped with vice grips