Rear Subframe

[henrym3]

Out with the old and in with the new, well refurbed.

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5C87CA46-3222-40A7-8936-3AEB4B82ABDA.jpeg (359.68 KiB) Viewed 4387 times

[A Blair]

Nice one Henry. I did not have the tool and had it done by a garage when I had the rear bushings done.

[Leslie]

That's made a nice job of it , I did notice quite a bit of rust on my e70 rear subframe and it isn't even 10 years old yet , don't fancy taking it out but will maybe apply some waxoyl to stop it getting any worse.

[ttr]

Henry3m

Nice job that pal

[Greydog]

Great job Henry now you have cracked it the next one will be even quicker. Sooo if I were passing by??

[henrym3]

As you can see the mounts are polyurethane and just fit in by hand, I’m a fan of the stuff and every bush on the X5 is now polyurethane. There was other little faults that showed up when the subframe was removed, the area around the diff breather was quite oily, caused by the breather rubber pipe being trapped between subframe and body. A stupid little 10p clip was broken allowing the ride level sensor wire to move about and had rubbed through wire coating and presumably in the not to distant future I would have had problems with that, broken exhaust hanger.
This weekend I need to find somewhere in this area that has a Hunter wheel alignment machine, will allow me to be in there and watch, will set the suspension to MY settings and give me confidence that they actually know what they are doing.
As I now have a spare subframe I had thought of getting it blasted and powder coated and then sell for £200 the reason for this thinking is that there are lots of rusty subframes for sale so this would be different, do people think this is a good/bad/stupid idea.

[A Blair]

https://www.alignmycar.co.uk
I used these people to find my nearest Hunter bloke. Try it and see what happens.
Good luck with the subframe sale too.

[henrym3]

That link was really helpful I will check it out tomorrow, drove past the one listed as nearest me and didn’t see any sign for wheel alignment. Only place that was in any way helpful was ATS and although they don’t use a Hunter (can’t remember the name of the machine) the man gave confidence. One thing of note ALL said they don’t add weight to the car and that the machines compensate. Anyone have an opinion on this.

[A Blair]

I had a think about that one. An X5 at 2.0 plus Tonne. Will 60 to 85kg make that big a difference to the car set up? If the car weighed 900 to 1400kg and was being tracked I would want to sit in it. Maybe bias it for my favourite track. With the X5 I not so sure adding weight will add value to the handling. It's only my humble opinion of course.

[henrym3]

I was more thinking of tyre wear, the last few times I had the alignment done the guy weighted it and transformed the tyre wear and feel of the car. I’m not for or against simply because I’m not clued up on the subject and when you look on tinder web it’s a bit like g/b oil changes, loads for, loads against and loads just talking bol*€cks.

[henrym3]

Well got the alignment done, knew I was on to a loser when watching and he was struggling to get the toe set up on one rear wheel. I pointed out that he hadn’t actually touched the toe adjustment bolt and was informed that the bolt in question didn’t play any part in the process. What he did was (bear in mind I have a top adjustable arm as well for camber) screw the camber bolts out fully and use the front toe bolt as a pivot point and in so doing pulled the drive shaft out. Not so it came out but considerably further than necessary. He did get it within BMW spec but you can see one wheel sticks out further than the other. My point is that just because it’s in spec doesn’t mean it’s right..

[dazzasgotav8]

dont get me started when it comes to wheel alignment after replacing all the bushes with poly ones on my other car i tried 5 different places to have the alignment done some had the hunter system plus the system which ats use , but no one seems either trained on correct setting or they just get it so none of the settings are in the red and think that will do , to me if one setting is just in the green at one end and the opposite one is in the other side of the green thats still a big difference so i just lived with the fact my car will wear tyres cause no one can set it up properly , one place even wanted to charge me extra to have each camber adjusted as they said thats not part of the normal 4 wheel alignment ...........

[A Blair]

I have two four wheel drive cars.
The X5 was set up in Aberdeen last year with a hunter.
I had the inner and outer track rods replaced to get the tiny bit of slack taken up and the seized side sorted. Next up will be to replace the soft bushing bits at the front. I agree with the respected member that it is not hard to put the green settings right on the point. No excuses.
Four wheel drive always has and will have a tendency to understeer unless you play with the settings. Too aggressive and that's a fabulous handling car but the scrub on the front tyres means premature wear. I did not buy the car for this and like standard settings.

The other car was set up by the local franchised dealer with the camber for the uk roads on the wrong side not so long ago. WTF
I had this car set up by a bloke called Chris at Center of Gravity several years ago. At the time he was racing cars and knew some good settings. Luckily I kept the settings via the print out so I will take the car to the X5 place with my settings. Pay again. Yes with somebody who knows what he is doing. I want the master not the dog.

So, Henry, it looks like even though your man had the correct kit to do the job, but is not suspension savvy. Sorry for sending you the link. However a talk beforehand might help. Asking about Toe ins. Cambers etc might give you confidence. Any place racing cars should be savvy too.

[henrym3]

I’m off to "talk" to another place tomorrow, but the last place talked a like he knew what he was doing. Doubt if I’ll use them, can’t watch not keen to set other than within manufacturers spec which is quite broad. We’ll see. May have to go further afield. The link was good to have, must be someone on there who can do a good job. Didn’t realise just how good the lad in Christchurch was till I moved up here.

[X5-D-Sport]

Henry,
noticed you have an extra chrome slider rail next to the side step.... was this a home made item or is it available ?
I want a pair of these....