Rear Axle Suspension Bushings

It seems there is not much info on replacing and/or upgrading the rear axle suspension bushings that i could find at least).

It might be that its not really needed or it just does not get posted when someone does it. Either way, long story short, I have been collecting parts like treasure conquests which include Nitron 3-Way adjustable coilovers, Brembo 380mm front and rear kit, Volks TE37SL which need tires and the RE front tension bushing with race bushing (blue).

Already installed on the car are chassis and diff bushings from Turner, along with Vorschlag engine mounts, so I am no stranger to NVH. I actually like it better than stock, I am not a fan of quite cars....yet.

Having said that, it only seemed logical to shift my attention to the rear (insert joke here) and replace the old rubber. The car currently has 72k miles and with CPO warranty ending in October 2014 its a perfect time to upgrade.

I did my research and looked at RE, Turner, Bimmerworld and finally Powerflex. I wanted to stay with bushings and not bearings as I do not want to deal with dirt getting in there and causing havoc. Price was also a factor. The list of bushings I have come up and actually the only list available for the M3 from Powerflex is:

PRF5-411B, PRF5-1212B, PRF5-1213B and PRF5-1215B. All these are the black series bushings or race.

The question is, has anyone (including shops) ever done rear suspension bushings and if so, does it involve dropping the rear subframe at all? I would think not but I have never seen an install done on these.

Lastly, I noticed no vendors here carry the powerflex bushings, although I might be wrong and they just don't list them. Any 4th of July sales?

Thanks for looking, and please lets keep this civil

EDIT: As slicer pointed out to Malek's car below (see link), IF one were to go straight to spherical arms replacements and spherical trailing bushing, the price technically would be the same as one would save on the bushings install by directly swapping components with spherical ones (except pressing in the trailing arm bushing). Am I close to this line of thought? If so, then spherical is the way to go in this case.

Contact Malek at MRF Engineering. See this post below for some detail on the extensive rear suspension upgrades he performs.

http://www.m3post.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16143006&postcount=402

slicer wrote

Contact Malek at MRF Engineering. See this post below for some detail on the extensive rear suspension upgrades he performs.

http://www.m3post.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16143006&postcount=402

Slicer, thank you. I missed that post, some serious suspension work right there. I hope Malek puts out a price guide in July for this or portions of it.

OK since the cost of bushings install would basically be the same as swapping out the OEM arms and installing spherical units, I narrowed down the list to these beauties. As the arm that holds the spring already has a bearing that connects to the spindle, there is no need to swap that.

BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Trailing Link Bearing Set


BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Rear Camber Arm Bearing Kit



BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Adjustable Rear Toe Arm Set



BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Adjustable Rear Wishbone Set (Camber Adjust)



BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Spherical Rear Guiding Link Set



And a pics of the coilovers

italyix wrote

OK since the cost of bushings install would basically be the same as swapping out the OEM arms and installing spherical units, I narrowed down the list to these beauties. As the arm that holds the spring already has a bearing that connects to the spindle, there is no need to swap that.

BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Trailing Link Bearing Set


BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Rear Camber Arm Bearing Kit



BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Adjustable Rear Toe Arm Set



BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Adjustable Rear Wishbone Set (Camber Adjust)



BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Spherical Rear Guiding Link Set



And a pics of the coilovers

Would you recommend all the Bimmerworld parts you listed? My car is a dd and im in SF/ bay area. Thanks

M3i6a wrote

Would you recommend all the Bimmerworld parts you listed? My car is a dd and im in SF/ bay area. Thanks

No. They aren't the correct length and cause major problems with camber/toe and wheel/tire sizing.

The only Bimmerworld parts I would go with are the lower camber arm bushing and the trailing arm bushings. The trailing arm bushings require the spindle be slightly machined to correctly press fit the bushing/bearing in as it's not perfectly flat. The quality of the Bimmerworld parts are excellent as they use Aurora bearings.

The work to get this right is extensive, and requires experience and chassis setup know-how as the geometry does change.

M3i6a wrote  

italyix wrote

OK since the cost of bushings install would basically be the same as swapping out the OEM arms and installing spherical units, I narrowed down the list to these beauties. As the arm that holds the spring already has a bearing that connects to the spindle, there is no need to swap that.

BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Trailing Link Bearing Set


BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Rear Camber Arm Bearing Kit



BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Adjustable Rear Toe Arm Set



BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Adjustable Rear Wishbone Set (Camber Adjust)



BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Spherical Rear Guiding Link Set



And a pics of the coilovers

Would you recommend all the Bimmerworld parts you listed? My car is a dd and im in SF/ bay area. Thanks

My car is a daily but I would shy away if I lived in SF. I'm in South Bay.

Potholes would ruin the bearings fast.

Malek, the shop I had them install it knew what they were doing. But I do agree with you, they have to be properly installed and set up.

Malek@MRF wrote

No. They aren't the correct length and cause major problems with camber/toe and wheel/tire sizing.

The only Bimmerworld parts I would go with are the lower camber arm bushing and the trailing arm bushings. The trailing arm bushings require the spindle be slightly machined to correctly press fit the bushing/bearing in as it's not perfectly flat. The quality of the Bimmerworld parts are excellent as they use Aurora bearings.

The work to get this right is extensive, and requires experience and chassis setup know-how as the geometry does change.

Ok, thank you very much for the advice.

italyix wrote

My car is a daily but I would shy away if I lived in SF. I'm in South Bay.

Potholes would ruin the bearings fast.

Malek, the shop I had them install it knew what they were doing. But I do agree with you, they have to be properly installed and set up.

Got it thanks

Malek@MRF wrote  

M3i6a wrote

Would you recommend all the Bimmerworld parts you listed? My car is a dd and im in SF/ bay area. Thanks

No. They aren't the correct length and cause major problems with camber/toe and wheel/tire sizing.

The only Bimmerworld parts I would go with are the lower camber arm bushing and the trailing arm bushings. The trailing arm bushings require the spindle be slightly machined to correctly press fit the bushing/bearing in as it's not perfectly flat. The quality of the Bimmerworld parts are excellent as they use Aurora bearings.

The work to get this right is extensive, and requires experience and chassis setup know-how as the geometry does change.

Huh? I installed them all myself and didn't have to machine anything. I have all those parts on my M3. The only thing I had issue with was the RD bar which would hit the axle shaft boot on the track under massive compression, so I swapped back to a stock bar and custom end links.

surlynkid wrote  

Malek@MRF wrote  

M3i6a wrote

Would you recommend all the Bimmerworld parts you listed? My car is a dd and im in SF/ bay area. Thanks

No. They aren't the correct length and cause major problems with camber/toe and wheel/tire sizing.

The only Bimmerworld parts I would go with are the lower camber arm bushing and the trailing arm bushings. The trailing arm bushings require the spindle be slightly machined to correctly press fit the bushing/bearing in as it's not perfectly flat. The quality of the Bimmerworld parts are excellent as they use Aurora bearings.

The work to get this right is extensive, and requires experience and chassis setup know-how as the geometry does change.

Huh? I installed them all myself and didn't have to machine anything. I have all those parts on my M3. The only thing I had issue with was the RD bar which would hit the axle shaft boot on the track under massive compression, so I swapped back to a stock bar and custom end links.

Some of the bushings need to be spot welded in place.

The inner LCA ones can be tack welded. I followed BW recommendations and just used sleeve retainer from the LocTite folks. Works perfect. No need to tack weld. I've been tracking it 6 months since install with no issues.

Bumping this as I've got a spare subframe on the way that I will be putting solid subframe bushings in. I'm thinking this is a good time to upgrade some rear suspension bushings and I came across this thread.

For those who have upgraded bushings on a street driven car (I do not track), is upgrading the bushings to the powerflex black bushings worth the trouble? In your experience, how would you rate the difficulty of swapping bushings? I'm thinking of pressing them myself.

Maleks comments seem to suggest that it's not as straightforward as it seems as geometery may change.

surlynkid wrote

Huh? I installed them all myself and didn't have to machine anything. I have all those parts on my M3. The only thing I had issue with was the RD bar which would hit the axle shaft boot on the track under massive compression, so I swapped back to a stock bar and custom end links.

I also installed the rear trailing arm bearing kit and did *not* have to machine anything.

I didn't use the Bimmerworld kit though as the bearings were way to tight and binding. Something Bimmerworld is well aware of, btw.

Instead I went with FCPeuro's trailing arm bearing kit which moves freely like butter.

italyix wrote

BimmerWorld E8X/E9X Rear Camber Arm Bearing Kit

I think this picture is wrong. The bearings need to be installed in the subframe (not in the spindle as the pic indicates.)

Just installed the rear camber bearing kit from BM. They recommend tack welding the brass sleeve to the subframe. However, mine was quite difficult to push in, ie had to apply similar force on the bushing tool nut to pull it in. It was rock solid in place as is. On top of that, the actual monoball bearing was even harder to pull into the sleeve, thus further pushing "outwards" on the sleeve for an even better stable "adhesion" to the subframe.

So I ended up not tack welding or even see any need for LocTite as some others have used.

I will keep an eye on it though to see if the sleeve shifts.

cmichaelo wrote

Just installed the rear camber bearing kit from BM. They recommend tack welding the brass sleeve to the subframe. However, mine was quite difficult to push in, ie had to apply similar force on the bushing tool nut to pull it in. It was rock solid in place as is. On top of that, the actual monoball bearing was even harder to pull into the sleeve, thus further pushing "outwards" on the sleeve for an even better stable "adhesion" to the subframe.

So I ended up not tack welding or even see any need for LocTite as some others have used.

I will keep an eye on it though to see if the sleeve shifts.

You should be fine. On my car, the sleeve slid in freely into the subframe without any resistance, so I had to tack weld mine in place. Seems to be some variation in tolerances on the subframe side.

cmichaelo wrote

Just installed the rear camber bearing kit from BM. They recommend tack welding the brass sleeve to the subframe. However, mine was quite difficult to push in, ie had to apply similar force on the bushing tool nut to pull it in. It was rock solid in place as is. On top of that, the actual monoball bearing was even harder to pull into the sleeve, thus further pushing "outwards" on the sleeve for an even better stable "adhesion" to the subframe.

So I ended up not tack welding or even see any need for LocTite as some others have used.

I will keep an eye on it though to see if the sleeve shifts.

Redd wrote

You should be fine. On my car, the sleeve slid in freely into the subframe without any resistance, so I had to tack weld mine in place. Seems to be some variation in tolerances on the subframe side.

Mine were tackwelded and I snapped one of the welds on track and the bearing shifted half a centimeter before I noticed it. Now they each have two welds and have been solid.

Bartledoo wrote

Mine were tackwelded and I snapped one of the welds on track and the bearing shifted half a centimeter before I noticed it. Now they each have two welds and have been solid.

When you pulled, or pushed, your sleeve into the subframe, did it slide in easily or did you have to use significant torqueing on the bushing tool?

cmichaelo wrote

When you pulled, or pushed, your sleeve into the subframe, did it slide in easily or did you have to use significant torqueing on the bushing tool?

I’m not sure. I actually had a shop do these and trailing arm sphericals, since they already had the subframe down to do diff bushings… lumped it all in with an OS giken LSD install. Was quite nice to not do anything for once