Making my tourer - just right

[walt525tour]

'95 525i touring automatic - recently purchased - 124,000 miles

So far I have confirmed that new brakes, front rotors and battery were installed last winter.
I had AC recharged.
I replaced coolant tank, coolant level sensor, fan shroud and water pump.
I changed oil & filter and cabin filter

Engine is running fine, handles quite well, quiet and smooth ride.

However, I am feeling a vibration shudder when slowing down. From all that I have read and researched it is most likely the upper thrust arm bushings.

I have decided to buy new arms, ball joints and 750 bushings complete from Bruno at Racing King. http://www.racingking.net/Parts/Part...p?ProductID=53

From looking at the bentley manual and online instructions, is there anything I need to watch out for? Anybody done this lately? What did you use to loosen the ball joint? pickle fork or tie rod puller? Does the bushing bolt come apart with just a wrench and socket or do I need a special wrench? Must I put it up on ramps for that final torque of the bushing bolts? Anything else to be concerned about?

[walt525tour]

I ordered them today from bmaautoparts.com in California

I had to call toll free #
Couldn't find them online with the 750 bushing installed.
Even though they said they were.

Had to ask them to drop shipping cost.
$99 a piece with free shipping to NJ, USA.

[walt525tour]

my thrust arms are here, tomorrow morning I will tackle them.

Since i don't have ramps I'm thinking after I jack stand it up for repairs I'll let one side down and keep one side up for final torquing - think that will be ok? so I can crawl under

And then do the same on the other side

[Torque]

I hope it all goes well, but my dad spent over 2 hours trying to get my left thrust arm off.... at the shop where he works with all equipment, lifts etc.

I hope your thrust arms come off easy.

Good luck

[walt525tour]

well the thrust arms are installed - What a job!!! took about 3-4 hrs. (made the mistake of taking phone to garage with me)

First my floor jack is real small and so I didn't have it jacked up very high -
this is not good when it comes to room to get some leverage to break loose those upper bolts. grunts and moans.
ghead And you have to put a wrench on the nut too

ball joints are also difficult to get loose, but after a couple minutes of hammering
with a very heavy hammer i got them loose.
I didn't have a fork or a puller.

getting the upper bolts back in was ok
but again really tough to tighten cause of being too low to the ground.

getting the ball joints to seat so i could tighten them and torque them was very difficult.
I ended up using a c clamp to compress it back into the hole (see pic)
and then still needed to give the arm a whack with a rubber hammer to seat it so i could tighten and torque.

I don't have ramps so I am going in to my local mechanic next week to torque the bolts again with weight on the suspension.
I am also going to have him install the new fuel filter I bought.
I don't want a gasoline shower!

[walt525tour]

Test Drive results -

The new thrust arms definitely tightened things up.
Vibrations while braking are reduced

But there is still some whumping shudder there.
Maybe it will tighten up when I do the final torque.

I know the brakes and rotors were new in the spring.
tie rod ends have been replaced.

Maybe, I'll just have to budget to replace something in the suspension once a month till its all new.

What do you think is contributing to shudder?
steering box
aged front struts
lower control arms
other ideas??

[walt525tour]

Well, back from the mechanic.
reasonable cost to install fuel filter, I supplied. -- $35
plus he weighted the front wheels with a helper jack and torqued the thrust arm bushings.
Still some shudder under light breaking.

My seller recently supplied me with a print out from his BMW dealer on all the repairs that had ever been done to my car. Neat and valuable document!!!!

In this list, I spyed replaced push struts. MMhh, What's that? did a google search and now I find out they are upper thrust arms!! They were replaced less than 20,000 miles ago!!! (tie rod ends were done - 10k ago)

so, although my front end is now a little tighter I don't think my problem was the thrust arms after all.

so, over the next year as $$$ become available I will

1) replace front struts (interested in pros/cons of lowering)
2) replace rear struts
3) replace front lower control arms (aluminum=expensive)

4) Check other suspension parts
5) Check steering box

And of course I should keep eye on brakes too.
How do you check to see if a front rotor is warped? I know they're less than a year old. Could the old rear brake rotors be causing a shudder? it feels like it's from the front.

Comments??
Other things to check or look at, replace?