What did you do to / for your E53 today??

[DaveX]

Had it lowered yesterday 1" using DIS, didnt want to go any lower because i felt it would loose its character. rides and handles great and no alignment needed

[DaveX]

The tech basically fooled the computer into thing i have 18" wheels, no error messages

[TwinTurboGTR]

Originally Posted by ake53

hey how's the cv boot? I need to do it on passenger side. and my indy quoted 250 if axel comes off. would i be able to do it on my own without air tools?

Yup, RickyBobby pretty much answered it to the T. Now for some of my advice... If done this job for the 12th time that day. Now 8 times, I did it the way TIS says to do it. That is to pull the wheel bearing from the hub, unclip the boot to expose the CV joint and pound the crap out of it until it comes off. Now doing it this way, it took me about 2.5 hours to do it. The hitch I always ran into was pulling the joint over the c-clip and the splines. Sometimes it was 1 good blow and bang it went other times... lets just say I needed a half bottle of Johnnie Walker Red (Yeah, wasn't even worthy of whipping out the Black, Green, or Blue, I just needed to get hammered... No pun intended). After I found the way to do it in 30 mins... it was a blessing and a DOH moment.

IMHO, it is easier to remove the whole axle and work on it from the bench. Removing the 3 point joint from its splines is a whole hell of a lot easier than removing the CV joint. Once you get that sucker off, you just slide the boots off and slide them back on. I normally dunk the whole thing in solvent to remove all the old grease and then use compressed air to blow it all out. Then I start greasing the CV joint, moving it around the distribute the grease.

This way for me doesn't take me a half hour though, more like an hour twenty unless if I am putzing around looking for more trouble (Hmmm... I could paint the calipers, maybe I should rebuild them. Hmmm I should really change that... yadda yadda yadda. Then it takes me 2 hours, haha.

So, some tips and tricks.

Like I said, removing the whole shaft is easier.

When reinstalling, lube the CV joint with the grease, fit the boot and tighten the clamps.

The inner boot, tighten the clamp on the shaft and grease the bearing with half the grease. When you install the inner shaft back in, do not fit the boot yet. Just get it in and align the splines to the wheel hub.

Once it is in, tuck the boot back and fill with the remaining grease. Trust me, if you pack all the grease in there at once, it will just become a mess. Once all the grease is in, fit the end of the boot and tighten the clamp. Once it is in, your ready to put everything back together.

Hope this helps.

Contact RB or me if you have any problems.

[X5SND]

Originally Posted by DaveX

Had it lowered yesterday 1" using DIS, didnt want to go any lower because i felt it would loose its character. rides and handles great and no alignment needed

Love the conservative drop! A drop that keeps the gap around the tires more or less even is perfect on the X, anything lower looks out of place, IMO.

[TwinTurboGTR]

I agree. Eventually I need to do something with lowering it and changing the rear bags. For some reason, then the X is sitting normal, ride height is level. But if I jack the front up, it looks crooked. When I take a closer look, the right read bag is not keeping pressure in the bag.

So I need to check some things out, but Ill end up replacing the bags and then worry about lowering the whip.

[tmv]

Originally Posted by DaveX

Had it lowered yesterday 1" using DIS, didnt want to go any lower because i felt it would loose its character. rides and handles great and no alignment needed

I'll need to ask for a "how-to's" soon

[Ricky Bobby]

Originally Posted by X5SND

Love the conservative drop! A drop that keeps the gap around the tires more or less even is perfect on the X, anything lower looks out of place, IMO.

x2, perfect job on the drop. One of these days I'll need to get hooked up with a conservative lowering like that. The nice thing of the air suspension is you can always lower more for pictures So for me I would probably get about 1/2 - 3/4" inch lower for "normal height", then I could always lower the 25mm more for pics.

[Ricky Bobby]

Originally Posted by davintosh

Got it back from the tire & alignment shop, and it drives SO NICE! The wife is gonna love it. She's spoiled, and she knows it.

Dave I'm sure thats makes a huge difference, I cannot wait to finally get my car rebalanced/aligned, you're not the first to post how huge of a difference it makes after doing susp work to get aligned!

[X5SND]

Originally Posted by Ricky Bobby

x2, perfect job on the drop. One of these days I'll need to get hooked up with a conservative lowering like that. The nice thing of the air suspension is you can always lower more for pictures So for me I would probably get about 1/2 - 3/4" inch lower for "normal height", then I could always lower the 25mm more for pics.

Exactly! Gotta love fine tuning the ride height to suit the angle of the picture! Lol

[mad_mike]

win the last two weeks, both rear airbags on suspension, drivers exterior door handle, 4 new tires, laser alignment, and decided I still love her more than my fiancé!