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

[andrewwynn]

Follow up on the braking wobble: my car wobbles when braking softly when about 50mph (80kph). I can get a very subtle wobble when steering past the center (most obvious when making slow lane changes). In my experience this is always the ball joint in the control arm. (Not the thrust arm).

Hard braking will force a loose ball joint into a locked position so the wobble goes away. Also the frequency of the wobble is not speed related.

Wobble frequency changes with speed and stronger when faster and pronounced when braking firmly it's always the rotors in my experience. (A previous car of mine was Z28 Camaro and I had plenty of experience with rotor shake with that car due to some heavy brake use: I've had the rotors hot enough you could feel the heat like a campfire when you walked past.


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[snik]

Originally Posted by trentcdrums

I instantly assumed that I needed the front suspension replaced anyway because of how old the car was. My fault on that one.. rides smooth. 189k.

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Have you checked the tires.
I've seen tires with broken bands cause death wobbles on trucks, and folks always assume it's the suspension.


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[trentcdrums]

Originally Posted by snik

Have you checked the tires.
I've seen tires with broken bands cause death wobbles on trucks, and folks always assume it's the suspension.


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My tires already needed replaced so I went ahead and did those as well

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[trentcdrums]

Originally Posted by andrewwynn

Follow up on the braking wobble: my car wobbles when braking softly when about 50mph (80kph). I can get a very subtle wobble when steering past the center (most obvious when making slow lane changes). In my experience this is always the ball joint in the control arm. (Not the thrust arm).

Hard braking will force a loose ball joint into a locked position so the wobble goes away. Also the frequency of the wobble is not speed related.

Wobble frequency changes with speed and stronger when faster and pronounced when braking firmly it's always the rotors in my experience. (A previous car of mine was Z28 Camaro and I had plenty of experience with rotor shake with that car due to some heavy brake use: I've had the rotors hot enough you could feel the heat like a campfire when you walked past.


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this was my exact issue. My car would Shake anything over 70 miles an hour and it would Shake anything under. That's where shops and opinions would go to the suspension system. I was not convinced that a rotor would make my car shake that bad without even touching the brakes. But that was the case in this.

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[MoonX5]

Pulled the transmission on the black one today to send the torque converter out for rebuild to fix the annoying P0741 code. I think I'll go ahead and go through the transmission while it's out (I own a transmission shop), upgrade to the HD "A" clutch drum, replace the "F" clutch piston, freshen the clutches, and make the necessary valve body mods. It shifted great, but at 161K, and with the transmission sitting there waiting on the converter, it only makes sense to tear it down and freshen it up.

I also replaced the rear air springs with Arnotts today. A pretty trivial job, but it will be nice to not have the LR bleed down every night. With the load off of the rear suspension, I was able to check the rear suspension for the usual wear and tear. Sure enough, upper and lower ball joints were loose on both sides. New parts ordered, and should be here by the time I get back from SEMA.

[semcoinc]

For the 2nd time I tore into my air suspension compressor

The first time was for a piston ring replacement a la Bagpipin Andy. Got me working for a while but I could see the cylinder bore had some scoring and I was hoping for the best, but it was not to be. Here is the scoring of the bore that I had going on and the piston ring fit very loosely at the opening of the bore.



The suspension codes just kept coming and I knew the piston ring fix wasn't holding things together.

So today I installed a $22 complete cylinder head replacement from China

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Air-...a6f54c4djoKYNk



I got some surprises in the amount of rust that had occurred inside the unit and how much less spring I have left in my unit.



Here is the new component cylinder head and the pieces that must be swapped over from the old one. Note the rust signature in the silver cover.



Cleared the codes and so far so good. A complete 25 mile drive without the suspension code being thrown.

My unit is a 2003 vintage (2002 build) and has 113K miles on it, so one might want to go the full monty of a cylinder head if you desire a more long term durable fix.

Mike

[EODguy]

Washed the X and started my trip to jeddah and..... it RAINED!!!How loose Crude oil likes to stick to a clean car.
sign of "civilization "

[crystalworks]

Sold my last e30. The convertible. Sad weekend.


On the X, big red got a wash finally after 2+ months of rain. Now that she's clean I pulled off the replica ACS spoiler as it had started lifting. The beta link is awesome stuff, but the paint job done on the underside was not as good as the OEM imola and the beta link pulled it off allowing the spoiler to lift. As a fix, I took most of the paint off the spoiler and dremmel'd some crosshatching into the bottom of the spoiler and the top of the hatch to allow the beta link more bite and something to really hold on to. Was too tired to get the weights and everything to actually reinstall as I had a long day working on house projects... but at least it's prepped and ready to go.


Also read my codes again... bad o2 heater circuit persists on post cat driver's side. Going to look more (fuses, wiring, etc), but might have to just bight the bullet and buy a unit that does not require soldering. The passenger o2 is doing okay though it seems and is of the same bosch universal 4 wire variety. Maybe I got a bad one... who knows.

[CleanIsFast]

Performed some maintenance over the weekend

CCV BreatherHose (Cyl 1-4) Replaced
CCV Breather Hose (Cyl 5-8) Replaced
Pressure Regulator Valve Replaced (2)

[mr_robot]

Changed the transfer case fluid.

While doing that I saw that the driver's side outer cv boot wasn't clampled on right.

No rips it was just off the shaft. Had to use a regular worm clamp for now.


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