Front thrust arm removal
 

I'm looking to do my own thrust arm bushings. It appears simple. But it looks like after removing the nut on the bolt at the front, that there's not room for the bolt to slide far enough to pull out the arm. There's some plastic part that would stop the bolt from sliding further than about one inch. Is this really a non-factor? Or more stuff must be removed to be able to slide out the bolt? X5Girl's excellent DIY writeup doesn't have any special mention of anything other than remove the nut and bolt.

It is strange, neither of my cars presented that problem, the bolts should slide right out. Make sure there is no residual pressure from the strut.

I know exactly what you are describing - Did both of my thrust arm bushings this last weekend. The plastic box is in the way on the driver's side. It is an airbox with some temp sensor (I think) at the front behind the grille, and looks like it vents upward along the side of the engine.

To get the driver side bolt out I took the two screws out to be able to move the wheel-well plastic lining. After you get access to it you can see to bolts above the airbox. Remove these and you may have enough room to get the bolt out.

I had to unsnap the sides of the airbox and collapse it into itself to get enough room. Luckily passenger side doesn't have this.

Thanks for the replies.

I'm not sure yet how to be careful of the residual pressure from the strut. But I'll probably figure that out as I go.

And for replacing the bushings, I plan to drill into the rubber then use a hacksaw blade from inside the hole to cut to the outer bushing metal ring. Then I can compress the outer ring and push it out. I can hammer and/or press the new bushing in. This is how I did it on my E36.

I tried that method, since I had done a similar thing with my old E30. Just a word of caution, the X5 thrust arm bushings are stout. Some people may be successful, but I don't see how they remove/insert those bushings into the arms without a press. I broke many tools trying to get the bushings out of the arms without a press. So I went out and bought a 12ton shop press.

I had to use tons of force, literally, to remove and insert the bushings into the arms. My 12ton shop press was working pretty damn hard to get those suckers replaced.

Good luck.

did the OEM bushings appear damaged or from what i have read here leak fluid? i have been told mine need replacing but want to be sure before i go ahead

They will leak fluid for a while but there is not that much in there. You can tell though by looking at them with a flash light, mine definitely had cracks in them.

Cannot be done reasonably without a good press, i bought the 20 Ton version. The bushings are very firmly held in the thrust arms.

Mine caused steering vibrations while breaking, I opted to just do a new arm on both sides. As everyone else said, a couple 8mm bols on the bottom of that plastic thing and it moves out of the way.

It will be more easy to just replace the whole arm, buy an arm with brand 'lemforder', which in the fact is oem product. It's far cheap than the one marked 'BMW' but also made by 'lemforder'.

ok thanks all, just wondering though does it make sense money wise to change the whole arm if i can get away with finding a decent mechanic who can just replace the bushings? i found the lemforder bushings for a reasonable price.....and not sure replacing the whole arm if the arm is ok will be the best way....economic crisis and the like hmmmmm