new RTABs, new diff fluid

Mileage: 91702

The rear of my M3 has always been loose, but recently it got a whole lot worse. Coming out of turns the car's rear would shimmy under acceleration, which totally sucks. I've also started to get rapid rear tire wear. Another warning sign. Since the rear trailing arm bushings are a typical e36 wear item that can cause this behavior, I decided to replace em. I did some interweb research and decided to opt for the Powerflex urethane bushings. In my research I also learned that the labor for replacement can be a total PITA if you don't have the proper bushing puller tool. Some people do it with a sawzall and an air hammer. I did the control arm bushings on my E30 with a hacksaw and a hammer. Boy did that suck. So I bought the Victory Product Design RTAB tool (a bargain compared to the $500 BMW tool).

I bugged a coworker (J Ho) to use his garage so I wouldn't get busted by the lame apartment people again. I read up on the procedure on the internet and saw mixed results. Some people claimed it took all day, others said it was a 2hr job. I was prepared for the worst. Surprizingly, the only real hang up was breaking the bolt loose that held the carrier to the bushing. Once I rigged up a scheme with the jack to pin a wrench between the frame and the arm, it came off with one solid full body weight push on the breaker bar. The first side took 2 hours, the second took half that. I was pleased. The old bushings are pictured to the right, if you zoom you can check out the tear in the rubber below the metal center. That's not good.

Since I got done relatively quickly, I drained the diff and changed out the fluid to Royal Purple Gearmax. Of course, you need another special tool to change the diff fluid. I used an $8 14mm hex socket from Autozone with the socket part hacked off. It worked like a charm.

Aside from the work on my car, 3 other cars went under the wrench. Weaver put a 120VAC plug setup in his glove box so he can charge his laptop anywhere (this is apparently higher priority than fixing his high beam only headlights). Rob swapped Astrid's car's front brakes. And J Ho swapped the tranny filter and fluid in his vegmobile Merc. Unfortunately, he snapped off a bolt head putting the drain pan back on ... this sucked a lot. He then broke off a screw puller in the bolt when trying to get it out. This sucked a lot worse. After a couple of hours of fighting with it, he gave it up and was going to get the car towed to a professional. Later, over beer, we discussed JB welding it back together since it's due to be replaced eventually.

Overall it was a fun and productive day.