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Author Topic: A "technicians" diary  (Read 13142 times)

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aaronjb

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Re: A "technicians" diary
« Reply #45 on: 01 June 2017, 10:00:55 »

Webby if you want to see someone who appears to be absolutely unafraid of a grinder, look at some of Laura Kampf's videos on YouTube, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WrE_gBJSl4

No guard on the grinder, either  :o :o
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Webby the Bear

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Re: A "technicians" diary
« Reply #46 on: 01 June 2017, 10:20:04 »

Holy shit balls that video was awesome!!! I love the idea of a little bit of filler in between the welds to hide the imperfections 👍👍👍
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Webby the Bear

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Re: A "technicians" diary
« Reply #47 on: 01 June 2017, 10:20:27 »

..... but she needs a face mask 😷 😂
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aaronjb

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Re: A "technicians" diary
« Reply #48 on: 01 June 2017, 10:30:51 »

..... but she needs a face mask 😷 😂

She's not that bad looki.. oh, not what you meant ;D
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Sir Tigger KC

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Re: A "technicians" diary
« Reply #49 on: 01 June 2017, 10:40:31 »

..... but she needs a face mask 😷 😂

She's not that bad looki.. oh, not what you meant ;D

And people thought she had acne scars......  ::)  ;D
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Webby the Bear

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Re: A "technicians" diary
« Reply #50 on: 01 June 2017, 17:09:23 »

She looks like she'd prefer the rug. 😂
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Re: A "technicians" diary
« Reply #51 on: 01 June 2017, 17:44:15 »

You underestimate our European cousins ::)
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Webby the Bear

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Re: A "technicians" diary
« Reply #52 on: 03 June 2017, 17:45:17 »

So then yesterday..

Let me make this completely clear. I wanted to do something else for a living yesterday  :'( I get one of these days roughly once a month. Lol these days are where literally everything you touch goes wrong  ;D

I am an honest chap and I don't mind admitting I completely got overwhelmed and flustered yesterday due to things going pear shaped.

OSF coil spring on a BMW 1 series. To tell you the truth this was a 1.5 hour job according to Autodata. It took me from 9 til 2.30.  :-[ that's 4.5 hours with my lunch in between  :-[

So the shenanigans kicked off when I undone the wheel bolts  ::) put the locker in and blasted it..... it started spinning. But with little resistance I thought "hmmm either that was ally loose or that's just stripped". Yep.  Stripped the dudes locker. Luckily we have a set of BMW lockers. Found the correct one and undid it with a bar. It was on there sooooooo tight. And then gave him the one out of the set.

Bastard  ::)

Here's a first glimpse at my arch nemesis...


Here I've removed abs wire, drop link, pinch bolt etc. But note the amount of shock absorber that comes out the bottom of the knuckle. It was never going to simply knock all the way down so I had to remove some stuff and that's when my day got shite  ;D

Here's me in an action shot  ;D ;D of removing the TRE nut.....


When I say removing... I meant undoing it til it spun  :'( in this situ I normally use the gearbox jack to push the TRE ball joint up in to its mount and that allows me to buzz the nut off......


....not on this car  >:(

Eventually after far too long pissing about with it I decided to carefully cut the nut off. This took ages too but eventually came off. New nut found in magic bolt draw  8)

Then thumping the knuckle down more revealed I had to remove the odd shape control arm visible in the last pic. Of course, the nut span again 😩😩😩😩 the nut was below so this time I didn't even bother trying anything different other than cutting the nut off again..... another load of time spent on that (I really must perfect that technique....though to my credit I didn't damage either of the threads....though still ran a die over them later on to be sure).

The bloody thing still wouldn't knock down far enough and I could see it's cos the other control arm was stopping it from coming down. So undertray off and loosen the bolt/bushing so it could allow the knuckle to drop all the way down....

Finally I relieved the strut out of its home and buzzed the three nuts off up top to claim my prize.

I was pretty cheesed off at this point and decided after 2.5 hours to go on lunch.....to come back to the Pete tong stuff continuing  ;D I can laugh now but at the time I could have committed murder  ;D

So to sum up the next events the spring wouldn't sit in the compressor properly due to its odd shape n size. So I put the bottom of the strut in it and buzzed the nut off. This is quite frankly dangerous but I did take all precautions (chain round it). The top mount pinged off and went everywhere. Luckily the bearing stayed in tacked. So fought with getting it all back together.....to realise I'd missed out a washer that allowed the top mount to spin really easy 😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩

So back again with my precarious spring removal.

By this point I enlisted the help of the boss cos I just wanted this job to be over. So after this I was chief torch holder while I got a lesson in what experience really counts for and we got the thing back in. I reckon I lost a stone in sweating  :-[

After all this I felt really dismayed and frankly quite down like I was useless. I don't like to be defeated. But some times these things do happen and I soon had to pick myself up as I was in on my own today  :o :o :o..........
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aaronjb

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Re: A "technicians" diary
« Reply #53 on: 03 June 2017, 18:06:18 »

Are the TRE ball joints tapered or parallel? The E64 (and I think as far back as Al's E39) are parallel so jamming them upward does SFA to stop them from spinning - the only way is the allen socket in the end of it..

Or, as I ended up doing on the E64, a grinder to cut the damn thing off after the allen key strips out.*


*Actually a mate did the grinding .. slitting disc exploded on the grinder when it caught and only just missed his face, too :o
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Sir Tigger KC

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Re: A "technicians" diary
« Reply #54 on: 03 June 2017, 18:18:34 »

Reading this made me feel so happy that I had got my local garage to fit the new front shocks on my 530d!  :y

I think the owner of the garage got involved with mine at some point as well.  ::)  :)
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Re: A "technicians" diary
« Reply #55 on: 03 June 2017, 18:19:39 »

Are the TRE ball joints tapered or parallel? The E64 (and I think as far back as Al's E39) are parallel so jamming them upward does SFA to stop them from spinning - the only way is the allen socket in the end of it..

Or, as I ended up doing on the E64, a grinder to cut the damn thing off after the allen key strips out.*


*Actually a mate did the grinding .. slitting disc exploded on the grinder when it caught and only just missed his face, too :o

Aaron, you ask a perfect question. Because I forgot to add I tried the exact same thing. And didn't strip it...instead I'm now two torx sockets down 😩😩😩😩
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Webby the Bear

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Re: A "technicians" diary
« Reply #56 on: 03 June 2017, 18:30:27 »

Reading this made me feel so happy that I had got my local garage to fit the new front shocks on my 530d!  :y

I think the owner of the garage got involved with mine at some point as well.  ::)  :)

Lol well tig, I'm glad someone else had the same issue..... not to make their day crap but so I don't feel as bad knowing someone else has struggled!

As said I'm an honest guy and I struggled like f... with this. However if I ever have to do one again  :o I'll know I'm in for a struggle and to prepare for it.
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Re: A "technicians" diary
« Reply #57 on: 03 June 2017, 19:00:57 »

Next time, wheel and caliper off, undo the tca/subframe bolts and unscrew the track rods, then pull the whole assembly off ;)

Alternatively, load the suspension, clamp the spring in a slightly compressed state and drop the hub assembly...

Equally, undoing the clamp nut and the strut to turret bolts would have given you ample play to get the base of the strut down to rest on the hub/tca casting and clear of the wheel arch. Then simply pull out.

Text book balls up from the get go, compounded by frustration. I would suggest that next time, rather than getting wrapped up in the whole situation, take a step back, chill, and have another go with a clear head.

 :-*
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Re: A "technicians" diary
« Reply #58 on: 03 June 2017, 19:04:30 »

Reading this made me feel so happy that I had got my local garage to fit the new front shocks on my 530d!  :y

I think the owner of the garage got involved with mine at some point as well.  ::)  :)
I am of the opposite opinion... hence try to do as much as I can. If I balls it up, then that's my problem, but at least I know what has been done to it.
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Webby the Bear

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Re: A "technicians" diary
« Reply #59 on: 03 June 2017, 19:12:32 »

Next time, wheel and caliper off, undo the tca/subframe bolts and unscrew the track rods, then pull the whole assembly off ;)

Alternatively, load the suspension, clamp the spring in a slightly compressed state and drop the hub assembly...

Equally, undoing the clamp nut and the strut to turret bolts would have given you ample play to get the base of the strut down to rest on the hub/tca casting and clear of the wheel arch. Then simply pull out.

Text book balls up from the get go, compounded by frustration. I would suggest that next time, rather than getting wrapped up in the whole situation, take a step back, chill, and have another go with a clear head.

 :-*

Mate everything you say is spot on. I've never done a BMW strut before so I was kind of in no mans land as to a strategy  ::) however now you say it.... the compressing the spring idea is a great one  :y

Regarding the break.... I did take one. But I think the problem is I didn't want to be defeated so even on my break I was still thinking about it. And as said I got myself in to a tizz  ::)

I don't like to end the day where I leave and know my last job I f....d up. And luckily I got to end on a nice set of pads and tracking on a Golf.  :y
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