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Da_Hose
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Post by Da_Hose »

Hmmm .....

If you can't weld a nut on, them I suggest drilling an undersized hole, hammering in a Phillips bit from a handheld impact driver and see if that doesn't get it loose with some heat.

Jose
1987 M6 - My dream car
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sansouci
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Post by sansouci »

Maybe I can tap the already drilled hole, run in a bolt with a nut attached and cinch the nut onto the barely exposed stub and try to loosen it.
That and more PB Blaster. Next weekend's project.
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Noct
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Post by Noct »

slofut wrote:
Noct wrote:
MooseDriver wrote:Had a set of the Lemforder replacements in my garage for a few weeks and finally got a chance to get around to this. Easy peasy is right! My old ones were shot (could wiggle them around freely) and it may be the placebo effect but she felt pretty tight on a spirited loop around the neighborhood.

80 bucks in parts and about 30 minutes and it's done!
Cool. I wonder where that $430 quote comes from.... how is it that the "good shops", "socially responsible bay area" folk even pull this kinda shiiite from time to time. When they charged me $90 to change the 2 mirrors I thought to myself, it's inflated but not too bad (another shop had given the same quote). Then I had a mirror replaced by them down the line along with another bunch of sundry things. One was forgotten, specifically to install this trim strip I had asked them to put in. So he had to put it in while I waited and I helped him with it. We had to take off the mirror to do it, and we put it back on in about 10 minutes. So if you figure "man hours" with me holding it in place you could figure .33 shop hrs I guess, but they charged before $90 for 2 mirrors, or exactly 47 minutes labor... a 'lil out of hand wouldn't you say?
You really have to look at it as shop time. Maybe $90/hr with a one hour minimum. Shop has to have minimums. In Cali this is probably not too bad.
I don't know. I mean I don't agree with that. I'm in business for myself too and I think it is bullshit. Fine if you tell people that you have this minimum, but I've had a couple shops act like it's just they're billing shop time and then bill whatever they feel like basically. They see me as a dude who probably has no idea what's going on. One place knows that I do some stuff myself and they gave this suggestion that because of a grinding noise when I try to start the car, probably some of the teeth on my flywheel are bad. I spoke with a random dude today who said it's much more likely the teeth of the starter that are bad. The flywheel metal is harder, or the teeth are more sturdy... either way, he was just some random dude. But my point is I don't really trust the mechanics I use a whole lot. In spite of the fact that I think they are at the top of their profession.
Sidrick

Re: pitman arm

Post by Sidrick »

Noct wrote:
slofut wrote:
Noct wrote: Cool. I wonder where that $430 quote comes from.... how is it that the "good shops", "socially responsible bay area" folk even pull this kinda shiiite from time to time. When they charged me $90 to change the 2 mirrors I thought to myself, it's inflated but not too bad (another shop had given the same quote). Then I had a mirror replaced by them down the line along with another bunch of sundry things. One was forgotten, specifically to install this trim strip I had asked them to put in. So he had to put it in while I waited and I helped him with it. We had to take off the mirror to do it, and we put it back on in about 10 minutes. So if you figure "man hours" with me holding it in place you could figure .33 shop hrs I guess, but they charged before $90 for 2 mirrors, or exactly 47 minutes labor... a 'lil out of hand wouldn't you say?
You really have to look at it as shop time. Maybe $90/hr with a one hour minimum. Shop has to have minimums. In Cali this is probably not too bad.
I don't know. I mean I don't agree with that. I'm in business for myself too and I think it is bullshit. Fine if you tell people that you have this minimum, but I've had a couple shops act like it's just they're billing shops time and then bill whatever they feel like basically. They see me as a dude who probably has no idea what's going on. One place knows that I do some stuff myself and they gave this suggestion that because of a grinding noise when I try to start the car, probably some of the teeth on my flywheel are bad. I spoke with a random dude today who said it's much more likely the teeth of the starter that are bad. The flywheel metal is harder, or the teeth are more sturdy... either way, he was just some random dude. But my point is I don't really trust the mechanics I use a whole lot. In spite of the fact that I think they are at the top of their profession.
Off topic, but if you don't trust the mechanic/garage that you use, then don't use them. You'll always be questioning their work or price, rightly or wrongly. A trustworthy mechanic is worth his weight in gold and is one of the reasons I've ended up with an E24.

As for shop hours, you get a quote, you pay your price.... if they strip a bolt or run into other issues then it's normally taken into account. When I quote for a job I give a bit of leeway for minor problems. Only very regular customers would get the base/minimum rate. Working on 30 year old cars is unlikely to result in the absolute minimum rate.

Also, if you have your car on a ramp that takes time to check in, check out, do the paperwork, get on and off of a ramp and takes up 30 minutes of a mechanic's time.... that's not a 30 minute job... that's a 1h job.
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Post by Noct »

Well, maybe this is a good thread to shift to the Saloon.... the thing is I have had $40 or $60 bills from one of my shops when they took a lot less that an hour for something. So then you expect that as a possibility and it has in fact become one. Yet the same place charged me $200 parts and labor for all the drive belts last time. Was that a bit high? I thought so because it was above someone elses quote, but I had decided not to use that other new shop at that time. Like I said, it's just you never know. Everyone I've come across seems to put that extra time for the stripped bolt in randomly and you never know when.
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Post by Noct »

Noct wrote:I'm curious the level of difficulty in changing the upper arms... looks pretty simple with 2 bolts. Wonder if there's anything that might pose a real challenge, like that 2nd bolt on the pitman not lining up.

Ideally I would change all the suspension parts right away but I'm going bit by bit... as much as I can make sense of what's best for the car and what I can afford to do. It sounds like the rear trailing arm bushing and sub-frame bushings are both PITA and the front lowers look bad.
The Powerflex brand (poly-urethane bushings) someone mentioned has a nice website with what look to be good downloadable instructions in PDF form. Will see if I should take a crack at the upper control arm bushings myself. The other thing I am curious about that is not mentioned over there (at least under e24) is replacing the rear upper strut mounts... does that require a complete strut R&R?
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Brucey
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Post by Brucey »

apologies if this is B-obvious but if you look at the stock upper TCA bushing it is off-centre in the arm. If you replace a BMW upper TCA bushing with an aftermarket one, it will almost certainly be concentric, rather than offset.

This means that the 'simple job' actually necessitates a trip to the wheel alignment shop. You may also find that this 'upgrade' actually produces an amount of bump-steer, too.

cheers
~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Noct
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Post by Noct »

Brucey wrote:apologies if this is B-obvious but if you look at the stock upper TCA bushing it is off-centre in the arm. If you replace a BMW upper TCA bushing with an aftermarket one, it will almost certainly be concentric, rather than offset.

This means that the 'simple job' actually necessitates a trip to the wheel alignment shop. You may also find that this 'upgrade' actually produces an amount of bump-steer, too.

cheers
Thanks.... good food for thought. Everyone seems to be all for some type of upgrade on the upper control arm bushings. I haven't bought any part yet, because I waited so long before addressing the shimmy and other suspension issues, I don't expect alignment to be on target whatever part I use unless there's some magical alignment of the stars. Of course there's lots of choices and everyone has there opinion, but what I had in mind and was about to buy is the Meyle HD bushings. I've seen that they've also manufactured new ones that come with a new arm. I thought I may try that later with my other car. After reading your comment and what is says in Wikipedia about bump-steer I do wonder about just putting the oem Lemfoerder bushings. If it's closer to having things on target then I guess that's the way to go.

The other question I have apart from what part to use is when I install, is it advisable to use copper grease as they recommend for the urethanes, or something else, nothing?
Last edited by Noct on Wed Jun 24, 2015 10:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Noct
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Post by Noct »

Brucey wrote:apologies if this is B-obvious but if you look at the stock upper TCA bushing it is off-centre in the arm.
There's always some little things that are certainly not obvious to people new at this. Like where do you put grease! LOL.
Noct
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Post by Noct »

These look to be asymmetrical, but can't really tell from the pic...
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