Just watched your video. You may already have changed them, but the brake lines need replacing. I'm an MOT tester in the UK.,and I can tell you from experience , these lines are close to fracturing . We put salt on the roads here in Scotland, but that subframe is the worst I've seen. Good luck , it's a lovely car ,apart from the rust.

Doing this right now! Thank you so much for your help !!

i have this job ahead of me. this will definitely help. Thank you

@VNEMUS

4 жыл бұрын

Best of luck!

Thanks for the video bud. I actually am in the exact same situation just not as far along yet lol. 98 328is jersey/ny car just got a new trail arm all because of a broken shock stud, broken bolt extractor.. so this helped a bit. Cheers

Currently in the middle of doing this job, what a PITA. I too mangled the cables when they got stuck in the subframe, took me a total of 4 hours to get both cables out. Reinstalled the driver's cable after some sanding, but I sanded the passenger's side to the point where the metal fitting was just slightly larger than the plastic fitting that goes into the body for the lever and it still doesn't go in. Looks like I'll be forced to sand the hole in the subframe, but there isn't any space for my dremel, and doing it by hand takes forever. I think I'll buy some small files tomorrow morning and try filing the inside of the hole, hopefully that works. I can't wait until both cables are in, it should be smooth sailing from there.

@VNEMUS

4 жыл бұрын

Good luck!. Let me know how it goes!

@timothyer2447

4 жыл бұрын

@@VNEMUS Whoops sorry I forgot to update this! Sanded the subframe as much as I could but it was very hard to get to. In the end, I cut off the metal bushing on the lever-end of the cable, and fed the cable through the subframe without it. Then took the old bushing and drilled it out to just fit over the threads on the cable, and put it on after the subframe. It's all back together and now works.

@VNEMUS

4 жыл бұрын

@@timothyer2447 Good stuff! Glad to hear. Thanks for the update!

Spray some penetrant where the cables enter the chassis tubes. Then cut the cable close to the tubes. Then use a drill with a good sized bit and drill. It will twist the remains right out w/o damging the tubes.

That rust is crazy!

@VNEMUS

5 жыл бұрын

The car spent it's early years ungaraged near the ocean plus New England winters, salted roads.

How did you get it out of the trailing arm

Hi Craig, thanks for the video! I'm having the same problem but mostly in the subframe part. For the backing plate I just used a lot of liquid wrench on both sides, hit the front with a chisel and hammer and wiggled the back side with a pry bar. Now the rubber part that goes into the subframe is completely stuck and I don't know what to do. Just to make sure I'm doing it the right way: you pull it from the back and the front part is supposed to slide through, right? I can't believe how stuck that thing is!

get a 1/4 ratchet extension and beat it out or a scree driver just be gentle and patient

mine was stuck inside the subframe, i used a blow torch and it melted it free, then drilled the remaining rubber

@VNEMUS

10 ай бұрын

Looking back at this repair, I probably should have tried the fire wrench method as you did!👍 Last year, I completely dropped the rear subframe to replace all the corroded rear hard line brake lines up to the master cylinder and replaced the subframe & differential bushings, fully inspected for subframe cracks (none found) and cleaned things up a bit. Then early this year, I manual swapped this car. Sort of wish I videoed some of that. Plenty of others that already have, I guess. Oh well! It's hard to believe these cars are over 20 years old now! Thanks for commenting! 🙂

@vitalybrateev5548

10 ай бұрын

​@@VNEMUS Nice job!! i need to drop my subframe too, there is a clunking noise still here after changing the diff bushing and when i jack the car from the subframe it move, so the bushings are TOOOAST, mine is manual too MT5 big diff 3.38. But mine is my daily driver so i can't remove the subframe... i need to buy an other car like a little toyota or some shit to drive when i do big jobs on the car

@VNEMUS

10 ай бұрын

Oh, yeah, if it's your primary daily driver, that definitely makes it harder to dig into the bigger jobs. If you had a shop do the work, it would be held up at least 1-2 days, nevermind the labor cost to do this work. These cars aren't extremely difficult to work on, mainly due to all the information available. Most of the time it's just having the space and tools, finding the time to do all the work and trying to justify the cost of the parts to maintain. The manual swap made no financial sense for me to do, but always wanted to do it and extremely happy I did. I swapped out my 3.38 for a 2.93 so it would be more highway friendly driving, but it's kind of a dog compared to newer vehicles. Still way more fun to drive!😊

@vitalybrateev5548

10 ай бұрын

@@VNEMUS that’s why we love e46s they are covered with our DNA, blood 🩸 & sweat 😓. With all the hours of work, the hate/love relationships, they are OUR car, not just an other car that you buy and everything is fine 😂