BMW E30 Rear Subframe, Trailing Arms, Prop Shaft & Differential Assembly + New Poly Bushings | 022

BMW E30 Rear Subframe, Trailing Arms, Prop Shaft & Differential Assembly + New Poly Bushings | 022

In this BMW E30 Build episode I finally refit the rear subframe, rear trailing arms and differential with new polybushings.

It's been quite a long time coming and I've published multiple videos about the work done to remove, modify and refinish these parts, all culminating in this video where they all get refitted to the car looking brand new.

In actual fact, most of these parts have been refinished for about a year, and simply kicking around in the garage waiting for this day, luckily they've remained in good condition.

Here's the video where I actually removed this rear subframe from the E30, featuring the battle I had with the OE rear beam bushings:    • BMW E30 Rear Subframe Removal & Rear ...  

I started off by fitting the new Flo-Flex Polyurethane Bushings into the E30 rear beam, which went in without too much trouble with plenty of grease and a hammer to help. Much easier than pressing in an OE rubber style bushing at least.

Here are the Flo-Flex Polyurethane Subframe Bushings I used: https://ebay.us/ZUP6ij
And the matching set for the rear arms: https://ebay.us/XQlTsl

These seem excellent and stack up great alongside the more mainstream Poweflex products. Time will tell of course, but my expectations remain high.

I decided to fit the rear trailing arms to the rear subframe and then lift the whole lot onto the car for fitting, pretty similar to the way I removed it all in the first place, as one unit (minus the diff this time).

The rear beam will not fit back up with the back half of the prop shaft in place. This is very strange to me as I'm 99% certain the prop was not removed when taking the subframe off the car. Luckily the prop shaft is very easy to slip off and back onto its splines.

Unfortunately, at the point where I had the subframe back in position, I realised the error of my ways.

The rear arm reinforcing braces I welded in a long time ago appeared to be interfering with that fuel pipe between the filler neck and the tank. Absolutely gutted to find that as welding those plates on in the first place was quite a task, and cutting them back off was not on my agenda. Not to mention the work done to get these things painted up in 2k black.

I ended up dropping the rear subframe again and getting to work adjusting my rear arm bracing with an angle grinder, which lead onto me cutting most of the heft out of them and leaving only a lighter version of my original design.

I did find out about the potential for these reinforcing bars to be an issue with the fuel pipe after I did the modification, but I was trying to stay hopeful about it not being an issue, unfortunately, I didn't get away with it. I must've been looking at people's E30 builds with a fuel cell in the boot when I got inspired to do such hefty reinforcing.

Luckily, as I'm not planning to run big power on this car, what I'm left with is probably a much more sensible reinforcing bar.

With that done, I even went ahead and repainted the arms and rear beam in black again, and second time around was a charm. Those reinforcing bars don't interfere with that fuel pipe anymore and the job is a good one.

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