Rear shock replacement E30

[Apex 693]

Just replaced the rear shock absorbers with the factory specified BOGE TURBO’s. Drives fantastic.

To do this is simple on the Coupe and Sedan but a complete nightmare on the Touring, you need to remove all the rear panelling so you can get to the joke of an access hole to unbolt the strut tower. Loosening and retightening the rear bolts took around an hour this would be a lot faster if you had small magnetic hands and x-ray vision.

Defiantly a recommended DIY on the E30, would take around an hour on a sedan or coupe or 3.5-4 hours on a touring.

If you’re going to do it make sure you order the new strut top mounts in advance as a lot of places didn’t have them.

The job is pretty straight forward but here’s what I found helped.. Loosen the front bolt to the near end and the strut will drop a bit giving you better access to the rear bolt, the rear bolt will take a long time to get undone as there is next to no room to unbolt it have a telescopic magnet ready as you will need it. Use a trolley jack to raise and lower the rear hubs when manoeuvring the strut’s.

After removing and refitting the rear panelling in the touring four times in one year and have worked out the correct method.

1) Remove Rear side bolsters.

2) Remove floor carpet.

3) Remove storage doors.

4) Remove side panels.

Refit in reverse order obviously, this is a time consuming job if done properly and you’ll need to be patient. It sounds like an easy straight forward task but takes a considerable amount of time.

Pictures show the only access to the strut tower, second shows where the bolts and sockets will end up when struggling with the rear bolt. The crazy Germans kindly gave us this cut out as part of the overall sick joke.

[Cale 36]

Thanks for that Graham.

Looking forward to doing mine anytime in the next 250 years.

[SIR E30 68]

I found this out the hard way when I had my shocks replaced professionally, got stung a wee bit for the excessive labour! But they did give me a slight discount as they werent expecting it to take so long

[Mike 1]

I had BOGE Turbos in the rear of my car for a while, I really liked them too. Only swapped them out for a full set off bilsteins. (front's were stock). Worked really well with lowered springs too.

[Free Plug] They're for sale too, $50 firm, great condition. [/plug]

[isis 16]

I thought you replaced your whole suspension not too long ago?

[Apex 693]

Didn’t have the rears done, had ordered KYB’s but wasn’t happy with the fronts after a week so never fitted the back. I am looking at getting some more BOGE to replace the fronts when I come up with another couple of hundred.

Sorry if I was misleading.

Next up is the rear swaybar link bushes, these were apparently fixed when it had the springs fitted but one side has come adrift again, I reset them yesterday.