The Barbara Chronicles

[Vass 859]

16 minutes ago, Eagle said:

Its just 2x simple camber arms ffs, everything else is the same. Nearly 3x the price is something id expect for adjusting coilovers. Sounds like whoever was doing it didn't know what they are doing or they wanted to extract more money out of you, probably both given my experience with dealers.

Yeah I probably looked like I could afford it hahah. To be fair, was prepared to pay a bit extra the first time around since so many components were changed so not too disgruntled. At least it's sorted and riding well. Last place I went to for an alignment didn't even give me an alignment sheet.

30 minutes ago, Eagle said:

I've never done the rings because it seems like a game of guess the tolerances. 

Yeah I'm not gonna bother this time around, will just do the seals.

Might play around with the cylinders currently in the car now once they're out and see if I can get it right. Saw a video of this Polish dude that goes through the process more in-depth than I've seen elsewhere gapping the spacer washers and how to check if they're not too loose or tight before reassembly. Have a spare cam gear thingy that I can grip in a bench vice and check for how freely the cylinder internals spin around so don't need to have the cam cover opened up whilst messing around.

[Eagle 1672]

4 hours ago, Vass said:

Yeah I probably looked like I could afford it hahah. To be fair, was prepared to pay a bit extra the first time around since so many components were changed so not too disgruntled. At least it's sorted and riding well. Last place I went to for an alignment didn't even give me an alignment sheet.

I hope so. Lots of places don't give the sheet unless you ask.  I assume they think most people dont understand it or care to have it anyway.

14mm more poke in the rear is quite a bit compared to factory. Id try thicker spring pads if it is the tyre that rubbing. Problem with adjusting camber is the toe changes (more negative more toe out) so technically need another alignment. 

[Vass 859]

Just now, Eagle said:

14mm more poke in the rear is quite a bit compared to factory. Id try thicker spring pads if it is the tyre that rubbing. Problem with adjusting camber is the toe changes (more negative more toe out) so technically need another alignment. 

I just called to book in a time for cert. Last time I checked the lead times were 3+ months so wasn't expecting any slots being available this year but managed to get booked in for December 11th. Was told the requirement is to have an alignment done within 28 days prior or not to have driven the car much since having it done so I'll have to get it aligned again anyway. My WoF is out in December as well so works out perfectly.

Dropped her off to get the AC regassed this morning, picking her up soon and road trip up to Nelson for a rally event tomorrow. Let's gooo

[Eagle 1672]

Ah didnt know about that 28 days thing. Guessing you not going back to BMW then?    

[Vass 859]

Hahah will see. Might give them a call closer to the time and lock in a price for just a quick recheck and printout.

Bit concerned about the rubbing though. If it's already catching on something with the car empty then what's gonna happen with 4 people and a boot full of luggage in the next few weeks... Can tweak some more camber on but then it'll have to be back within spec for cert hahah.

Will see how it behaves on the open road tomorrow. If it's not too bad then might just put up with it for a month and a bit and sort it properly after cert. Could just be something obvious at the rear left like a bit of plastic arch lining protruding so would be an easy fix.

[adro 1084]

Great job! Did you put thicker spring pads in the rear? I think i put 15mm in mine, more for aesthetics than anything, but that would also be a very easy fix.

[Vass 859]

Yeah good shout! I just have a stock set on. Might try that out actually, would be the quickest solution and even out the arch gaps a little bit - the front gap is still noticeable whilst there's barely anything in the rear.

What's the best place to get some thicker ones in a hurry without paying exuberant shipping fees? My folks are here next Thursday already, would be great to get it sorted by then but probably pushing my luck unless some are available locally.

Edit: bloody hell, that is absolutely mental. 80 EUR for a slab of rubber!?

Edited October 26, 2023 by Vass

[adro 1084]

Yeah they are ridiculously priced. Think I paid $100 from FCP. Could be worth trying the dealer.

[Eagle 1672]

Dealer wont be cheaper than Schmeidmann but can be close. I bought the same ones back in the day for bugger all maybe 20-30 NZD ea. My theory is E30 tax caused the hike.

Try doubling your spares up for a test?. If it works you modify them a bit better or get something custom made (used to run 10mm poly ones on my E30) 

Looks like URO do them now - https://www.bimmerworld.com/Suspension-Steering/Springs_Sway_Bars/Rear-Spring-Pad-15mm-Thickness-E30-E36-E46-Z3-Z4.html

Edited October 26, 2023 by Eagle

[Vass 859]

9 minutes ago, adro said:

Yeah they are ridiculously priced. Think I paid $100 from FCP. Could be worth trying the dealer.

Hahah just called them up. Would have to order them in from Germany, 3+ week wait and, get this - they cost $402+GST. Each. Christ on a bike. Even the guy in the parts department cracked up laughing at the absurdity of it.

Just found a set of ÜRO ones for $30/each on RockAuto, $100 for a pair after shipping and taxes. Might just pull the trigger on that, FedEX shipping should be pretty speedy and would be good to have on hand anyway.

Don't have any spare new ones but could cut up and stack up the old ones, at least in the meantime, hopefully I haven't thrown them out yet...

Thanks guys, looks like I have a couple of options on a solution.

[Eagle 1672]

Haha. I asked the local parts guy about pricing once - he said they can ring\enquire to Germany about the price, but it can go up or down and then it gets updated to that value regardless. 

Actually a 21.5mm upper ive never seen -33531091599

[adro 1084]

That is insane. 4 x the price and double the shipping time. Classic. The double stacking can work ok, I did it on my E30 while some bigger ones turned up and didn’t have any issues. 

[Vass 859]

Got up to Nelson for the weekend. Went up along the coast through Kaikoura & Blenheim and back down inland through Lewis Pass. Awesome scenic drive with nice bits of twisties along the way. Ticked over 230,000km along the way.

Car behaved really well throughout, held the road really well, tracked nice and straight with no weird clunks or vibrations, an absolute joy to drive. Can't feel any noticeable NHV from the solid subframe bushes and even the monoball trailing arms don't feel too bad going over bumps or sharp edges with the new shocks. Definitely not the sportiest setup with some body roll felt in quicker corners but ride comfort was always going to be prioritised over stiffness and I cannot fault it at all. Forgot to mention before that I also threw in a 25mm Z4 front sway bar that I got off a mate. Don't think I could make out any real difference but I'm sure it also helps.

Only real issue throughout was the rubbing from the rear tyres, mostly the left side one for some reason. The rear really does look to droop a wee bit, although the side skirts sit parallel to the ground.

Ordered in a pair of 15mm ÜRO spring pads from RockAuto, should arrive during the coming week and will throw them in straight away. Whilst in Nelson, I cut up the old set of pads and threw them in as spacers to make the drive back south a bit less stressful.

Seemed to work at first but after a while the suspension settled again or the springs pressed themselves into the pads a bit deeper and the rubbing became as bad as before.

Mostly looks to be rubbing at the rear and into the inner edge of the bumper and actually managed to eat away at it quite a bit. Will try and fold the lip in a little bit more towards the rear and trim back the bumper somewhat. Might also leave in an extra spacer pad even after installing the 15mm upper spring pad. Will still probably need to tweak the camber somewhat. I hear that it's allowed to be half a degree beyond spec when going for cert so that's probably where I'll take it.

As far as teething issues go, that's pretty mild in my book so cannot complain. Apart from the rubbing, cannot fault the car at the moment, couldn't be happier with how it rides and really pleased to finally have it at a point where I can just enjoy driving it. Will be eating up plenty more km's in the coming month.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Vass

[Eagle 1672]

Not sure what profile Dunlop uses but a different shaped tyre may also help in the future. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Eagle

[Vass 859]

40 minutes ago, Eagle said:

Not sure what profile Dunlop uses but a different shaped tyre may also help in the future. 

Yeah I've gone with 255/35R18 at the rear. Probably should have just stuck with 245's. Figured it'd be fine since the old 17" Style 194's also had 255's at the back but the slight drop from the Eibachs must have taken them just beyond the comfort limit.

If the thicker pads don't fix it then I might actually just throw on the old Msport rear springs for the duration on the upcoming road trip and dial it in properly afterwards.

[darren_mk 62]

Nice work, car looks great. Enjoy all your hard work!

PS - I'd be trying a different tyre size to sort out the rubbing. 

[Vass 859]

Feel like I'd only be telling a partial story if I didn't spill the beans on an assortment of mishaps I've had during the wrench-a-thon of the past month. Some might be funny, some educational but all due to lack of mental sharpness from a combination of overwork and undersleep.

Starting off light, I already mentioned forgetting to prime the front shocks when first assembling them. What I didn't mention is that when I took the springs off, ran the shocks through their full range of motion 3-4 times and reassembled them again, they came out looking like this:

Stared at them for a minute comparing shaft thicknesses (...) with the old B6's before noticing the bump stop-dust boot combo laying on the floor next to the toolkit. Apart they came again.

Then of course threw on the dust boots upside down on the rear shocks as well - just took them out the package the way they were facing for shipping and on they went.

Luckily, caught both of those things before any of the components went onto the car... unlike the previous owner. Front dust boots had crumbled old bump stops crammed into them, causing the boots to crumple up and jam up against the top of the strut mount and doing sweet f**k all to protect the shaft from the elements. Evidently, the B6's have internal bump stops so all they need is a dust boot. The rear shocks were completely shot, dust boots were put on upside down and one of the strut mount bolts was threaded on barely finger tight, which might explain the clunk I'd been experiencing when switching into reverse. Top notch craftsmanship.

As a final task one late night I got onto assembling the front hub knuckles. First one came together pretty well: cup ring - dust shield - wheel bearing - lock ring and voila. Having gotten the knack of it and all the tools laid out, I wanted to quickly throw together the second one and call it a night. Cup ring - wheel bearing - dust sh... f**k.

I knocked it all the way down to the base of the shaft before realising what I had done. The old wheel bearings had all come off cleanly in one piece so they don't jam on there too tightly. This new one wasn't as loose though. I managed to gently pry it all the way to the tip until the inner race jammed on and refused to come off the rest of the way. Felt like if I put any more force on it then the wheel bearing would separate, leaving the inner race still attached, which could potentially compromise the bearing and mean shelling out a not insignificant amount for a new one straight away. Called it a night and gathered my thoughts the next morning. Tried a few more things before coming up with the idea of putting on a bearing puller tool backwards and using it as a sort of slide hammer against the surface of the inner race. After a few tries it luckily came off still intact. Lucky escape.

Having gotten the hubs, brakes and axles assembled, I chucked on the wheels and dropped the car down for the first time. Next thing was to torque up the inner ends of the camber arms and spring perches to the rear subframe but with the suspension yet to settle and sitting quite high up, I recruited a mate to sit in the boot to bring the rear down closer to actual ride height.

I crawled under and positioned myself in place, torque wrench in hand and shouted out for the mate to "jump in". Little did I know that he would take the command too literally... Next thing I hear was a thump followed by a loud OOWWWWW.

No idea what possessed him to do what he did but from where he was sitting on the hatch sill, he just rolled himself backwards as if he was scuba diving off the side of a boat and plunked himself straight onto the stud holding down the spare wheel. Right to the middle of his spine, taking out a decent chunk of skin and leaving a nasty gash. Bloody hell dude! Didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Took a bit of convincing him to at least put a band aid on it, the trooper. Luckily nothing more than a surface level wound and the stud got bent right back into shape as well.

Then onto the dumbest and scariest episode. Late Sunday night, having slaved away the whole day tidying up the last niggly bits - putting on brakes, axles, driveshaft, heat shields, exhaust - I was really excited and keen to finally drive the car home. Dropped her down on her wheels, rechecked the fluids, bled the coolant, power steering and doing some final checks, I brought the car up to temp, loaded up as many boxes of old parts and tools that I could grab in a hurry and proceeded to head home. Having barely gotten past my mate's front gate out onto the street, the ABS trifecta lit up. Figured the sensors must have gone out of whack with everything being disconnected and the steering angle sensor needing recalibrating. Pulled over straight away and grabbed my coding computer to jump onto PA Soft. Whilst that was booting up, I casually glanced at the instrument cluster and nearly shat myself.

f**k.

After all that... had I just cooked it!? f**k. f**k f**k f**k.

Clocked the coolant temperature at 112°.

I sat there, head in my hands for a good 10 minutes, not knowing what to do. The clock had ticked past 10:30pm so nothing good was going to come from the rest of the night anymore. With the car somewhat cooled down, I decided that driving the 100 meters back into the garage won't hurt much more beyond the damage already done. Still monitoring the temperatures, as soon as I started the car, the temps dropped down to 90° straight away. By the time I rolled into the garage, they'd dropped again down to 78°. Must be an air pocket!

Disheartened but somewhat hopeful, jumped in the trusty Swift and sped off home, still trying to unpack what had happened. By the time I got to bed, I might have figured out why the ABS lights had gone off - I took out the rear wheel speed sensors when installing the axles to avoid potentially damaging them and must have forgotten to slide them back into place.

Then, already half asleep, I threw myself into another slight state of panic having all of a sudden remembered that I'd forgotten to properly torque up the wheel nuts after putting the car down from the lift, having only rattled them on with an impact wrench at the lowest setting. Turned out the ABS lights may have saved me a bigger disaster.

The next (Monday) morning (hooray for Labour Day) I went back and took a good half a day checking over everything I had touched on the car. Sure enough...

Reattached those, torqued down the wheels and rechecked all fluids.

Also discovered a hose clamp on one of the power steering hoses to the reservoir was completely loose and slowly weeping fluid onto the alternator. Another reason I was glad I hadn't driven all the way home the previous night.

Went for a second go at a test drive, keeping an eye on the temperatures throughout. They jumped up and down for a while, up to 107° then down to 90° before settling nicely between 95-99° after a dozen kilometers. Have been monitoring the temperatures every time I've driven it since - having an Android headunit helps, don't even have to hook up an OBD dongle, instead it takes them through CANBUS. Maximum it's gotten to is 101°, where it sits steadily when cruising at 100kph at just over 2.5k RPM on the motorway, then weirdly drops down to as low as 80° when giving it beans, even going uphill. Must be due to increased airflow and higher RPM's pushing the water pump harder.

Thinking back to it, I wonder whether the temperatures jumping around like that is just what happens every time without us being aware of it... The only reason my temp needle started going up was because I had coded the buffer to be more sensitive to temperature changes.

The maximum I'd caught the temperature at was 112°. With factory coding, the needle would not have even moved beyond dead center in that instance.

Think I'd rather be scared than sorry still.

[Eagle 1672]

2 hours ago, Vass said:

The maximum I'd caught the temperature at was 112°. With factory coding, the needle would not have even moved beyond dead center in that instance

Not sure what you coded you values to, but yeah i think the point is the have warning\be scared as opposed to having none\instant overheat.

I coded mine (cant remember values) it drops down 11 o'clock mark a lot more with my driving, ecu orders the thermostat to low ~80's under bigger loads for safety (ideally should be around that all the time but emissions, mpg, and other bs)

2 hours ago, Vass said:

Feel like I'd only be telling a partial story if I didn't spill the beans on an assortment of mishaps I've had during the wrench-a-thon of the past month

Given the total extent of your work i reckon you have done well. Being able to ID and fix mistakes properly before any damage is closely second to not making them in my book. Dont think you have actually broken or really damaged anything either? so its a nice lesson rather than a painful one. 

[Vass 859]

Ordered the 15mm spring pads Thursday, got them in the mail last Tuesday, threw them in on Wednesday. Felt nice and beefy the pads which made me hopeful. 

Just to be safe, also kept the bottom spring pad doubled up and slightly trimmed back the inner side of the rear bumper and guard lip where they looked to be rubbing against the tyres.

Whilst underneath the car I gave everything a quick look over and discovered a jam nut on the left rear camber arm completely loose. Obviously wasn't best pleased, having gone on a 900km road trip the weekend just past in a car that was essentially unsafe to drive. Although no harm done, this just isn't good enough from any professional service, especially with what BMW charged me for an alignment. Access to that particular nut is a bit tricky with the exhaust in the way but I easily managed to get to it with an open ended 27mm wrench at a slight angle and tightened it up.

Called BMW up the next day to voice my displeasure. The service rep was very attentive and apologetic, he remembered the car and offered to bring it back in for a checkup. I didn't feel like wasting my time at that point as I'd already tightened the nut myself and the car feeling fine driving into work that morning so declined. He asked if there was anything else they could do to help out so I mentioned that I would need another alignment in a month's time before going for cert so he offered to have that done free of charge, so I have that lined up at least.

Anyway, the thicker spring pads looked to have raised the rear by more than the 10mm I was expecting, even looks a bit raked now but did even out the arch gaps front and rear.

Drove fine and no rubbing at first, but with 4 people in the car, the suspension settled again and the rubbing returned over bumps and slow right turns, although not as severe as before. More tinkering was required.

Trimmed back the bumper and inner lip a tad more, gave the top inner edge of the guard a little bash and gave the camber arms 2 full turns (8 x 1/4 turns).

Then took on another little side-mission rebuilding another VANOS unit with new seals but leaving the insides of the pistons alone this time. Dropped the housing off at a machine shop for a wash, cleaned up the rest of the bits, gave the insides of the bores a quick polish following Mr. M539's example and resealed the pistons.

VANOS unit bolted up, I went to tighten up the solenoids but discovered there's not enough clearance to get the exhaust one without bashing in the radiator so created another custom tool for the collection - a short handle 32mm spanner.

Cleared adaptations and went for a lap around the block. First signs seemed promising. Did only have just the one startup thus far but if that was anything to go by then I might be onto the source of the rattle. Must have crushed the needle bearings inside the pistons when installing the anti-rattle rings. The ABS trifecta lights lit up right after setting off though. Pulled over, reset the steering angle calibration but the trifecta came right back as soon as I started moving. Probably due to my tinkering with the camber arms knocking the toe out of whack and the wheel speed sensors reporting contradicting speeds. The axles didn't feel happy either with a a thump from the rear when pressing down clutch. Didn't expect the extra bit of camber to affect the toe that much but it has rendered the car virtually undriveable for the moment so will still need another alignment in the meantime. Will look to get one booked in first thing in the morning.

The throttle felt a bit weird with some random surging in revs going on but probably down to having cleared adaptations and the VANOS seals needing some breaking in. Also got a couple of weird codes I hadn't seen before so parked her up for the night.

• 5E19 - CAN DME/DDE, engine torque not adjustable
• D3 [211] - Idle speed control valve, mechanical fault, jammed open

Not sure what that's about, hopefully a longer drive sorts it out. Will be happy to have the startup rattle resolved though. Fingers crossed.

[M3AN 4016]

Spring pads squish pretty quickly into their "nominal state" so that rear end will drop by a few mm's soon enough.

[Vass 859]

1 hour ago, M3AN said:

Spring pads squish pretty quickly into their "nominal state" so that rear end will drop by a few mm's soon enough.

Thanks but that's not what I want to hear right now

I'm at my last throw of the dice as far as making these springs work at this point. Didn't have rubbing issues on the previous setup.

The main differences between old and new are the solid subframe bushes that raise the subframe closer to the body somewhat. Not sure by how much but those are staying regardless.

The rims & tyres are new but the old Style 194's were exactly the same offset and with 255/40R17's on them were the same width and diameter as the new 255/35R18's to the millimetre.

All that leaves is the new Eibach springs. I'm going for another wheel alignment tomorrow morning, will have them tweak the rear camber to -2.5° (-2.0° is BMW spec and you're allowed to be 0.5° beyond that when going for cert). Having now trimmed the bumpers and arches back a little more and bashed in the inner layer of the guards somewhat, will see if the extra bit of camber will remedy the rubbing. Can't say I'm overly optimistic.

If that doesn't solve it then will throw in the old Msport springs in time for cert. Would love to keep matching springs front and rear but it is what it is.

[M3AN 4016]

lol - my bad, I failed to properly read the bit about 4 pax sorry... a situation tbh I never find myself in.

I can say that my F1 Eagle Asyms in 255 are squarer and carry more shoulder than my RE003's with the same dimensions, rubbing much more in borderline situations.

[Vass 859]

Spoke too soon on the rattle front, must not have been VANOS related as it re-emerged again at startup this morning. Pretty much out of ideas as to what else it could be at this point. Weirdly, the rattle either isn't there or isn't noticeable when the car's been sitting in the garage overnight or for a few days, only when it's been parked outside for even a short while. Absolutely no clue. It is only mild and very hard to capture on video so can't even convey it properly. Guess I'll just have to live with it and hope it's not terminal.

Took the car for an alignment this morning, went with the closest shop to home this time which happens to be a Bridgestone Tyre Centre barely a km down the road. Oh boy...

Brought it in having written down the specs to aim for: -2.5° camber at the rear, 0 toe and just a checkup of the front end. Also wrote down the torque spec for the trailing arm bolts to chassis - 77Nm - to save them the hassle of looking those up. Even left 24mm & 27mm wrenches that I had just bought specifically for the camber arms on the passenger seat.

Pick the car up a couple of hours later, tech said he got it pretty close to what I wanted and all seemed to be tracking straight during the test drive. Took a short detour on the way home and noticed a feint clunk coming from the right rear when going over imperfections in the road surface so decided to check things over.

Good thing I did.

Left camber arm outer jam nut completely loose.

Right camber arm inner jam nut completely loose.

5 of the trailing arm bolts needed a good 10-20° to get to 77Nm.

The remaining one on the right side trailing arm was completely loose and needed a good 2-3 full turns.

Don't think I'm ever getting over my trust issues at this rate.

Thank f**k I'm mechanically minded and caught onto it having only driven 2-3km. I seriously shudder to think of how many cars might be out there in everyday use that are absolutely unsafe to drive. Aunty Sharon could be out there happily tooting around, oblivious to the very real possibility of one of the wheels on her trusty Corolla all of a sudden deciding to start pointing sideways at any given moment.

Seriously, am I stupid or is this borderline criminal negligence? 2 wheel alignments in a row. WTF is going on!?

I've now got a theory as to what happened the first time around when it was BMW, in that instance the loose jam nut was the inner one on the left camber arm - the one with the tricky access due to the exhaust pipes being in the way. When I picked the car up, I remember the fuel economy on the cluster display reading something like 17L/100km so they must have left the car idling the whole time they were working on it for some stupid reason. Then when the time came to tighten everything up, the exhaust pipes would have gotten nice and hot, they wouldn't have wanted to go near there so either just left it or forgot to come back to it.

This time around it was simply incompetence/inexperience.

Still a bit rattled, I tightened everything up and went back for a chat. Didn't really want anything but felt that this was f**ked up enough that I couldn't just leave it be without speaking up.

Explained to the guy what I'd discovered and how this could have ended very badly had I not checked. He was genuinely surprised and offered to check it over again if a had a spare hour. I didn't. He said that he nearly refused to take the job on as he'd never worked on BMW's or cars with a similar trailing arm setup before but then got help from a more experienced mechanic who walked him through the process, checked over and approved his work. The trailing arm bolts he had simply tightened with a rattle gun and tightened the jam nuts by putting his whole body weight on the wrench, mimicking how he'd done it, leaning onto the wrench with both hands. He had quite a puzzled expression when I told him he also had to have a wrench holding the rod in place when doing so. I'm no mechanic but you really don't need to be one to figure out how these things work.

"Wheel Alignment Specialists" my ass.

Got a call back from them a few hours later offering to give me a good deal on tyres and a voucher for a hot drink or something to make up for it. Thanks.

Don't even know what the moral of the story is here. Trust no-one...?

Short drive going out to dinner with 3 passengers on board later that night, no sign on rubbing so far but don't want to jinx it. Longer test tomorrow with a day trip to Kaikoura on the cards. See how she goes.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Vass

[Eagle 1672]

Tightening bolts etc like that via rattle gun is incompetence/inexperience like you said. Average alignment shop doesn't have the best tool selection but you provided tools, no excuse regardless. 

Bad luck i think, maybe you got more cowboys down there in Christchurch. I tend to use only one alignment shop + dealer here in Hamilton because ive never had an issue in over decade.

F\L toe is a bit poor. Guess you going back in BMW once you get it all sorted\certed anyway.

[Olaf 3339]

On 11/7/2023 at 10:39 PM, Vass said:

The rims & tyres are new but the old Style 194's were exactly the same offset and with 255/40R17's on them were the same width and diameter as the new 255/35R18's to the millimetre.

All that leaves is the new Eibach springs. I'm going for another wheel alignment tomorrow morning, will have them tweak the rear camber to -2.5° (-2.0° is BMW spec and you're allowed to be 0.5° beyond that when going for cert). Having now trimmed the bumpers and arches back a little more and bashed in the inner layer of the guards somewhat, will see if the extra bit of camber will remedy the rubbing. Can't say I'm overly optimistic.

If that doesn't solve it then will throw in the old Msport springs in time for cert. Would love to keep matching springs front and rear but it is what it is.

@Vass I've been following your thread mostly via email updates.  It's been a big journey!  I see you're having clearance problems at rear, and trying multiple solutions.  Forgive me if I've not been through the full detail of your thread - one thing occurred to me this morning.

Tyre width and offset on e46
FWIW the Msport tyre package for e46 is F: 225/45R17, with R: 245/40R17  You probably already know this.  This works fine with e46 Style68 7.5J17 ET:41, 8.5J17 ET:50, or the e90 Style 194 8J17 ET:34, 8.5J ET:37.  I did a *heap* of research (a metric sh!t-ton) when figuring out how to get a bit more rubber to the road.  General theme was 255's a bit tight on e46, approach with caution.  I did all the math, using online calculators allowing me to compare offset, rim width and tyre size.  I went 245/40R17 with confidence.

At rear the style 194s produce 13mm additonal rim poke on the outer edge (and 13mm more clearance from the strut on the inner edge), before we add the 245 section tyre on the rear,

Noting that your 255mm setup is same between R17 and R18 rims - most particularly with respect to rim width and offset - perhaps the additional 5mm of tread on the outside (assuming your 10mm wider tread section distributes to 5mm extra on each side) is enough to catch on the outer guards/liners?

I can't talk to the Eibachs, as mine's on standard springs, with big (bigger than stock, at least) ARBs.  I did learn that the touring is sensitive to rear springs after an Auckland wrecker sending me the wrong springs (green paint dabs (4 cyl coupe maybe?) instead of orange for 6 cyl touring) which produced a saggy low rear, sh*t ride, and general dissatisfaction.  That was later resolved with a pair of the correct orange-dabbed springs from an e46 ninja on this site.  Your thicker spring pads are a valid response to mitigate the low....  I digress.  

One question on springs:  Are your Eibachs Touring-specific springs?  Or are they Eibach one-rate-fits-coupe/sedan/tourings e46 springs?

Back to tyres and a Summary - possible clearance issues with e46 touring by running e90 255 section tyres in place of e46 245 section tyres at rear on e90 offset.  You've ruled-out offset differences between your Style 194 R17's and the R18 package.  I suspect if you threw your 255R17s onto Style 68's, you might get just away with it (13mm less poke), though it might rub.  I'd be fairly confident that 245/40R17 on your Style 194 would be a doddle - and prove that 245 on the 18inch package would work.  The easy solution IMHO is to run e46 tyre section (245mm) with the e90 offset for greater track width.

If you were here in Wellington I'd be happy pop my rears wheels onto your car for a quick test.   This setup has been serving me very well on e46 Touring for years.  HTH.