Re: Shock Change/tips[ very long] (archive)

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Usually the rear springs sag with age on the E-23s. Check the ride height carefully before you start any work to see where they are at.

Roger. They do seem saggy and asymmetric. I'll
price and recommend replacements.

The spring compressor is needed for the front struts. There's too much pressure on the spring to just loosen the top strut nut and let it fly!

Watch out for the lower retaining bolts at the hub spindle assembly when R&Ring the strut housing. These 3 bolts like to rust and snap during the job. They're a higher grade of bolt than normally used, Metric 10.9 or something instead of the usual 8.8s. Lots of stress on them from the car. I've had to torch them until cherry red and use Vise-Grip Pliers to remove them if they snap. Usually it's the inner one that's the most trouble.

Ouch. I may price having a shop do this one.
The last fastener I had to cook off ended up
costing six times as much in my time as a simple
checkwriting exercise would have been.

As for the valve noise, could just be loose rocker arms in need of adjustment, or the cam lobes could be worn too. You have to get into the valve cover and take it off to find out.

I tried Dex-Cool on lots of older BMWs when it first came out, was SO sure that having a silicone -free coolant was the cure for all those clogging aluminum radiators that the owners had to trash from the drop-out effect of the older silicone-based coolant.Here's what I discovered the hard way over a 4 year period on several different BMW engines, all from the '80s vintage.

Use Dex-cool, avoid the silicone build-up of the past, and watch those pesky orange build-ups occur.Always a trade-off, isn't it.

Have never tried to convert an older BMW. I
have converted two older Hondas and an older
MBZ to Dex-Cool with no issues. (Note: defining
"older" here as 10+ years and 120K+ km.)

What I have always done is to do two or three
complete flushes, including drive legs, with
pure clean distilled water. Last fill is 50-50
Dexcool/distilled. This seems to get out every
last bit of green coolant. Even a tiny bit of
green will react horridly with the organic
acids in Dex. Giving deposits that are worse
than anything that green alone would have.

Fluids/oil, the M-30 likes 20w-50 for most seasons, with a lighter oil for low winter temps, like 10w-30. This is esp. true if you still have the older oil pump design that was prone to sticking its relief valve and blowing the oil filter housing o-ring right out of the engine on a very cold day start-up.
The later oil pump is much different than the older design, but you won't know which one you have unless you drop the oil pan, which isn't that easy.

OK. Will try the 15w40 and watch it carefully
for signs of happiness or otherwise.

Lots of people use Synthetic oil, your choice on that, don't extend the oil change intervals just because you're using it instead of conventional oil. I'd use Redline or other synthetic trans gearoil in the manual trans. Very good choice to help with winter shifting after first starting the car. Regular gear-oil can be a bear to shift when it's cold.

Will wait a bit on synth oil. My experience of
synth in older dino oil cars is that it tends
to dissolve the varnished false seals on old
dead gaskets. Presto, instant oil drip!

I concur on the excellence of Redline MTL
synth, and transmissions have fewer leak points
in my experience. Still have no idea how much
to order, though. 3 quarts? Gotta get that
manual.

Change the diff oil too, and pull and grease the front wheel bearings while you're at it if you don't know when they were last done. Sevens kept the older bearing design long after the smaller BMWs had gone to maint-free ones in the '80s.
Didn't change until the E-32 Seven came out with the same set-up in '87-88.
Enjoy the car ..............

I think that it looks like a very enjoyable
car indeed. The last Seven I drove was a 740i
and that seemed like a very solid and competent
Bavarian rendition of a Yankee land yacht. The
733i is much more a Euro driver's car, especially
with this five-speed. Very well done. Kudos.

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