[George Hill]

More, for reference...

 

[Nosewheelie]

On my springs, one end was pretty much circular and I put those on the top and they fit well.

The other end of the spring was egg shaped and eccentric - I’ll have to try to re-orient the springs to see if they fit like the ones you showed. Thanks for the pictures.

 

[George Hill]

On my springs, one end was pretty much circular and I put those on the top and they fit well.

The other end of the spring was egg shaped and eccentric.

That is correct and if you want to shoot me some pics when you have it apart... [email protected]

***Edit, sometimes if I am having trouble determine the spring orientation I will install the spring onto the strut without the top mount and look straight down to see how it aligns around the lower mount, then mark it and assemble to those marks.

 

[Nosewheelie]

 

[vtwagon]

Ah, you have the aligned incorrectly, here's the proper alignment.

This red car is actually @Chaplian S54 converted E46 touring with M3 suspension. *Note he has the TMS plates too.

The second car is an actual M3, note in that one the bumpstop is upside down.

I put that setup and have them on a lot of cars and no issues.


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It kind of looks like the bottom of the spring in the second photo above is rotated a few degrees too far clockwise, viewed from the top. I understood the bottom end of the spring should be a few degrees CCW of that little dip in the perch, like below. Below is a non M, though. Sorry to question the guy who’s done more of these installs than he can count 😬 Sounds like orientation is more important than where the spring end sits?

 

[George Hill]

It kind of looks like the bottom of the spring in the second photo above is rotated a few degrees too far clockwise, viewed from the top.

No sweat! Yes, there is some variance in them and with the spring pad its not always an "exact" science (even though you'd think it should be). When you sit the spring on the perch and spin it around it'll "fit" in a decent amount of degrees arc and sometimes its hard to find that sweet spot. I wish I could articulate this better, but its one of those things where you just have to get in there and feel it out.

 

[vtwagon]

No sweat! Yes, there is some variance in them and with the spring pad its not always an "exact" science (even though you'd think it should be). When you sit the spring on the perch and spin it around it'll "fit" in a decent amount of degrees arc and sometimes its hard to find that sweet spot. I wish I could articulate this better, but its one of those things where you just have to get in there and feel it out.

That makes sense. I loosely fitted my struts and springs last year but had a shop assemble them as I didn’t have the correct type of compressor. I do now though. I’ll keep this in mind when I reassemble them with Z4 M mounts at some point.

 

[yjsaabman]

So I'm just curious, since I'm swapping new springs onto my front Konis right now. Do the M3 springs and dampers not have as much of an oblong? From looking at the spring perch on the Konis, the spring pad, and the shape of the coil I'm having a hard time seeing how it can work its way out of position.

Edit

I played around with them once assembled and there definitely is some wiggle when they aren't loaded. The setup I just took apart has done around 60k miles without shifting. Are you sure the upper mounts are moving freely?

 

[Nosewheelie]

My experience has been similar to what George Hill stated. We unloaded the strut and tried a lot of orientations until we got one that was “snug” and the base of the spring felt stable & well supported.

I got the wagon through inspection and it’s been fine so far.

I am planning to start to disassemble the wagon before I send it to the body shop for the M3 conversion, so I plan to do more work on this in the “off season” so I’m comfortable that I have it right.

 

[Nosewheelie]

Exercising the wagon with 1,100# of cement for deck project. Only 5 miles to Lowes & took it easy, but 😀

 

[Nosewheelie]

Had the beat up steering wheel from the donor hanging around and decided to try recovering it. First step was fill in hole worn through the leather at 12:00.

I decided to try leatherique crack filler as a buddy gave me some from one of his projects. Well about 30 layers of filler later I had this:

 

[Nosewheelie]

I picked up a full smooth leather cover from mewant on Amazon. Quality is better than I expected especially for $30 - 40 for the kit.

Here I have the cover on and starting to stitch the lower right quadrant of the wheel.

 

[Nosewheelie]

Biggest challenge I am having is getting the leather to stretch to close the gaps at the stitch line. I’ve left long tag end of the line and have been going back through retensioning the thread as the leather conforms.

Started like this:

Now getting tighter:

Started LF lower quadrant and going to let this sit for the night and peck away at it a bit tomorrow to see if I can close the gaps. I’m guessing if I went with Alcantera (Sp) maybe it would have stretched better, but wagon will be DD and I wanted more durability from the cover.

 

[vtwagon]

Exercising the wagon with 1,100# of cement for deck project. Only 5 miles to Lowes & took it easy, but 😀

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I haven’t loaded down my wagon like that, and I’m a tile setter! Haha. I do like to load heavy things in the rear footwells with the back seats up, I put as much weight as far forward as possible. That’s some major low rider stuff there! Steering wheel looks great as well!

 

[PdZHP]

The instructions for my steering wheel wrap had a different stitch method, don't know if that affects fit.

 

[yjsaabman]

At that price point is that the synthetic vs the real leather? Or is it the difference between the standard and perforated leather? I have one sitting on one of my Amazon lists for when I have some extra scratch to install it on a spare sport wheel I have.

 

[PdZHP]

I can't compare but mine is leather, looks great, feels and smells great too. It's holding up awesome, installed about a year ago.

eBay link

 

[yjsaabman]

I can't compare but mine is leather, looks great, feels and smells great too. It's holding up awesome, installed about a year ago.

eBay link

A few bucks cheaper on Ebay than Amazon, I see.

 

[malapane]

Exercising the wagon with 1,100# of cement for deck project. Only 5 miles to Lowes & took it easy, but 😀

View attachment 959509
View attachment 959510

That is your E46 Half Ton. 🤘

 

[Nosewheelie]

Mine is real leather and smooth, not perforated. I am guessing that the perforated leather or the synthetic ones probably stretch more and would (hopefully) be easier to install.

I purposely stitched every loop vs every other as I knew getting the seams to sit flush was going to be a challenge.

I'm going to try to use steam to get the leather more pliable to close the gaps.

The videos show this can be done on the car - it would be easier having the wheel stable - but no way you could get the stitching on the back side of the 3 & 9 o’clock positions on the car.

This is also the only area of the cover I’m not happy about as there are no loops to fasten down the cover - I’ve got a curved needle so plan to use some of the provided double sided tape and hopefully a few loops of thread to keep it laying down flat. Fortunately it’s in an area that you can’t see and (I) don’t typically use.