The rear shock tower mounts on the E36 3 series are two of a handful of places where BMW's engineers failed to anticipate the abuse this car would receive. The stock shock mounts disintegrate over time and rattle every time the car goes over a bump. In extreme cases, the shock mount (which consists of a rubber ring which holds the shock to a mounting flange) can separate completely and cause lots of damage as the shock collapses into the fender and then gets pushed into the sheet metal the next time you hit a bump. I know, it's lovely.
These mounts have been in terrible shape since I bought the 3. Thankfully, it hasn't gotten as bad as I described above, and the original mounts were still holding the shocks in approximately the correct locations.
Unfortunately, lots of stuff has to be removed before these towers are exposed. Specifically:
- The rear speakers. Get ready to get loads of hand grease all over the rear window as you slowly strip out the brass screws holding the (rather ingenious) Nokia speaker boxes to the rear deck lid.
- Everything in the trunk. All the carpet has to go, which means the little gas door pull flap has to be disconnected, and you have to swear a lot as you drop those damned little plastic trim clips down behind the back seat.
- Lots of plastic panels under the carpeting. Because that's right, in some cases, the carpet is held down by these plastic parts. Gah.
- But not the rear seat bolsters. Those are apparently impossible to remove. Anyone with any idea how to get them out should let me know. No, pulling them "out" and then "up" per the service manual doesn't free them from their little leather prisons.
On the upside, I didn't have to put the car in the air—which is weird, because every guide I've seen describing how to do this job says it's necessary. The shock towers came right off the rear suspension and even though I had to lie on the floor to actually get them back in, it sure was a hell of a lot easier than actually putting the car on stands.
P.S. Speaking of instruction guides, the number of how-to articles in the stability and suspension section of bimmerdiy (dot com) illustrates just how common this repair is: 8 of the 26 articles are devoted to the topic.
ah. yes the seperated spring/shock combo of bmw's rear suspension. my ol 81 320i had the same thing and those shock isolators blow total balls. i had sooo many problems. lol and always the passenger side as well..
Darren-
It took BMW until the E46 convertible to really figure these mounts out. Both the driver's and passenger's mounts were totally shot on my 1993—although admittedly, they did make it through 120k miles first.
--Dan