success installing RTABs and UUC clutch pedal bushings

[alex.fadeev@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Folks,
Thanks to everyone who had identified the clutch pedal bushings as the 
source of my clutch squeak: Jon, Chester Wong, Zack Steinkamp, Chris 
Newman, Steve Tymoszuk, Malcolm Reitz, Jim Och, Chris Teague, Mark Cecil, 
Kit Wetzler, Brian Kearney, Khoi, Matthew Smith and Martin Bullen. Every 
one of you told me to buy and install the UUC bushings.
A local DFW UUC dealer had one in stock and I had added the clutch 
bushings swap to my weekend to-do list. Working in the cramped foot well 
is a bit tricky, but the outcome is blissful silence every time I press 
the clutch pedal. I think the whol job took about 1.5 hours with numerous 
back stretching breaks.

My RTAB (Rear Trailing Arm Bushing) swap went much easier than expected. I 
took my time on the first one than discovered that my '95 M3 had '96+ 
style RTABs with side skirts that need to be removed before you can use 
the VictoryProductDesign tool to pull out the old bushings. After 5 
minutes of hack sawing, I went out and bought a SawzAll at a nearby Home 
Depot. I don't know how lived without it all those years! Things went much 
quicker from there on with the second side taking around 30 minutes. 
After some research and emails with PowerFlex and some other Urethane 
bushing owners (one too many of whom related tails premature failure), I 
decided to go with BMW RTABs reinforced by GC washers. I purchased all my 
RTABs from one of the mail order BMW dealers (forgot which one). 
I held both '95 (symmetric) and '96+ RTABs (with a largely decorative 
skirt on the outside of the bushing) in my hand before deciding to go with 
'95 ones. IMHO, all the internet bru-ha-ha about the desirability of '96 
versions is crap. 

The symmetric '95 RTABs will take 10 minutes to remove the next time 
around. That's starting with the wheel on the ground.
GC reinforcements were an impossibly tight fit. I had to file 1 mm off the 
side of the inner RTAB sleeve to make them fit into the bracket with the 
GC reinforcements. 

Brad, there is only one way to shove the RTABs into the trailing arm 
aiming for the centerline of the car from the outside (skirt facing 
outboard if you have it). The '96+ RTAB skirts' cut-outs were positioned 
at 12 and 6 o'clock on my old RTABs. I'm pretty sure the cut outs are 
there to accommodate the BMW RTAB removal tool. I would have installed the 
new ones the same way if it came to that, but I could not see any 
engineering necessity to do that. 

I had also swapped the lower rear control arms (bent from a dyno day) and 
that took much longer than the RTABs. You need to jack the rear 
differential way into the floor of the car to remove the bolts holding the 
arms to the diff carrier. To get access to the two horizontal rear diff 
mounts you need to remove the rear sway bar. Than get parts to align and 
bolt-up. Everything is a very tight fit.
The trailing arm does move a lot more freely and tilts all the way to the 
floor (easier to work on ) with the lower control arm disconnected. But 
it's not really necessary and you do need to re-align the car afterwards. 
I had marked the original RTAB bracket position that controls the rear 
wheel toe before I removing them. When reassembling, I installed them back 
in the original position and set both rear control arms for max negative 
camber. Surprisingly, the car now tracks perfectly straight! I will still 
take it for an alignment before too much longer (I'm pretty sure I have 
way too much negative camber in the rear).

I also replaced the rear shocks (the shock piston on one of my Koni SAs 
had broken in half). That hardly took 30 minutes for both thanks to GC 
RSMs. 
<rant mode on> E46 RSMs are crap just like the E30 convertible RSMs that 
carried the cult status in internet circles before them. I had long ago 
switched to GC RSMs and they had already served me longer than any of the 
BMW RSMs that had preceded them on 4 other bimmers. GC RSMs are better in 
many ways, not least of which is the ability to remove the shock from the 
inside of the wheel well (no more pulling the trunk carpeting). 
</rant mode on>

--
alex f

P.S.: If there was one thing I would have done different, it would be 
pressure washing the underside of the car!
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