Re: E30 rear drive axle nut seized.

[Michiel van Wessem <jmvw@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Raymond,

I recently replaced a rear wheel bearing. 

First the axle nut: 

There is no dust cap, but there is a kind of lockwasher under the nut.
Because it was so dirty/rusty on my car, it was hard to see it at first,
but it was there and became visible once I started poking the rust off with
a screwdriver. You have to kind of tear this thing off and apart - I used
that screwdriver and a needle-nose visegrip for this. 

When that lockwasher is out of the way, you'll have enough room to properly
get a socket on there. I had no problem getting the nut off with a 1/2"
axle socket and a 28" (or so) breaker bar.

Driveaxle removal:

Your puller should do fine to push the driveaxle out - I had no problems
with this.

Hub removal:

I think I pried it off with large tools.

The bearing:

I used the tool described on the E30 Network site and I tore it apart just
nicely. The outer race's inner diameter is only barely smaller then the
opening in the trailing arm and this gave me almost no room to do anything
with the outer race. I couldn't find a tool that could do it and it was
recommended to me that I'd take the trailing arm off and take it to a
machine shop. This is what I did and it was a big relief. The guy at the
shop used a punch to get the old bearing off and I had him press in the new
bearing and also press the hub on. 

I recommend you do that too - take the trailing arm off and have a shop do
the dirty work. They charged me $25. I had to cut the ABS sensor wire
because I couldn't get the sensor off. Later I spliced it again. 

Soon, I will be getting my 3.25 LSD!!

Michiel ('87 325es ~178k <http://www.monmouth.com/~jmvw/cars/BMW/index.html> )

At 07:48 AM 5/11/00 -0700, Raymond M. Wong wrote:
>During my diff swap this weekend(2.9 to 3.25) i wanted
>to take off the drive axle to inspect the rear ABS
>spindle(ABS light on)  and possibly replace the
>bearings.  An immediate concerns was how to remove the
>bearing outer race if it was stuck to the trailing
>arm. Too bad i couldnt' get the big 30mm axle nut off
>though.  I attempted to with a six sided impact socket
>and 2ft breaker bar, but was slipping a bit off the
>thin nut. I soaked it for a while with Liquid Wrench
>and tried using an hammer impact wrench. Didn't wan't
>to risk rounding off the nut. It looks pretty seized
>up just wondering how to get this nut off, (note:there
>was no dust cap as indicated in bentley, years of
>corrosion?)
>
>Question:
>How to get outer race out of the trailing arm if
>bearing separates?I do have a 6" puller I was going to
>use to pull the drive axle off the inner race of the
>bearing.
>How to get axle nut off? 
>
>
>
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