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EDC rebuild update

117K views 558 replies 85 participants last post by  AseanAero 
#1 · (Edited)
A few people have been asking me what's going on with this so I thought I'd update everyone

I was sick to death of this on-going EDC drama so a couple of months ago I started to seriously research a solution. After much searching I found a specialist suspension company who had the ability, but more to the point had the will to help us. These guys have many many years of experience with all manner of road and race suspension, they specialise in rebuilding old Ferrari and Lamborghini shocks amongst other things, and the boss is a good guy which is so important in these situations

Bottom line is that he's willing to help us. He currently has 2 front and 2 rear units in pieces and he's sourcing all of the necessary seals and gas sacs. They have the ability to manufacture their own seals if necessary so he's not anticipating any problems. There's nothing complex in the units and he's quite confident he can turn these around for us. Rebuild units would come totally refurbed, repainted and would be tested on their suspension dyno before being released. This is not just a hydraulics company, this is a bona fide suspension specialist who has all of these facilities in house, blast cabinets, dyno etc etc

The plan is the same as it always was, he'll hold a set of refurbed units in stock, people will buy them from him and pay a deposit which they will get back when they return their own units which will be refurbed for the next person

Target price is £100 per rear leg and £150 per front leg inc. VAT :cool:

I should be able to update you again next week. We will need to get him all of the blown units we have as there will be occasions where a solenoid or hardened shaft is too damaged to re-use so he has to salvage parts from another leg. Having said that, they can source the solenoids direct and manufacture their own rods if necessary but it would put the price up dramatically so while there are so many blown units available they might as well be recycled

More info soon :)
 
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#147 · (Edited)
Here’s an update to let you all know what's happening. My old rear units finally made it to him after 8 days (thanks Parcelforce :grrrrr: ) and they have been stripped down and mic'd up. Now these are the original units from my car which I suspect have been on there from day 1 so it's unlikely he'd ever have a worse set to do than these at 200,000 miles

There was side to side play on the main rod (although they didn't leak ironically) causing the lands on the piston to badly distort which effectively meant the Teflon seal was trapped and doing nothing and by the sound of it the lands would have snapped right off fairly soon. There was some slight polishing marks on the bore but the good news is that it was still round, lots of ID measuring showed no ovaling. A new piston has been machined up, new Teflon seal fitted, new top bearing fitted and the new 3-lip oil seal top mounts have been fitted. He's machined up the new top seal mounts for the front and rear unit now, he has the dimensions in the CNC so it's easy peasy to turn out as many as needed, that takes care of our seal upgrade problem :D

So the rears are going back together first thing in the morning, then spending an hour or so on the dyno, then being shipped out so I can fit them on Friday. Sal's fronts are also coming along nicely, the front set-up is similar to the rears with the addition of the gas sac. Apparently every front he's stripped so far has had the gas sac intact, apart from a bit of brown discolouration they were still functioning. The real killer on the fronts has been the top seal prematurely failing which has caused so many good units to be scrapped. What he has done by cutting the tops off and threading on the new seal head is effectively made the front units fully serviceable like the rears so if you wanted to have the oil changed and the unit overhauled after a couple of years they could be sent back for a refurb

I should be running by the weekend, Sal should be running by the following weekend, then we test the new seal set up and Sal tests the first set of rebuilt fronts :eek:h:

Watch this space… :)
 
#157 ·
Interesting, the 1995 rears he's doing now (my old ones) use a different top seal arrangement from the first set he did (1993 ones), they improoved the top seal more inline with the type he's now fitting. They obviously worked as mine weren't leaking. Also the rod lengths from each unit were 3MM different :eek7:

The rods are identical to other units he rebuilds regularly so if they are too worn to re-use new ones are on hand. He's been working on this set for 7 hours so far...
 
#167 ·
Interesting, the 1995 rears he's doing now (my old ones) use a different top seal arrangement from the first set he did (1993 ones), they improoved the top seal more inline with the type he's now fitting. They obviously worked as mine weren't leaking. Also the rod lengths from each unit were 3MM different :eek7:

The rods are identical to other units he rebuilds regularly so if they are too worn to re-use new ones are on hand. He's been working on this set for 7 hours so far...
This would make sense with the difference in price between the 2 model year dampers. When I ordered my 2 new fronts about 10 months ago the Dealer (Danny at Lind Ipswich) told me that the dampers for the 95 model year were on a different part number and had a different, read more expensive, price. He had previously ordered dampers for a 93 3.8 (Burton's car).

It stands to reason that if the rears were uprated then the fronts may have been also.

Jon
 
#163 ·
Sal

Make it down to Holland, I have just the road for testing shocks..

Sections of it have already been named after Nordschleife - corners so that might be a little hint..
 
#164 ·
Hi folks. First up, I haven't got an M5, but I've had 3 five series & 2 sevens. I found this site and this thread after about 18 months of trying to find a way around my EDC problem. I've got a '92 750 il with leaky rear shock absorbers, EDC and this magnificent car has been laid up for all that time. Is this car a candidate for the work being discussed here? I'd really appreciate any help!
Ken
 
#166 ·
I've got a '92 750 il with leaky rear shock absorbers, EDC and this magnificent car has been laid up for all that time. Is this car a candidate for the work being discussed here? I'd really appreciate any help!
Ken

IIRC the EDC shocks on E32 are even some 150 quid more expensive than the M5 items!

Good luck
 
#172 ·
Thanks for the efforts and sorry for his teeth.
Do we actually have a game plan? I would *really* need to get the car to my mechanic, it has become downright dangerous to drive.

So, any realistic timetable, plan, contact, addresses?

I am that >< close to ditching the whole EDC and going Bilstein, but it would be a shame on that car...
 
#173 ·
Gameplan as it stands at the moment is to get a set of front and a set of rears completed and fitted, hopefully early next week now (we lost a week for medical reasons) then to test them to check they perform ok, then to open it up to everyone. How long the testing phase is remains to be seen, it depends on how many miles Sal can put in quickly, I'm more worried about the fronts than the rears for obvious reasons...
 
#174 ·
I know it's easy for me to say, as I don't desperately need dampers, but I really think we should allow Mike & Sal (and the guy doing the work) sufficient time to evaluate the refurbished units.

There would be nothing worse than rushing it through, only to find there's a problem.

I'm not saying that there WILL be problems, but I'm sure your man will agree that this is a bit of a learning curve for him, so there will be small niggles until he gets it properly sorted.

Just my 2 penn'orth.......
 
#175 ·
Nobody's more frustrated than me, I'm getting through a litre of fluid a day at the moment and I'm thoroughly sick of getting the 'Suspension Leveling' warning up on the clocks. Remember that one of my units has failed and we need to find out why. The nightmare scenario is that this is opened up to everyone before it's 100% right, can you imagine the situation if a set were sent to Oz and they all failed?

Patience chaps, it's happening as fast as it can :)
 
#176 ·
Nobody's more frustrated than me, I'm getting through a litre of fluid a day at the moment and I'm thoroughly sick of getting the 'Suspension Leveling' warning up on the clocks. Remember that one of my units has failed and we need to find out why. The nightmare scenario is that this is opened up to everyone before it's 100% right, can you imagine the situation if a set were sent to Oz and they all failed?

Patience chaps, it's happening as fast as it can :)
Well done London Mike :M5thumbs: -

MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE !
 
#178 ·
***UPDATE***

OK, my original 1995 rears are being delivered tomorrow. They have had EXTENSIVE internal work done, including 1 new piston, the modified uprated top seals and new seal heads. Wildly different rebound damping rates was finally traced to a hairline crack at the bottom of one of the rams. It was drilled out and an insert welded in and now it's perfect. Remember that these were my original units which I suspect had 200k on them, if he can rebuild these then any unit should be salvageable. An interesting point here, when you buy these things from BMW they are not bench run or matched in any way, all off the rebuilt units are run up on the dyno to test that their damping curves match, then adjusted accordingly... dare I say that they should perform better than new units from BMW? :rolleyes:

I'll try and take some pics of them before I fit them but there won't be much to see externally except for the new seal heads

Sal's rebuilt fronts are also sat there waiting for him to collect, we both need to get a lot of miles on these units ASAP so we can identify any last problems then finally roll this out for everyone...

Anyone know where Cyrus is? Is he away on holiday? Can someone give him a ring?

SAL!!! :D
 
#179 ·
This is turning into my pet hate job...:grrrrr:

Ok, rebuilt rears fitted with no issues, handling back to perfect again and about 100 miles done so far... all dry

I'll keep you all informed, hopefully Sal will be picking up his fronts next Thursday and fitting them next weekend, he also needs to get a lot of miles on them fast so we all know that front and rears are fine and can move things to the next phase :cool:
 
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