Front strut mystery

Christopher

Christopher

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I had the front springs replaced last year during a rebuild of my front suspension which lifted my nose up quite considerably. Prior to this the car ride height was fine (and should have been left alone in retrospect)

At first I assumed I'd been sold the wrong springs by W&N, but it turned out that they were correct. They suggested I go for CSL lowered springs to attain the ride height. Unfortunately in the meantime my original springs went off to the scrap man.

My mechanic has just fitted 30mm lower front springs but the nose is still way too high. Having looked into this a little deeper it now appears that my struts are 1/2 inch longer than the struts on a CS that he has in his garage.

Maybe my struts aren't stock csi struts, maybe they had been previously replaced / uprated. is that possible ? if so what would be the likely model the struts that fit my car came from, E28 perhaps ?

If I can identify the strut then the easier solution would be fitting it with the correct springs for the strut, rather than going to the expense of replacing the struts

Any thoughts / advice much appreicated
 
I know e12 springs are same as coupe and I think struts are likewise. I think 74 struts are different geometry as they received longer control arms, can anyone confirm?
 
Hi Chris

Mine is the late 1974 model so maybe this is the suspension upgrade effected for the last series. Does anyone have any specific information as to what it entailed ?
 
I checked part numbers in RealOEM and the e3 and e9 use the same strut and wishbone (control arm) including the 74 e9, all the same. The e12 has a different part number for both.
 
Chris, I would think that the struts may have been for an early E12 or E24; those struts look identical at first but perhaps they changed them to have the correct ride height for the US market - earlier E9 models had spacers, maybe they incorporated them in the later models as longer struts.
First you may want to check whether the strut itself is higher, or whether it's just a matter of a spring teller that's welded higher up, by comparing to an unrestored car. Otherwise if you lower it (with E24 lowering springs?) you may be running the risk of reduced wheel travel, the car may then hit the bump stops way too soon. You may be able to use E24 lowering springs or have springs designed/calculated. I had the latter done on the rear of my E9.
 
Keep in mind that many coupes have bav struts in them- no trouble til '74 came along and the control arms, z bars are way different. check for 2 dots on the z bars instead of one.
Carl at La Jolla is the doctor on this-call him.
 
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