328 ABS rear wheel suspension & wheel bearings refurbishment

Image Unavailable, Please Login As winter job I selected this time the rear wheel suspension and wheel bearings. Robz did a thread on the non ABS which is not much different than the ABS but there are a few.

Reason is not that I noted that the job is needed due to wear or aging of the rubbers but simply because it is 30 years old and the car will feel better when the suspension is back to the Original as new specs.

The usual start is to collect info using this site and reading Robz work. I than started a list with parts needed to replace. The key parts are of course the bushes and wheel bearings but whilst demantling the suspension you discover that more is needed, especially lock nuts, bolts, rings etc.

I use many pictures because this tells me how to rebuild it easily….. I hope.
Than, lift de 328 and put blocks on the right spots so the car remain at its position for months. Important for doing a job with fun and relaxed is to have time, much time because the job always needs more work than you foresee [/ATTACH]

 

The wheel hub holding the wheel bearings will be taken out since the 2 A arms carrying the hub must be removed to replace bushes. In addition will I remove the shock absorbers and the torsion bar linking the bottom. Of course is the wheel hub fixed to the axle shaft and because this seemed to be the hardest job I started here (after removing the wheels).
The hub is fixed to the axle by 6 M10x1.25 (fine thread!) socket bolts high strength class 12.9 and all metal lock nuts. These needed much force using an extender on my socket wrench. Only after a few turn these get loose. One bold caused problems and the sockets distroyed the bold because I made a mistake by not inserting the socket well. This caused hours of work to cut it loose so take your time removing the 6 bolts. The bold heads rest on double washers, one washer per 2 bolts so 3 washers in total. Below pics show a lock nut and bold head as well as a double washer hanging loose. 2nd picture shows the hub being loose from the axle. Image Unavailable, Please Login


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I forgot to inform that WD40 needs sprayed on the nuts and bolts prior to loosening and best is to do that some time in advance. Also the grease between the flanges makes the area and your hands extremely dirty. I followed Robz advise to put a plastic bag over the drive shaft flange.
I than removed the torsion bar which is easy enough by loosening the nuts on both sides what does not require much force Big nus is M12x1.25 small ones M8x1.0, hence fine thread and high strength class 10. Also the 2 x M10x1.25 nuts carrying the clamps and rubber bushes are easy to remove. Note well how the various rings needs positioned. Below pics sow the M12 nut on top and M8 below. 2nd pic shows the bar removed. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Next is to remove the brake caliper which is needed to remove the brake disk. Caliper removal is described several times elsewhere, just make sure you hang the calper in such way that the hydraulic brake fluid tubes are safe and dont't get forced and break.

The disk needs WD40 way before starting to remove it in case the disk has not been removed in the last few years. I needed a plastic hammer to help the disk to slide very slowly off. Inside is the hand-brake that you will see when the disk is removed. The pic below shows the caliper hanging and the disk still on Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Than we see the hand brake, being a straight forward system with 2 shoes. To remove the shoes turn the adjuster wheen with the teeth to bring the shoes closest possible to eachother (minimum spring load). You might try to hook the springs off but that did not work for me so i turned the spring loaded pins 90 degrees and by hand i could takes all part out. Also here note well where the position of all parts needs to be. Below pics show that hand brake mechanism with the aduster on top and the hook mechanism below. The 3rd pic shows how to create slack in the cable so you can remove the cable from the hook. Note that on the back side of the wheel hub is a galvanized cover where the hand brake cable passes through. The cover can be removed by hand force and wiggling a bit.
4th pic shows the hand brake components.
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Now things differ from the non ABS! I wanted like Robz to remove the shock absorber but the bottom bolt can not be removed till the top A arm is removed, see pic 1! Before doing that I removed the ABS sensor on the front side of the hub which is secured with an M6 bolt, see picture 2. On top of the hub is a ABS sensor cable support that also needs removed (also M6 bolt) see pic3.
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Top A arm removal is easy, just loosen the M12x1.25 bolt& nuts at hub side first. The ABS A-arms have on the hub side one long bolt that needs some help to slide out. I used a piece of wood and a medium size hammer. The bolt has some marks on it so I replace it. The 2 short bolts on the car frame side are like new and I re-use these. All lock nuts will be replaced same for the rings if not in like new condition after cleaning.
I pushed the A-arm below to get access to the bottom shock absorber bolt which is also easy to remove. The top bolt requires that on the right side of the car the air filter house is removed and on the left side of the car the expansion tank needs removed (see pic 1).
I then removed the hub whilst the shockabsorber was still clamping enough on top to wait until i could also take it out. Pic 2 shows the A-arms still fixed to the frame.
Pic 3 shows the hub and shck absorber on my workbench to be cleaned. Pic 4 shows the toothed wheel of the ABS that is followed by the sensor.
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The lower A-arm on the LH side of the car has a surprise since I could not slide the M12x1.25 bolts out on the frame side due to lack of space. I had to loosen also the 2 forks so I could slide the bottom A-arm towards me and find a position that allows the front bolt to slide out after which the A arm can be moved anough to also slide the rear bolt out, see pics 1 and 2. The top A-arm removal is simply loosening the M12x1.25 bolts out.
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when you have the parts on the work bench you can enjoy cleaning and making at appear almost as new. Pic 1 shows the A-arms of th LH side cleaned. I forgot the important issue of the spacers between the forks and the car frame. These need to stay as set together and the package of mostly 3 and 4 shims needs re-installed as it was taken out. Otherwise you get in trouble when alighning the car at the end of this job
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The hub, needed also lost of patience to clean. On the back side the lock nut requiring tool RNT-44 which I hope to borrow from a Mondial 3.2 friend. The Mondial 3.2 rear suspension I believe is identical to the last 328 version and the best suspension mounted under 328's. I dont know why it took a while before the better Mondial 3.2 suspenson was also fitted to the 328 (1988.5).
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The shock absorbers did not show signs of loosing their properties but must be after 30 years and having them out I was surprised by the high price of new ones being clearly more expensive then the non ABS versions. I however found a company in the Netherlands that professionally refurbished Koni sock absorbers which company I will visit in a few weeks.
The picture shows the shock absorber cleaned. You may have noted that all pics are from the LH side, that's because the RH side stuff is still in place and will be next thing but must wait till I return from a Far East business trip.
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Company is http://ra-suspension.nl/
This is a small company with just 1 or 2 guys. I expect they can communicate in English but suggest to wait till I have more experience with them. Cost estimate they made by looking at the pics I send them is 150 to 300 euro per shock absorber. Costs are high since Koni cannot supply the parts any more so new inner pieces likely need made by hand. They use the original aluminium grades for the bushes etc. Anyway, I drop my experiences here.
By the way, ABS shock absorbers are clearly more expensive than the pre ABS versions.

 

Hi Guido, you might refer to the shock absorber bushes which indeed look good even after 30 years. They were never replaced. Still they of course are deformed dye to the weight of the car resting on it and if you do the job I like to do all using much time and enjoy the job. The A arm bushes show the typical dry rubber signs and I am certain that the car will drive notably better with fresh ones. The bushes (16 needed) are expensive however and decided to buy them at Superformance offering a complete set with harder ones on the wheel hub side.

 

In the meantime the RH side wheel hub, A-arms and shock absorber are removed as well. The A-arm bushes on the in side have 2 spot welds to keep the secured in the A-arms so these had to be removed by a small vertical hand grinder (like a Dremel) before you can push them out.
Attached scheme shows what I will replace, whilst I ordered the parts from Superformance that despite th hectic Christmas period arrived within 2 days in the Netherlands.
In the schemes I added the threading details and torques precribed in the workshop manual.
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BUT one weird thing is the position of the bushes on the hub side!! In the workshop manual scheme (1st pics) the are mounted opposite to how the factory mounted in in my 328 #77623 (2nd pic) and as I have also seen it on other 88.5 328's. I can only conclude that this is an error in the workshop scheme but please let me have your comments to confirm or else, see pics below:
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The shockabsorbers are send to RA-Suspension for a revision as informed above. Revision includes a reapray and new stickers that I could order from Koni, see below:
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It is a lot better than shown in the pic and was installed in 2010. I replaced in 2015 all flexible pipes/tubes of heating, cooling and of course fuel system.

 

I apologize for the long time of no further info but I am travelling much for my job. Thanks for reminding the shim issue to me. I have no experience yet but the ABS sesor shim will need attention to at least see that the shim is repositioned and hopefully this is enough for making it working again after it is re-installed. On my car there is one real thin shim on each of the hubs:
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The Wheel hubs have been dismantled and the inner and outer bearings are replaced. The lock nut of both hubs needed much force, even using the pneumatic impact wrench. Than you need a press to remove the shaft which was easy. The inner bearing is lockedby a wrench is removed by removing the 6 (I guess M6) bolts. The flange was mounted with a little liquid sealant so applied the same when mounting again. The flange has a sealring that needs replaced as well. The old bearings were easy to remove under the press. I was surprised that the toothed end of the shaft had remaings of a locktite that has become hard like glass which i removed with a small screwdriver and copper brush.
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below pic 1 shows the old and new bearings. The large bearing is the outer. The packing shows the make and numbers. I bought these from Superformance.
pic 2 shows the shaft that needed cleaning of old loctite. I replaced the cover on the outside because it was cheap!