Rear Suspension Overhaul Part III: Welding Rear Trailing Arm (RTAB) e36, and Sway Bar Reinforcements

So this is what it all comes down to. Welding the reinforcement for the rear trailing arm pockets. You can buy these from bimmerworld or AKG. There is a member on bimmerforums "pottsalot" who also sells them. I also reinforced the sway bar mounting tabs.

Now figuring out how I was going to do this was the hard part. I have welding experience but I don't own a welder. I also only have 110v in my garage.  I called around to a couple different shops to get quotes on a 110v MIG rental. They ranged from about $195-$220. And that didn't include the gas, renting the tank, the deposit etc. and a truck to pick it up and drop it off. Also if I wasn't able to finish it in a day or the time I had allotted, I would have to rent it again for another period of time.

Dropping it off a shop to disassemble the rear suspension, weld this up and put it back together so I could drive off was out of the question. Once the suspension was down I couldn't exactly take my car to a shop or "my buddies place." I had already started on the overhaul; I figured this method would be about $800 + in labor. Imagine over 8 hours. There's lot of prep to do to too.

The last idea was just investing $750+ or so in my own setup to have around to weld shit up. This sounded the most enticing just so I could have a welder. But it would be a MIG and only 110v. The items I could actually weld and that I really cared to weld would be limited. I decided now is not the time to dump money into another hobby I have no time for. I used my resources to find a friend of a good friend, Steve, who had a 110v MIG who liked wrenching on cars. Perfect.

Not that there is a whole lot to understand but I used this video for reference.

To save time before Steve showed up I did most of the prep work. I bought a bunch of paint removal harsh sanding tools from harbor freight. They did the job.

There is a bunch of nasty undercoating in here and you need to get it ALL off. In the video you can see they go through a lot of trail and error busting this stuff off.

Pretty much prepped and ready to go. Next step we put the reinforcement up. Held it in place with the RTAB bolt and a washer. There was a lot of cutting and grinding to get it right. They don't just fit right out of the box.

Tack that bad boy in place.

And get to work.

And there's your boggery goodness. Although it looks terrible these are not going anywhere. One of the issues with using too much filler around the rosette welds and mounting points was that we spent all day grinding it flat. Last thing you want is for your alignment to be all wacky because of an uneven surface.

Steve started grinding on the first side, but then I quickly became the grind monkey as he tackled the other side.

Keep checking it with the RTAB pocket plate until it's flat and good enough and then hit it was some self-etching primer and a coat of paint. 

Both sides were much of the same thing. I lost track of taking pictures. It's the same thing twice. I forgot the final picture of it painted but here it is with the suspension installed. Mmmm glossy.

(pic)

The last thing left to do was the sway bar reinforcements. After spending much of our day cursing on our backs the sway bar reinforcement seemed actually fun! I took a shot at this one.

And the end of a long 8 hour day the garage was getting smaller and smaller.

Where does all this stuff live?

Kill me. I wouldn't say this project was a nightmare, I have some sort of sick delight in doing this kind of stuff, but shit, looking at these pictures (it's been a year) reminds me of being in it deep. Finishing this step was a major hurdle. Next came pressing in bushings, which was almost as nerve racking, in it's own sorta way.