Sam@sleekmotoring

- A little negative camber on the rear. I think a good alignment should should be able to fix most of this. If not, you may develop inner tire wear on the rear tires.

- Premature wear and tear on the struts, bushings and balljoints. I have had my 7 lowered for a few years now and have not ran into any problems. If you plan on keeping the car for a loooooooooong time, you may notice.

- Person doing the installation could get hurt if they are not paying attention, or being careful. The OEM springs are held into the stuts with alot of pressure. If you attempt to do this install with a cheap spring compressor, it could brake and cause bodily injury.
USE A LIFT, OR HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK AND SOME GOOD JACK STANDS! DO NOT WORK UNDER A CAR THAT IS JUST HELD UP BY A HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK OR OEM JACK!

tonymac

Thanks man...

Tonymac

Sam@sleekmotoring

Commercial brake is over and now lets more onto the rear.

Step 13.
- Lets begin with inside the trunk. Begin by removing the bottom carpet trunk panel and the black spare tire cover.

Sam@sleekmotoring

Step 14.
- The trunk side panels have these cargo net hooks on the floor. Using a pick, remove the little flat screw covers as pictured. Use a phillps screwdriver and remove the screws that hold the hooks down. Remove all the hook from the vehicle. I think there was 4 of these hooks total.


Step 15.
- Using a small flat head screwdriver or a pick, carefully remove all the plastic clips that hold on the plastic rear trunk panel. I think there are a total of 4 circle push clips. Once these clips are out, carefully remove the complete plastic rear trunk panel. It should look like this when you are done.

Sam@sleekmotoring

Step 16.
- Now move onto the carpeted side panels. They are held on by about 6-8 circle clips each. Use a flathead or panel remover to take off all these clips carefully on both sides. These clips are located on the floor along the black plastic pieces, a few on the upper rear corners and one on the upper front sections. The passenger side panel has a little green release know that has to be taken apart and than removed. Pull of both panels completly.

Sam@sleekmotoring

Step 17.
- On top of the strut towers, you will find one of these foam bricks per side. Remove these foam pieces to access the upper strut nuts. Using a 13mm socket or wrench, remove all 3 of the nuts from both sides.

Sam@sleekmotoring

Step 18.
- Now from under the car, using a 18mm socket remove the nut that holds the endlink for the sway bar onto the lower control arm.


Step 19.
- Using a 18mm socket remove the main bolt that is located on the bottom of the strut. While putting some pressure on top of the rear brake rotor, slide the rear strut off of the spindle.

Sam@sleekmotoring

Step 20.
- Remove the complete strut assembly from the vehicle. This will require putting some pressure on the brake rotor again, turning the strut and twisting it out of the way. This is really tricky and just a matter of finding the right angle to get it out.

Sam@sleekmotoring

Step 21.
- Same as the front, place the stut into a heavy duty spring compressor. Be very careful using those cheap rental spring compressors. If something goes wrong at the step, you can really, really get hurt. Make sure that the spring compressor is clamped onto the coil spring and not the strut. You can actually damage the lower spring perch if you clamp the spring compressor onto that.


Step 22.
- Same as the front, spray some WD40 on this top bolt. Let it soak in for a few minutes. Using a 18mm wrench and the proper size allen wrench, remove this top nut while everything is still in the spring compressor. Before the nut is all the way out, have your buddy hold the strut to keep it from falling. DO NOT LET ANYTHING TOUCH OR DAMAGE THE STRUT SHAFT If the inside part of that strut shaft get damaged, that stut is pretically useless. It will leek fluid once its compressed. Once this nut is off, remove the top mount first, than the strut and the spring from the compressor.


Step 23. - OPTIONAL
- On non-sport models, trim the lower nub off of the bumpstops.

Sam@sleekmotoring

Step 24.
- Pay attention to the end marks on the spring pads. This is where the new spring will sit into. Place the new spring into the compressor. Re-install everything pictured above in reverse order making sure that everything is lined up how it was before. Repeat steps 13-20 in reverse order (20 - 13). Install all nuts and bolt loosely until everything down there is put back together. I like to use some Loctite on most major nuts and bolts down there. Finally tighten and torque all nuts and bolts removed during the installation. using a torque wrench to finally tighten everything up Torque everything down to OEM specs. This concludes the drivers side rear strut.

Step 12.
- Repeat steps 13-20 on the passenger front side. The only difference, other than everything being backwards, is that there is an electronic height sensor attached to the passenger side lower control arm. Be careful not to damage this sensor. Re-install all the trunk panels and the foam bricks. Dont forget all thise little clips for the panels. You may want to blead the brakes after the removal and installation is completed. Install all 4 wheels. Make sure there is brake pressure before attempting to back the vehicle up or test driving it. Let the new coil springs settle in for a couple weeks than get a 4 wheel alignment inspected and performed.

This will give you and idea of how it should look like when finished.
If anyone if the Northern California needs this installation done, pm me for a crazy low price.




Enjoy your lowered 7 series.