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Well after being struck whilst the car was parked up (see here), it has now been confirmed that yes, it is the end of the E34.

:(

This could quite possibly be the end of the E34 :(

This happened on 2011-05-12T15:30BST. Time of day is approximate (+/- 15 mins)..

It was parked outside a house, I was inside the house. Heard the alarm go off, heard the gasps from others in the house and shouts of 'Someone just crashed into your car!'.

So I went out and the person who lived opposite had reversed out their drive, must have not looked to see if there was anything behind them (strange, when you're reversing) and collided with my car.

Impact front nearside wing/wheel.

The situation:

Got round to doing some work on the car. Finally fitted Lemforder upper control arms and bushes! After that went for tracking. Nearside ball joint was gone (had clunking from there) and bushes were easy to move by hand.

Ride is certainly a lot more smoother but still not as stiff and stable as I would like, but it's another improvement.

At the same time I replaced the front brake pads, oil and filter.

After discovering a crack in my dipped headlight bulb, the light soon dimmmed and then the bulb blew. It was clearly letting in water, but also, obviously this would not pass MOT like this.

So I sourced 2 new(ish) headlight complete units from eBay and this is how I changed them.

The other week the car finally ticked over 200,000 miles.

This guide documents how I replaced a rear subframe bush on an BMW E34 525 TDS Touring.

I am by no means an expert, I just enjoy working on my own cars. Following this guide is done entirely at the reader's own risk.

Symptoms for the failure of this bush are described here.

Here is a diagram (courtesy of RealOEM)of the rear subframe to help visualise what you are replacing.

Diagram of Rear Subframe

A successful day. The handling issues (described here) induced by what I now consider to have been mostly related to the rear subframe bushes have been seemingly eliminated.

Here is the culprit:

Knackered Bush

I am planning on replacing the bushes that connect the rear subframe to the chassis. As I explained previously, these appear to be very worn out and getting worse.

The bushes pressed into the housing in the subframe. It is not a metal to metal fit as the bush has an external rubber coating over a steel cylindrical body. So even though it is a tight fit and requires a tool to remove and install them, hopefully removal shouldn't be too difficult as one can always heat to soften or even melt away the external rubber coating (with great care of course).

IMAG1013