Torque thrust arm bolts. Jack stands, ramps, other?

[Gene in NC]

Torque thrust arm bolts. Jack stands, ramps, other?

Ready to torque. Is there some way to set front end on jackstands for ease access. Or, must I use ramps. Maybe I could talk my muffler man into doing it on his driveon lift.

[DanDombrowski]

Ramps are the only way. If you're on jackstands, its not under load.

Or suck in the gut really hard and be the supermodel you are!

[Jr ///M5]

You really need both Gene, get the car up on stands to do the work and when you're done, let it down, roll it back and forth to settle out the suspension and drive it onto the ramps so you can torque the bolts. Try to make sure the car is settled, usually a few feet of rolling will put the suspension in the fully loaded position.

[Zeuk in Oz]

I have only used ramps, with most of the family sitting in the car to achieve the Bentley load recommendations.

I do, however, seem to recall reading a thread about a technique whereby a jack was used to put the suspension under load but I wouldn't know when it was right. Do a search and see.

[Blitzkrieg Bob]

jacking up the suspesion to load it, then climbing under the car to torque it down...a little rocking, jack stand and jack pops out from under the car and splat!!! one less BMW driver in the world.

[DueyT]

If you're going to torque the bolts down with the front on ramps, you may want to put about 75-100 lbs on the front bumper. With the car inclined about 10-12* up, there is a shift of CofG rearwards slightly. It is small, but it is there...I did that with mine and being an anally-retentive Virgo engineer, I sleep at night knowing that I offset the inverse-cosine CofG shift rearwards resulting from the car being up on jacks. Of course, next time, I'll align the car on my driveway nose downwards so that up on ramps the car is almost perfectly level...

Cheers,
Duey

[Anthony (M5 in Calgary)]

If you're going to torque the bolts down with the front on ramps, you may want to put about 75-100 lbs on the front bumper. With the car inclined about 10-12* up, there is a shift of CofG rearwards slightly. It is small, but it is there...I did that with mine and being an anally-retentive Virgo engineer, I sleep at night knowing that I offset the inverse-cosine CofG shift rearwards resulting from the car being up on jacks. Of course, next time, I'll align the car on my driveway nose downwards so that up on ramps the car is almost perfectly level...

Cheers,
Duey

And, of course, if you're installing lowering springs without replacement lower and upper control arms you should loosen and re-torque the inner bushing bolts for the new ride height. That's anal retentive...

[Karl]

I've done a couple suspension jobs in different cars with the car up on jack stands, then jack one wheel at a time to torque it.

Like Blitzkrieg said, you need to be careful--don't need to lift it completely off the jack stand to compress the suspension. And the other three corners of the car are solidly on their jack stands.

[Bill R.]

bounce the suspension up and down a few times to settle it and then put the correct amount of weight in the car as bmw states. I tried it on a customers car. If you raise it up out by the wheel on the spindle it starts to lift the car off the jackstand before it gets even close to the same angle as before you take it apart

I've done a couple suspension jobs in different cars with the car up on jack stands, then jack one wheel at a time to torque it.

Like Blitzkrieg said, you need to be careful--don't need to lift it completely off the jack stand to compress the suspension. And the other three corners of the car are solidly on their jack stands.

[athflying79]

When I did mine just recently, I went straight from stands to the ramps. I did bounce on the front some, but didn't drive around or put any extra weight in the car. Is it really worth me climbing back under there?? My problem was getting the car on ramps...they just slide. So I had no choice but to go from stands to ramps.