Replacement of the BMW E30 rear subframe bushings

The rear axle carrier – also called cross-member or sub-frame – is attached to the chassis with a pair of sturdy bushings made of metal and rubber. Over time the rubber in these bushings weakens. Some bushings break, others merely sag. The overall effect is that the whole rear of the car feels a bit loose, as if it were moving sideways on its own when you turn. Shifting may result in a loud “clunk” when the clutch is pressed; momentum pushes the chassis forward while the final drive is suddenly decoupled; since the bushings are weak the subframe will jolt and bang against the chassis.

My car showed three different symptoms of mechanical failure in the drive train:

• A loud clunk when I shifted while accelerating, especially from first to second gear, louder when moving uphill – presumably caused by front-to-back play in the bushings. Let’s call this “the big clunk”. This one felt like the car was coming apart.
• A sudden bang when driving over certain small bumps or cracks in the road – probably caused by up-down bushing play that makes the subframe hit the supporting plate or the chassis
• A weak dangling sound when pressing the clutch, as if something were swinging side to side and banging against metal. Not sure what this sound is caused by. I can hear it even if the “big clunk” doesn’t occur. Let’s call this the “little clunk”.

Click on each picture to see a larger version and access the image notes. Click here for the whole set (contains some additional photos not included in this article).

Sagging subframe

A good indication of the condition of the bushings is the gap between the cross-member and the support plate. If the bushing bottom touches the support plate, the bushing is worn out. The rubber that holds the bushing’s central hollow rod anchored to the outer sleeve weakens, making the subframe sag.

Preparation

Normally I raise the rear and place the jack stands under the crossmember. Since you will be lowering the crossmember, the jack stands have to go somewhere else - the jacking point is right in front of the subframe support plate. The standard jack stands fit there, but the body rests on them in a rather precarious position. Maybe this support point is meant to work with a special BMW stand or a lift, neither of which can be found in my tiny garage.

The exhaust pipe is merely an inch or so under the subframe. Release the support brackets that hold the muffler and lower the exhaust to make place for the subframe. I am not sure this step helped at all.

To create more space below the subframe, unhook the differential from its support bracket and lower the final drive (which is attached to the subframe with bolts). You should support it with a jack or blocks of wood. I forgot to support it for some time but luckily no damage occurred.

I thought that by lowering the trailing arm I would gain some additional space for the subframe, so I unscrewed and removed the shock absorber bolt. In retrospect this turned out to be unnecessary. I did not do the same on the right side and the subframe dropped just fine. Support the trailing arm if you chose to go through with this step.

Give a good tug with a large wrench or breaker bar to the 22mm nut on the subframe bolt to loosen it. I had to use my large torque wrench for this; the nut wouldn’t budge with the regular ratcheting wrench. Support the subframe with a floor jack. Remove the 6mm Allen bolts that hold the support plate to the chassis. They come out easy, together with the reinforcement piece.

Remove the subframe nut and the support plate.

Worn out bushing

The rubber insides of the bushing look quite worn. Start banging on the bolt with a mallet or a hammer until it slides up the shaft. This part wasn't easy; it took a lot of hitting, sweating and cursing. There wasn't much space between the bottom of the car and the garage floor so I couldn't take a wide swing at it. It finally budged a tiny bit, then a little more until finally I was able to push it out with a screwdriver and the tap of a mallet. Some write-ups tell you to cover the top of the bolt inside the car with a towel so it doesn't fly against the ceiling when you hit it. This bolt never flew anywhere - it moved bit by bit with every blow.

Subframe lowered

Release the jack and lower the subframe. It didn't go down too far; I had to push and pull and fight for every inch.

There wasn’t enough space to squeeze the bushing tool between the subframe and the chassis, so I decided to unhook the stabilizer bar from the trailing arm to gain some additional room. In retrospect, just like with the shock, I am not convinced this step was necessary.

The tool

Subframe bushing tool parts

I bought the subframe bushing tool on eBay for $150. It seems to be part of a multi-model bushing tool kit code-named BMW2336, made by a manufacturing company called Sir Tools and sold by resellers like Zdmak and Technictool, for about $300. This kit is no longer for sale; it has been superseded by tool set BMW3026. The tool I bought is limited to the parts that are needed for the E30.

Since the parts did not come with instructions I emailed both Sir Tools and Zdmak asking for a courtesy copy (it was quite obvious how it worked, but nonetheless). Sir Tools answered a week later and actually sent me a copy by email.

Instruction sheet

These are the tool directions as found on the internet. The removal steps are accurate but the installation instructions go against common sense. In order for the tool to push the bushing in the subframe when the bolt is tightened, the top piece (#R) must sit on top of the collar (#J) which sits on top of the subframe. The instructions say something else. They must have been written by someone who has never seen the underside of a car.

I could have tried to build a similar tool myself, but I just felt like spending the money this time (unexpected bonus at work helped too). Building a tool requires some pipe fittings and caps, a few nuts, a long threaded bolt and a bit of drilling. The sizes of pipe fittings must be carefully chosen to ensure they match the subframe cavity. You can find examples of home-made tools here and here.

Removal

Place sleeve (B) over bottom plate (A) and ring (C) on top. Slide bolt through plate. Grease the threads well.

Tool in place for removal
View from the top

The ring pushes against the bottom of the subframe “cup” that holds the bushing. The bolt is threaded through the bushing and screwed onto the cap, which sits on top of the bushing. The vertical notches in the “cap” must line up with the dimples in the subframe, otherwise the cap won't slide down when the bolt is tightened.

The ring is designed so that the metal collar at the bottom of the bushing can slide through it in the sleeve, while its two opposing protrusions push against the subframe.

The tool must be perfectly centered - if it's not, it may slip on one side and the ring bites through the subframe exterior coating - which is what happened to me. I re-centered the tool and it stayed in position this time.

The actual removal of the bushing only took a couple of minutes.

The inner metal cylinder of the old bushing is higher up in the sleeve than the new Lemforder bushing. This is because the rubber around it has weakened. This is probably the original 21-year-old bushing.

Installation

Tool set up for installation
View from the top

Set up the tool for installation. The top cap piece sits on the collar which rests on the subframe. The top of the bushing will pass through the collar and go into the cap. The slits at the bottom of the cap engage the tracks that jut out of the collar, so the cap doesn't move when the bolt is tightened. The threaded bolt must go through the chassis hole where the knurled bolt was; otherwise the bushing can't rise in the subframe cup.

Installation

The rubber is lubed with a very thin solution of water and dish soap. It evaporates almost instantaneously. The vertical groove in the bushing must be aligned with the dimples in the sleeve of the subframe.

Remove the tool. Raise the subframe. Don't forget to put the washer back on top of the bushing before raising the subframe.

Done!

To make the knurled bolt drop all the way down and lodge itself in the chassis I had to push and pull on the subframe to align the bushing with the hole in the chassis, I raised the sagging differential a bit, and then hammered away on the bolt head from inside the car. The hammering was needed because the last inch or so would not go down freely and when the nut was tightened the bolt would just turn on its axis. I couldn't find out if the nut was supposed to be a single-use self-locking nut, so I used some red Loctite and 120 foot-pound of torque. I found the number somewhere on the BFC forum; it may not be accurate, but the Bentley does not say anything about the subframe, so there...

Notice the healthy gap between the support plate and the bushing. It will become smaller when the car is back on the ground.

Installing the right-side bushing

Now do the same thing on the passenger’s side. The subframe dropped much easier and lower than on the driver’s side without removing the shock absorber bolt. Actually, everything went easier on the passenger’s side: I didn’t have that much trouble removing the bolt (it moved after a few hits with the hammer) or putting it back in.

Cost

Tool: $150+shipping.
Parts: $45.50 for Lemfoerder bushings on Pelicanparts.com

Time & effort

Around 8 hours – I started at 9:30 AM; the car had its wheels back on the ground shortly before 6PM. This includes jacking up, a short trip to the auto parts store and lunch. Most of the time was spent ratcheting, banging on stuck bolts and in procedures that weren’t strictly necessary. The actual removal and installation of the bushings was a matter of minutes. I can’t imagine how long this procedure would have taken without the special tool. It’s one of the most complex procedures I have completed, albeit less complex than the front suspension upgrade. It was very demanding physically: that evening my hands and forearms were so sore and swollen I could barely turn a door knob. Lifting the glass of beer to my mouth was painful. I hurt until the following Tuesday.

Effects

I drove for a few days on steep Seattle streets full of potholes before posting this. I can confidently say that clunk #1, “the big clunk,” is gone. Going over bumps and cracks feels more solid now as well – I don’t get the impression anymore that the rear of the car would fall apart, but this may be just wishful thinking – I have sport suspension, the ride is a bit rough anyway. Clunk #3 is still there, though. Now with the subframe bushings out of the way I can only ascribe it to the differential dangling in the center support bearing. Or something. The quality of ride has definitely improved, but not dramatically.

Conclusion

Do it. If you get “the big clunk” changing the bushings will result in a clear improvement to your shifting. If you decide to do it the barbaric way – removing the subframe entirely, cutting through the bushing with a saw, burning the rubber, taking the cross-member to a mechanical shop to have the bushings pressed in, doing whatever you need to do - it could take much longer, depending on your experience and whether you're working alone or with a helper. Things have been done that way many times and you will find a few write-ups online to guide you. To each his own.

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When your fuel pump goes...

I knew it had to happen to me sooner or later, and it did: as I left the grocery store heading home, my 21-year-old BMW did not start. A nice lady asked me if I needed help to jump the car, and I had to decline her offer; it wasn’t the battery, it had to be something else. Good thing the store was only a few blocks away from home. I had the car towed the next day, pushed it into my garage and started debugging.

There’s a straightforward step-by-step procedure you can follow to find the cause of a non-start. After eliminating the obvious suspects – a dead battery and the absence of spark – the most obvious component that needs to be tested is the fuel pump. In later E30 models (starting with production month 9/87) there is only a single fuel pump, located in the fuel tank, accessible through a hatch under the passenger’s side rear seat. It’s easy to check if the pump is working: remove the rear seat, remove the pump cover, crank up the car (or have a helper turn the key instead) and listen. The pump should make… well, pumping sounds, just as you imagine a fuel pump would sound. If you can’t hear anything it could mean that:

1. Either the pump is broken and you need a new one, or
2. You have no voltage at the pump – because either the wires are interrupted (pray that they aren’t because fixing wiring in a car is a terrible job) or your fuel pump relay is bad

To check for voltage remove the power connector from the pump, stick the probes of a voltmeter in the connector and crank the car – if the relay works the probe should show battery voltage, about 12V. Operating the ignition while holding the probe in the connector and reading the voltmeter display can be a pretty cumbersome task - another set of hands greatly helps. If you’re working alone you can simplify your life if you bypass the relay: remove it from its socket and link the connector’s pins 30 and 87 together with a wire (preferably a fuse holder with a 15amp fuse); this will bypass the ignition and supply constant battery power to the fuel pump (that’s also a good way to make sure the wiring is fine).

If there’s voltage at the fuel pump but the pump is silent it’s time for a new pump. There are a few models for sale that can fit the E30. The OEM pump for the ’88 E30 is a VDO. The good thing about it is that it comes with the complete assembly: fuel pump, mounting frame, filter and O-ring; you just swap the old one out and re-connect the hose. The average price online for this OEM part is about $200. The cheapest I could find it for was $176.35 at autohausaz.com. Unexpectedly, my usual supplier bavauto.com sells the VDO pump for an ungodly $362.95.

The TRE 340 in a box

The alternative is a pump from an aftermarket supplier like TRE or Walbro. The TRE 340 had good reviews (if you can ever take seriously anything you read on internet forums) and it’s for sale on eBay. The noticeable price difference ($78.98, shipping included) tipped the balance in its favor. However, generic aftermarket pumps come with a catch – they require some wiring work, and they may need modifications to the fuel pump assembly to fit.

This is the whole procedure, step by step. Click on each picture to see a larger version and access the image notes. Click here for the whole set.

The Bentley recommends disconnecting the battery (as it does for almost every procedure); I didn’t. Anyway, be careful when you work around fuel lines. Don’t smoke.

Remove the rear seat and then unscrew the four bolts that hold the black oval access cover on the passenger’s side. There’s a similar round cover on the driver’s side – that’s just a fuel gauge sending unit; leave it alone.

Remove the electrical connectors: the connector with 2 pins is the power supply. The other is the fuel gauge sender connector.

Loosen the hose clamp and remove the hose. Either end will do. The one on the fuel-line side was easier to remove. Fuel may be discharged – in my case there wasn’t any fuel in the line since the pump was broken.

Remove the four 8mm mounting screws on top of the fuel gauge sending unit.

Pull the sending unit out of the tank. Wait until all the liquid drips back in the tank. There is a lot of gas in the can, and it all drips out through a tiny hole at the bottom.

Rotate the fuel pump assembly counter-clockwise to loosen it.

Remove fuel pump assembly out of the tank. Make a note of the position of the assembly when it comes out. You will have to put it in the same way.

Look at the assembly and notice the alignment of the fuel filter relative to the frame. You will need to install the new filter in the same position.

Remove the filter by pulling on it, and then remove the pump from the frame. The connector wires are soldered to the assembly. You will have to melt the solder or cut the wires.

There’s an obvious size difference between the old pump and the new. Fit the sleeves that came in the package around the new pump - it will increase its diameter and make it fit snugly in the frame. The sleeves are optional.

The short feeding tube at the bottom of the TRE pump and the similar tube on the OEM pump have different diameters and are positioned differently. To make the new pump fit we have to tinker a bit with the assembly frame.

Carefully carve in the bottom support of the frame until the feeding tube of the new pump can fit through. Be mindful not to damage the frame too much. Either way, it’s not going to look pretty, but who cares – it goes in the tank!

Solder the connector wires that came in the package to the terminal pins on the frame. I wasn’t very good at that job. I hadn’t soldered anything since shop class in school. So far I’ve used butt connectors for all the electrical work on this car.

Use the short fuel hose (came with the package) to connect the pump’s outlet and the metal tube which is part of the assembly.

Pressing gently against the pump’s bottom tube install the filter maintaining the same orientation that the original filter had. I also strapped the pump to the frame with a zip-tie although it wasn’t strictly necessary; the pump was snug enough in place.

Insert the whole assembly with the new O-ring back in the tank. I couldn’t find an O-ring of the same size in any automotive shop and the local BMW dealer didn’t have one in stock so I decided to re-use the old O-ring. Let posterity judge me…

Reconnect and install the other pieces in the order they were disassembled.

Work time: about three hours.

After I completed the procedure, the car started immediately, as expected. I have not noticed any unpleasant noise when the pump is in operation. Now I can only hope that this new pump will last as long as the original one did...

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Rear brake pads and rotors

Fresh from Germany

The rear brake pads and rotors on my BMW were still the ones that came with the car when I bought it in 2005. They were worn out to the point the sensor was touching the rotor and although they may have had some life left in them I decided to replace them now rather than wait longer. The rotors were likely worn out beyond the minimal thickness suitable for re-surfacing (it turned to be true when I measured them) so I bought pads, wear sensor, rotors and rotor mounting internal-hex screws. It’s a simple procedure. This write-up is loosely based on the procedure described in the Bentley manual. Click on pictures to see notes indicating the location of various components.

Jack up the car and remove the wheels. Release the hand brake.

On the right wheel, disconnect the brake pad wearing sensor and release the connecting wire from the clip that secures it to the guide bolt cap.

Remove the plastic caps that cover the caliper guide bolts.

The next step was to remove the guide bolts themselves, and here’s where I noticed that I lacked the tool for it. The guide bolts have an internal hex head and my largest Allen key was still too small to fit in the opening. So here I am taking another trip back to Schuck’s in my wife’s car. This sort of emergency trip seems to happen every time I attempt a new maintenance procedure… I bought a full set of metric hex keys.

Remove the caliper guide bolts.

Remove the anti-rattle spring by pressing on it and pulling, and pull the caliper out with the brake pads. It should come out without effort.

Continue with the removal of the rotors. Start by unscrewing the brake pad carrier bolts.

Do not let the brake pad carrier assembly hang on the brake line. I suspended them with zip ties to the frame. S-hooks would do as well.

Remove the mounting screw from the front of the rotor and pull the rotor from the hub. If the rotor is stuck to the hub use a soft mallet to free it.

That’s when I noticed that the left-side shock absorber had a build-up of grease at the bottom. There is no motor oil in that area and the only place this could have come from was the shock itself. I traced the leak to the top part of the shock. To get to the source I pulled down the plastic boot that covers the piston (it was a bitch to put it back on the top cupped waster) and there it was: a puddle of clear oil on the cylinder cap. I’m pretty sure the shock is not supposed to leak. I must call BavAuto…

Install the rotors on the hubs. I used new mounting screws; the old ones were rusty. Clean the rotors with brake cleaner before installing the new pads.

Compress the piston back into the caliper to provide space for the new, thicker brake pads. I used a C-clamp. If the brake fluid reservoir is full to the brim, pushing in the piston may make the brake fluid leak through the screw cap of the reservoir.

Install the pads in the calipers and put the whole thing back on. Don’t forget the new pad wear sensor on the right wheel.

Cost breakdown

All parts purchased from Pelican Parts.

• ATE brake pad set - $37.25
• Brake pad wear sensor - $4.75
• Balo rear brake disks (rotors) - 2 x 33.75 = $67.50
• Brake Disc and Drum holddown bolt, 11mm Head - 2 x $2.00 = $4.00
• About 5 hours of work, including two trips to Schuck's

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Headlights and douchebags

In need of an eye-patch

One morning last summer I left the house and set off for work, only to discover that the left-side low-beam headlight of my beloved BMW had been smashed to bits during the night. At first I thought that some parallel-parking-challenged idiot with a high-set bumper has backed up accidentally straight into my headlight and left the scene. But there was no other damage to the front, which would have been consistent with such an incident. Upon taking a closer look it became apparent that the shards that were spread over the bumper and on the ground in front of the car weren’t only those of my lens – indeed they were mixed with pieces of a shattered bottle of beer. It all became clear in an instant: public drunkenness, vandalism under the cover of the night, let’s do something dangerous and feel invincible and then, well, uh... run. I could see the bottle label clinging to a pattern of broken glass – “Miller High Life – The Champagne of Beers”. The anger and cursing stopped for a moment as I thought out loud: what kind of douchebag drinks “The Champagne of Beers” anyway?

Only the exterior lens had been destroyed, the interior one was still intact, so I left it alone for the moment. For better or worse it worked, even if the light wasn’t diffused properly. But who likes to drive a car with gouged eye forever? It took me a few months and a couple of more important projects until I finally got to this one.

A new low-beam ellipsoid lens assembly runs for about $140, which I wasn’t willing to pay. A used headlight, complete with casing and both low- and high-beam lenses, goes for $150 on some web sites. With enough patience I found a guy who runs a junk yard on eBay, who was selling one full used headlight for $90. I offered him $75 and he accepted. I could have probably done better with more patience but the price was good enough.

Here’s how I replaced the broken headlight. The Flickr photo set is arranged in chronological order. Click on pictures to see photo annotations indicating the location of various components.

Pop the hood open and remove the three retaining clips that hold the top part of the front grille.

Remove the two retaining screws on the bottom side of the grille, left and right.

Remove the grille and then the three large screws that hold the headlight casing in place.

Release the electrical connectors from the low- and high-beam light bulbs. Remove the headlight casing.

At this point I noticed that the adjustment screws were located in different positions on the two casings. All photos of headlight assemblies that I was able to find online looked like my old one. The one that I had just purchased had the vertical adjustment screws in locations where the old casing had fixed, non-adjustable retaining screws. By all means of logic, the old casing seemed to have all its limbs in the right places and the new one was an aberration. How did the screws switch positions? Bad German assembly-line robot? Incompetent American mechanic? We’ll never know...

One-eyed monster

Being a stickler for correctness I decided to remove the lens assemblies from the new casing and install them on the old one. It seemed a better solution than the alternative of removing the new lenses, moving and adjusting the screws and re-installing the lenses. Besides, one the screws of the old casing seemed in better shape than the “new” ones, which were rusty and bent. I also decided to replace my old high-beam, which was chipped at the bottom.

To remove the lens assembly from the casing the Bentley manual says: “Using a hot air blower, heat the lens-assembly retaining clips, then pull out the light assembly.” Having already tried that when I replaced the light bulb last summer I know by now that this statement is total bull. The heat from the blower is supposed to loosen the plastic clip that fits tightly on the tip of the retaining screw, which is shaped like a bulb. I tried that with a hair dryer and besides burning my fingers I wasn’t able to make any difference – maybe if I had had 100 additional Watts I would have fared better. In the end I had to apply massive (but gentle!) force, pulling the lens away from the casing. It’s not a trivial task when there isn’t enough room to stick both hands in the opening and pry the parts apart, and you can only use the tips of your fingers – all the while worrying about breaking the lens assembly tabs, which are just plastic after all.

A lot of cursing and name-calling certainly helped.

Installing the new lens assemblies on the old casing was much easier than removing had been. A couple of the retaining clips had broken in the process, but between the old and the new lenses I had enough replacements.

I sure hope I don’t have to do this again any time soon. Stay away from my car. And if you drink that Champagne of Beers piss, stay away from me as well. All those who drink Miller High Life are douchebags. There are no exceptions.

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Confessions of a weekend mechanic

I work a lot on my 1988 325 BMW; I do maintenence and replacement, I get dirty and bruised and I curse a lot. The car is like a piece of software in constant need of debugging. Why? you may be asking, why not buy something newer, more reliable? The answer is a simple one - because I love this car. It's a hobby that I didn't ask for, it just came over me. It wasn't a conscious decision, it just happened that I came to believe that the E30s - the 3-series BMWs built between 1983 and 1991 (more or less) - are the most beautiful cars ever designed. So I got myself one in 2005 for 1400 bucks and I put much more into it since. Sure, I love other cars too... but they don't matter, honey.

Despite the many things that need constant attention, my Bimmer has never let me down. The only days I can't drive it are when I screw up some replacement procedure and I have to keep the car on jackstands for longer than I had hoped while I wait for a part that I had accidentally broken.

There are many web sites with do-it-yourself articles for the E30 cars; I always try to learn as much as possible from others' accounts before starting work on a new area. But I found out that no web site or book ever covers all the little traps you can fall into when you attempt a complex replacement procedure. Therefore I decided to write my own car maintenance stories, focusing on the procedures that I found unexpectedly hard, the tools that didn't fit in narrow corners and the unexpected discoveries that happen when you venture in uncharted territory. Enjoy the reading! Comments are welcome.

	Rear axle: Bilstein Sport shock absorbers, shock mounts, and H&R OE Sport springs
	Front axle: Bilstein Sport shocks, H&R OE Sport springs, shock mounts, control arms, and control arm bushings
	Replacement of a broken low-beam ellipsoid light assembly
	Rear wheel brake pads and rotors
	Fuel pump replacement
	Replacement of E30 rear subframe bushings

Unfortunately it's only recently that I decided to take pictures with every repair procedure. In the world of car maintenance repair articles are worthles without pics, at least to amateurs like me. Sadly, much of my past work has remained undocumented. These are some of the procedures I'm proud to have successfully completed:

• Valve adjustment
• Steering pump leak repair (with silicone gel)
• Fuel filter and fuel hose replacement
• Various coolant leak repairs
• Fix surging RPS at Idle caused by the throttle adjustment screw
• Broken passenger's door actuator replacement
• Turn signal switch diagnose and replacement
• New driver's door lock cyliner, damaged by thieves who broke into the apartment's garage and stole the my gym bag along with a couple of cars
• Door trim painting
• Spark plug replacement
• K&N air filter installation and cleaning
• Oil change... duh!
• New brake pads and rotors
• OEM premium radio installation, dash repair
• Replacement of various sensors
• Other interior, exterior and engine-bay fixes, too many to enumerate

I have a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee as well, the first car I ever owned (Yes, I got my driving license and first car at the age of 27, a late bloomer if you will). My wife drives it now. It doesn't get my whole love and I am not dabbling with the engine, the suspension or anything else beyond the "easy", but I'm still trying to keep it in decent shape.

Right-side front door latch replacement

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Jeep Grand Cherokee door latch replacement

Should I change the name of this blog to carrats? No travel is "happening" anymore and since I cannot bring myself to blog about irrelevant details of my life or Saturday's night party, I'm filling it with maybe-less-irrelevant details about my one and only hobby left.

The Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo model year 2000 has been my daily driver since shortly after I arrived in Seattle in 2000, until I discovered stick-shift driving and the E30 3-series BMW a couple of years ago. Then, there was no looking back and the truck became my wife’s car. It’s still the vehicle I rely on when it snows, when we need to purchase anything larger than a bag of groceries, and when I have to take more than one passenger – since the 3-series was designed with the idea in mind that the people sitting in the rear did not have legs.

The passenger's side front door latch of the Jeep had been broken for years, making a shrill buzzing sound when engaged. The door could only be opened from the inside. Since I don't drive it anymore I neglected this car for a while, until my wife pointed that if I invest so much time in the old, sickly BMW I could at least fix her door.

The new latch was $78.43 (how do they come up with these numbers?...) plus $11.80 shipping on eBay. He deserved his positive rating. The guy (airparkcjd) had more than 4000 sales and 100% positive reviews.

The Flickr set is arranged in chronological order. Click on the photos to see notes describing the location of various components referred in this article.

Pry out the cap that covers the screw hole on the mirror flag bezel. (I have no idea why that piece of plastic is called "mirror flag bezel". It sounds a bit pompous and redundant.

Remove the panel-holding screw with a Philips screwdriver.

Remove the sheet metal screw located in the door cupped handle. On a side note, this screw was fine, but on the rear door, the screw had rusted and when I tried the same procedure it wouldn't budge. I soaked it with PB Blaster penetrating catalyst but I still couldn't loosen it. I applied force with various screwdriver bits until I destroyed the head and I had to drill it out.

Remove the Torx screw behind the door handle.

Pull the edges of the door panel until the plastic retaining clips pop open. It's a good idea to have replacement clips, some may break when the panel is removed.

Unhook the mirror electrical connector.

Release the two main door latch rods from the inner handle mechanism. The plastic clips on the handle must be pushed hard to release the latch rods. Your fingertips will hurt.

Remove the main electrical connector from the door panel. Before you remove it, make sure the window is all the way up.

A quick look at the underbelly of the beast…

Pull out the moisture dam and expose the latch rods. The dam is held in place by a slimy, sticky substance. It will re-attach with a bit of pressure.

Disconnect the inner latch rod from the external door handle mechanism. While it wasn’t that hard to get in there with the fingers and pry open the retaining clip, it was a total pain to take a picture of it because my lens can't focus under 2 feet. The clip is the little yellow spot at the top. It's the same kind of clip like all the others.

Unscrew the three Torx bolts that hold the latch to the door. At that point I realized I didn't have the right size Torx bit for those screws so I used a hex head and it worked nonetheless. Off to O'Reilly's to add one more set of screwdriver bits to my arsenal!

Remove the latch assembly and disconnect the electrical connector.

They look like evil metal bugs from outer space. The new latch (on the right) didn't come with the protective cover that the old one had, so I decided to reuse it.

Remove the single retaining screw that holds the cover to the latch, pry out the plastic cover and install it on the new latch.

Ready for installation! Installation is the reverse of removal. Don’t forget to attach all connectors and latch rod ends before pressing the panel back into the door clips.

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Front axle suspension overhaul

In the second installment of the E30 suspension upgrade story I continued with the front axle. Besides the Bilstein Sport shock absorbers and the H&R OE Sport springs whose counterparts I had already installed in the rear, I also decided to replace the control arms and the control arm rubber bushings. Only that being lazy and not wanting to deal with removing the tightly fit old bushing and squeezing in the new one (stories go that this is pretty tough) I decided to buy new “lollipops” with the bushings already installed. On bavauto.com a new bushing costs $12.95 while the whole bracket goes for $49.95. A waste of money, I know, but what the hell - it was Christmas. The next time I surely won’t be spending so lavishly; I’ll probably just upgrade to urethane or M3 bushings which are more expensive anyway. I also replaced all the self-locking nuts during this procedure, as the manual recommends.

Click on pictures to see the exact location of the parts and components referred in this article. Click here to see the full set of pictures.

Sensor wires

Start by loosening the wheel lug bolts, then jack up the front of the car and put it on jack stands. In the course of those few days of work I noticed that my floor jack has started to slip – it slowly loses pressure and gives way. That’s not a good sign; I need to replace it although it’s only a couple of years old – how long are those things supposed to last anyway? Besides, it’s still too low at maximum extension (13”); this is more noticeable in the front – with the car elevated there’s still barely any place to move around under it... Remove the front wheels. Disconnect the ABS sensor wire from the hook on the strut housing and unscrew the ABS sensor from the spindle (5mm hex wrench). On the left side, disconnect the brake lining sensor.

Brake caliper bolts

Remove the brake caliper mounting bolts and slide the caliper off the rotor. Attach the caliper to the car body to avoid damaging the flexible brake hose. Do not let the caliper hang on the hose. I used zip-ties for this job – there’s an adequately placed hook in the wheel cavity.

Caliper attached with zip-ties

Disconnect sway bar connecting link

Broken subframe tab!

Disconnect the stabilizer bar from the connecting link (the piece that’s attached to the control arm at the other end). At this moment I realized that the subframe tab that the sway bar supporting bracket was attached to was broken – my sway bar was kept in place by the two connecting links and by the right-side bracket – the subframe tab on the passenger’s side was still intact. I searched a little on the forums and it turned out that this is a common problem and the only solution, barring the replacement of the subframe, is welding. That sounds like a job for Boris, the Russian body mechanic that fixed my Jeep a few years back when I parked like an idiot and hit a garage pole.

Shock tower

Before disconnecting the lower ball-joints, give a tug to the nut on the top of the shock absorber rod, just enough to loosen it. This trick, courtesy of http://zoso.no-ip.org, will make the removal of the nut easier when the time comes (otherwise the rod would turn on its axis). Do not remove the top nut at this time – as long as the spring is not compressed and pressure is still exerted on the shock mount, this would be very dangerous. I sprinkled the gland nut with PB Blaster penetrating catalyst, just in case the threads had seized, and let it soak overnight.

Tie rod and control arm ball joints removed

Remove the tie-rod ball joint and the control arm ball joint from the strut housing. This was no walk in the park; the ball joint rods were stuck in their holes and I had to use pickle forks and a lot of force to release them. Maybe some PB blaster would have helped but I got so riled-up that I solved the problem by using a lot of muscle and I even hit the rods with a hammer until the darn things came out. I was gentle with the tie rod, which I was going to reuse, but I went berserk on the control arm joint. Despite all precautions I tore a cut in the tie rod protective rubber boot with the pickle fork. I see a tie-rod job in the future, just so that the suspension overhaul becomes complete...

Compress the spring

After disconnecting the three self-locking nuts from the shock tower I removed the strut, laid it on the floor and proceeded to compress the spring. By now, after using that compressor on eight springs (rear and front, 4 old, 4 new) I hate the thing passionately. It takes too much work, sweat and time to compress and release those coils. It bends and jams and I have to hit it sometimes with a mallet to re-adjust the clamping brackets. Luckily I don’t intend to do this again anytime soon. When the spring was compressed I removed the top rod nut, which was already loosened. I had to clamp the rod through the coils with a small pipe wrench while I unscrewed the nut. The original rubber shock absorber stop came out completely destroyed.

Removing the gland nut

Removing the gland nut that holds the shock in the strut housing was a different story... To do this by yourself you need enough leverage; you have to hold the strut in place while you clamp a pipe wrench around the gland nut and twist it. I didn’t have vise grips or any other locking mechanism and my left arm just wasn’t strong enough. Superpowers would have been welcome; by that time I was already beat tired. I remembered that someone on bimmerforums.com had suggested in an older thread that the strut be put back in the wheel during this procedure. That’s what I did, and I loosely attached it with two lug bolts. I stood on the wheel holding the strut housing under my foot while I clamped a large pipe wrench around the gland nut and turned – the nut came loose at the first tug. I lifted the bottom of the strut up a bit and hoisted it on some blocks of wood to let the oil drain out, and moved on to the control arms.

Disconnect the control arm from the frame

Disconnect the control arm rubber bushing bracket (aka "lollipop") from the frame. That’s no big deal; they’re held by two easily accessible bolts. The outer ball joint was already free, so that left the inner ball joint nut as the last point of attachment.

Sway bar removed

Control arm
inner ball joint nut

The inner ball joint nut was a major pain to remove. It’s not easily accessible and barely visible from under the car, so you have to feel your way around it. My socket didn’t fit in that place because there is a metal block behind the nut, too close to it to let the socket fit. Which left a the job to a regular wrench, but..., surprise-surprise, that’s a 22mm nut and I had no wrench that size (only the useless socket). During the subsequent late-evening trip to Schuck’s I found out that 22mm was not a standard size included in any of the metric wrench sets that were on the stands for sale. Luckily they sell one individually for a few bucks. Not a ratcheting wrench, a simple one, mind you. It took forever to unscrew that nut; loosening it cost me a good bruise on my hand when it finally popped. The passenger’s side is even more evil – the exhaust is in the way, and so is a small heat shield meant to protect the control arm rubber bushing from the heat of the exhaust. There is no place to wield a wrench in there, thus I ended up removing the stabilizer bar bracket and the heat shield to get a couple of inches of clearance so I could move the wrench. The nut finally gave up and surrendered. The disassembly phase was over.

Tighten the Bilstein gland nut

I began the installation phase by locking in the shocks inside the strut housings. Before you screw in the gland nut, don’t forget to place the white plastic ring that comes with the Bilsteins on the housing. This ring will hold the blue rubber boot that protects the piston rod from dust. To screw in the new gland nut I asked a friend to sit on the wheel and hold the strut in place under his foot while I operated the big pipe wrench. It dented the rim of the gland nut a bit but it doesn’t really matter. Legend has it that Bilstein sells a collar tool that fits on the gland nut, which you can attach a ratchet to. The tool doesn’t come with the shocks and you can’t order it from Bavarian Autosport. Someone posted the Bilstein part number 420017 for this thing, but I couldn’t find any reference to it on their web site catalog. So I used the wrench and it did just fine. I didn’t use any Loctite for this, I hope they hold well.

The tools of the trade

For the re-assembly of the strut I compressed the new H&R spring, and then I installed the new shock mount, reusing the rubber ring, the top spring retainer, and the washers, finally proceeding to tighten the top nut, with the compressor still attached. The tightening should be easy – you can put a 19mm wrench around the nut while you hold the hex-shaped top of the rod with an 8mm wrench. However due to a historic design accident, not limited to German engineering, the top rod nut goes inside the central cavity of the shock mount where it can't be easily reached. After some thinking and asking around I had to invent my own tool: a small 8mm socket, ¼” drive goes inside a large, deep 19mm socket, ½” drive. A 3”-long, ¼” drive extension is attached to the 8mm socket at one end, while the other end goes through the ½” opening of the larger socket and connects to a ratchet.

The magic strut tool in action

Holding the ratchet with one hand, clamp a pipe wrench around the 19mm socket and tighten. It’s still not perfect because of the need to use the pipe wrench, but there was no other practical alternative. I would have preferred a ¾” spark plug socket – the opening is exactly 19mm and fits the nut, while the top is hex-shaped and would fit a regular wrench. Unfortunately the top opening of those sockets is not large enough to allow for the ¼”-drive extension to pass through. Anyway, the resulting combination did the job perfectly. Some people have ridiculed it on the forums, proposing an impact wrench instead. That may have worked just as well but for three significant disadvantages: 1) Bilstein recommends against using impact wrenches with the top nut (big warning on the shock installation papers) 2) I would have had to mount the shock on the car with the spring compressor attached and remove the damn’ thing after the fact. There was not guarantee that the spring compressors were in the right position to make sure they would fit in the wheel cavity and would not be in the way instead. 3) Good impact wrenches cost big bucks and aren’t essential equipment for an amateur weekend mechanic.

Install the strut

I put the strut back in the car, supporting it with the jack; the assembly is quite heavy and doesn’t make it easier for you if you’re trying to hold it in position with one hand while attaching the three top nuts inside the engine bay with the other. You’ll need either a helper or the jack. Since asking the wife was out of the question... I attached the tie rod once the shock mounts were secured.

New lollipop

Next it was the turn of the new control arms. To squeeze the lollipop on the end of the arm I lubed the rubber hole (lubed, rubber, hole... get it?) with some dishwasher detergent (which would evaporate in a short time leaving the joint tight) and pushed. With some force the arm end slid through. At this point the Bentley tells you to attach the control arms back as soon as possible and lower the car on the floor so that the control arms can settle inside the new bushings. I took them at face value and the rest of the procedure was a sort of race against time (oh my god, omg, what would happen if I take too long???).

The control arm is in

The first thing was to tighten the inner ball joint nut, which was predictably a pain in the butt, as the removal had been. Then I screwed in the two bolts that hold the lollipops to the frame, and finally the outer ball joint nuts. As I was done with both arms I realized that the sway bar was still lying on the floor and it looked like it wouldn’t be the easiest thing to place it above the control arms. I tried unsuccessfully for a few minutes, but it was like trying to figure out a solution to Rubik’s cube – you’d figure out one side, but the other would come undone – then I gave up and detached one of the control arm bushing brackets. Sway bar in, lollipop tightened, brackets attached, calipers on, wheels on, go! I torqued all nuts to spec except for the two on the subframe. Those gave me enough grief just trying to fit them to their places – there was no way a torque wrench could have fit in there.

Timeline:

• Friday night – get a head start – jacked up car, removed wheels, detached sensors, removed brake calipers
• Saturday – removed struts, compressed springs, removed old shocks and springs, removed control arms and sway bar, installed new shocks in strut housings, went drinking
• Due to the last item on Saturday’s list, I woke up on Sunday with a hangover and no will to get dirty and do physical work, so I dragged it and made plans for the next day
• Monday I took the bus to work. That evening I bought parts for the makeshift strut tool, installed the shock mounts, and removed the spring compressors
• Tuesday evening – installed the struts, attached the tie rods
• Wednesday evening – control arms, done
.

I certainly learned a few things – I didn’t really have to change the control arms; the old ones looked good enough. But what the hell! ... In retrospect I bit more than an amateur like me could chew in one weekend. I’d recommend doing this in stages – one weekend the shocks and springs, the next the control arms, then the tie rods. Drinking on Saturday night may delay results. Even a professional mechanic, doing this on his own time, having to deal with wife and kids and grocery shopping, might find this job too much for one straight shot.

Worn-out rubber bushing

The handling is much better now – adding to the improvements caused by the new rear suspension, there are a few noticeable changes. In curves the car always felt like it was going to keep moving ahead and the only thing that brought it to the course I was setting was the fact that it was still somehow attached to the wheels. Curves are now much more stable, the handling is reassuring. There was also a noticeable front vibration propagated through the steering column at about 55-60mph, which I ascribed to the worn-out control arm bushings. That vibration is now gone. Other than that I’m left with a car that’s slightly lowered, (a bit less than 1 inch), a lot of bruises and I still feel like I’ve been working out lifting dumbbells for three days straight.

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Replacing shock absorbers and coil springs on the rear axle

This is not a travel post, it's a car post.

In my crusade to fix, upgrade and polish the old piece of junk (1988 BMW 325) I finally decided to tackle the rear axle suspension, which had felt horribly loose for a while. Moreover I kept hearing squeaking and screeching noises coming from the left side of the back of the car while driving. Since my car is primarily a daily driver and will never see the track in its remaining days on earth I chose to upgrade the suspension with Bilstein Sport shock absorbers and H&R OE Sport springs. This combination is supposed to lower the car but not too much - about one inch - and the ride won’t become too harsh as it would be the case with stiffer lowering springs.

Parts and tools:

• Bilstein Sport shocks (rear)
• H&R OE Sport springs (rear)
• Shock mounts for the convertible model (sturdier design)
• Self-locking nuts for the shock mounts
• Shock mount gasket
• Reinforcement plates – didn’t fit
• Bunch of metric wrenches and sockets
• Floor jack and jack stands
• Blocks of wood tp put between the jack and body
• Working light

Click on images for better-resolution photos.

The rear wheel
before the procedure

Shocks, mounts, gaskets and reinforcement plates are from Bavarian Autosport. The springs came from a guy who runs a high-volume automotive store on eBay. He had the best price, including the shipping charges, but in retrospect he was a deceitful jerk since he had advertised his product as “in stock” but instead had to order it from H&R. Because of this delay the package arrived in Seattle right as the snow storm was settling in, and then got stuck in the local UPS service center for 12 days before it was finally delivered. But I digress.

Right side shock mount

Left side shock mount, damaged

Start by raising the back of the car and put it on jack stands, of course. Remove the wheels.

Partially remove the trim in the trunk to expose the shock mounts. Bending the trim is not an easy affair; it’s relatively rigid and hard to peel off and snap out of the grooves where it’s tucked in. That’s when I noticed that the right side shock mount had to be broken – there was a 2-3 millimeter gap between the upper cupped washer and the rubber piece. What do you know!

Remove shock mounting screw

Support the trailing arm

Disconnect the shock from its lower mount on the trailing arm. Not supported by the shock, the trailing arm will drop a couple of inches. Be sure to support it before removing the shock mounting screw; the Bentley indicates that the sudden jerk of the trailing arm may damage the CV joints. I forgot to support the left trailing arm when I disconnected the shock absorber and it dropped quite sharply. Fortunately it doesn’t seem to have broken anything, the car rolls fine now; the Bentley understandably errs on the side of caution. Of course, I can never be sure unless I inspect the joints. After disconnecting the shock I supported the trailing arm with the jack for most of the time, to avoid unnecessary pressure on the joints.

The old Sachs shock

Loosen the two self-locking nuts that hold the shock mount to the frame. Supporting the shock from below, remove the mounting nuts and then the shock. In my case, if there had been a gasket between the shock and the car frame it has long ago turned into dust.

Broken left side shock mount

The right shock absorber looked worn out yet not too damaged, but the left one was downright broken. There is a metal tube which sits in the middle of the hard rubber at the center of the mount, that the shock absorber’s piston rod slides through. That tube was completely disconnected from the surrounding rubber. No wonder I had been hearing those noises coming from the rear left side of the car while driving! And no wonder that each time I went over a sudden bump in the road (like when the asphalt/concrete plates aren’t properly aligned, and the end of the current one is a bit lower than the beginning of the next) the whole back of the car felt like it was going to fall off.

Lowered exhaust, supported with zip ties

Next, the spring had to be removed. This needed a little more work.

The Bentley says to disconnect and lower the rear part of the exhaust system from the brackets that support it, to allow for more room when the trailing arm is lowered. I did just that, but in retrospect I think this step didn’t help much. I supported the exhaust by hanging it with zip-ties from the upper brackets.

Final drive mounting nut and bracket

Disconnecting the final drive

Final drive lowered

Again, to make more room for the lowered trailing arm so that the spring can come out, I disconnected the final drive from its mount and pulled it down. It didn’t go too low and I didn’t want to force it. This didn’t seem to create any significant room for the trailing arm which was already lowered to the maximum anyway.

Disconnect the stabilizer bar link

Disconnect the stabilizer bar connecting link from the trailing arm. This seemed to lower the trailing arm a little bit more, but again, there was no significant help (the stabilizer bar is called “sway bar” by some).

The old stock spring
ready to be removed

At this point the Bentley leads you to believe that the spring can be simply removed by hand, but I realized that any attempt in that direction was hoplessly futile since I didn’t have the necessary superhuman powers to compress the spring by my bare hands. With the trailing arm lowered to the max the spring was still compressed and the ends of the spring were snug against the rubber mounts. Moreover the top and bottom spring supports have conical protrusions that fit inside the spring and secure it in position. There’s no way that spring was coming out on persuasion alone.

Spring with compressor on

I squeezed in my spring compressor, but this was no simple task. There isn’t enough space to easily wield a wrench in there. While one of the spring compressor rods can be attached on the outside of the spring inside the wheel cavity, thus offering better access, the other one has to go on the opposite side, and gets wedged between the axle and the exhaust (on the left side) making the task of tightening the compressor bolts extremely painful. It took quite a while and a lot of sweat.

New H&R Spring compressed

New and old springs side by side

After removing the old spring, I tried to put the new spring in without compression, thinking that maybe its shorter size would allow for it – but that initiative was doomed from the start as well, due to lack of superpowers. I compressed the H&R spring and installed it, after which - of course - I had to uncompress it in place, which takes an equally frustrating amount of time. Make no mistake: operating a spring compressor on mounted springs is hard work.

Done!

After the spring was finally in its cradle I installed the shock (reverse of removal). The two cupped washers on the old shock mount should be reused but everyone says the self-locking nuts should be used only once. I’m not sure why and didn’t bother investigating yet, so I got new nuts.

I had also ordered the reinforcement plates that were recommended by other people and by Bavauto. These metal plates are supposed to go inside the trunk between the body metal and the shock mount nuts, but they didn’t fit on my model. On one side of the body plate hole for the shock mount, the body plate has some sort of reinforcement bar which is about a quarter of an inch high. The shock reinforcement plate is too wide and goes over that bar; as a result, it doesn’t sit flat on the body and the lock nuts can’t be tightened against it. Useless!

Wheel after "surgery"

The right side went easier due to the absence of the exhaust and the experience that I had already gathered by working on the left side. Finally, the car was ready to have its wheels back on and go out for a drive. However, as I was tightening the left-side shock mount to spec using a torque wrench, one of the threaded bolts broke in half and popped out with the nut on it. So close to victory, so close to showing off, so close to dinner! Damn it! Despair! Frustration! I didn’t want to keep the car lying useless on jack stands until I got a new mount so I installed the old right-side mount instead, which seemed to be still usable. On Monday I called Bavauto and they offered to send me a replacement shock mount at no cost. Great customer service! I hope it doesn’t get caught in the next snow storm...

After working on the rear suspension all Saturday I was planning to tackle the front the next day. But when I woke up I was in so much pain after the previous day-long workout that I had to schedule the front axle adventure for the next weekend.

Working Time - about 8 hours, with breaks. With more experience and better organization (the right tools always at hand, more space in the garage, etc) this could take significantly shorther, even for an amateur.

Difficulty - technically not too challenging, but it involves a lot of physical work.

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Third world prices in America

No-nonsense prices!
Click photo to see slideshow
or here for all those veggies

When I was traveling through South America, seeing the ridiculously low prices of fruits and vegetables I ranted on this site about our own grocery stores back home and the exorbitant prices they charge us for the same stuff. The only possible explanation for this rip-off is that it’s not a rip-off at all: we are subjected to a first-world standard-of-living tax that generously flows into an altruistic aid program that subsidizes the mom-and-pop grocers of the third world. Right?

It turns out that it doesn't have to be this way; the first-world sucker tax is optional. Upon our return, Angela has been struck by a sudden, lasting attack of anal-retentiveness and decided that grocery shopping needs to be done by a meticulous plan which will result in significant savings. Thus, for the last few months we have been shopping at the “Asian” grocery markets in the International District. I mean “Asian” in the blatant “most people who work there look vaguely Chinese” way. In those nondescript stores along and behind Jackson Street you can find not only the familiar fruits and vegetables sold by the ubiquitous Fred Meyer, Safeway or QFC, but also others that may require an advanced course in exotic foods before you can figure out what to do with them. The quality is nothing to balk at but the prices are the best part – everything is much cheaper than at the mainstream chain grocery stores. You spend 10 bucks and go out with three full bags. I took some pictures of their convincing price tags – and these are winter prices; in summer, the numbers are half.

Cheap stuff for tightwads

Unless these guys get all their produce straight from China like Walmart or grow them in their basement closets under halogen light bulbs year-round they would have to buy from the same producers like the big stores. They charge lower prices and obviously manage to stay in business and survive the tough competition. This begs the question, why don’t the major stores sell at comparable prices? The answer is, beyond any economic theory bullshit, because they can. For a variety of reasons, the average white American doesn't shop in Chinatown. If you live in the suburbs you have no choice or you just don’t know better – the Asian groceries are confined to a 5-block stretch along Jackson Street, a small and not too interesting neighborhood south of downtown. However the backbone of the American nation, the soccer moms and baseball dads of Seattle, don’t shop in the I.D. because the place is obviously unclean, unhygienic, unsafe and full of foreigners with dreadful accents, who might as well be terrorists. That leaves the minorities, a handful of liberal hippies and the expert-level white people who – like me – have embraced ethnic diversity. Of course, only as long as it comes to cheap food.

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Google makes the world grow stupid

It's imaginary, just like your intelligence

It’s no surprise that a blog called “Run the Equator” gets the majority of its hits from people searching the web for something or other related to the Equator. I run a counter on this site which enables me to see how many people have reached it and where the clicks come from, within the limits of geographic IP address mapping. Don’t worry, the counter doesn’t tell me your name, phone number or email address, but it’s very good at measuring stupidity, and there’s no better dumbness-gauge than the words people use in web searches. Words? No, it’s entire phrases and personal questions that people ask Google these days.

The undeniable fact that Google has indexed and catalogued the entire world of online information has led certain of us to believe that the sum of human knowledge is at their fingertips and no effort is needed to retrieve it. Once upon a time it used to be that you needed to read the manual first in order to be able use a tool. If you wanted to get a book on a certain topic from the library, you had to know how to use the index cards or explain your concerns to the librarian, and later on, when you had the book in your hands you actually had to spend some time reading it to get to the information you were looking for. All this sounds pretty darn complicated, doesn’t it? Don’t worry, in the age of instant gratification all these time-wasting efforts have been made obsolete by web search. Who needs a brain when you’ve got Google?

You can get most of what you’re looking for to come willingly to your web browser, depending on your level of skill in manipulating search keywords, but no amount of search and indexing will redeem some of the lost souls who land accidentally on my blog. For their lack of common sense they deserve house arrest without access to the internet and an interdiction to procreate.

Most people get to my blog looking for something simple and objective, which can be expressed in simple queries: visas, information about a certain country or place I happen to have visited and blogged about, hostels, vaccines for the tropical world, travel information. These boring internet surfers seem to have read the manual and don’t expect the web to be able to cure AIDS and slice bread.

A few clueless dweebs, exhibiting a fair degree of anonymous honesty admit that they don’t know where or what this equator-thing is. Fair enough – in this day and age, operating a computer doesn’t require any level of formal education, like going to school. These guys seem to be struggling in a desperate quest for trivial knowledge. Unless they are 8 year-olds, they have already lost the battle and will soon land a job flipping burgers for the rest of their lives if they don’t already do so.

The frosting on the cake are those who have thrown all gray-matter from the skulls into the trash can and would rather be plugged into the Matrix than exercise their atrophied brains, the part of the population whose cortexes have been leveled with a clothes iron by the digital age. These guys ask Google the kind of questions you would ask of an oracle. One who has all the answers to all the riddles in the Universe, or at least to everything involving the Equator. Let’s take a look at the existential problems these monkeys are struggling with. Some questions require algorithmic answers, which reveals a certain complexity of the problem they are trying to tackle, but the mere fact that they ask the search question in raw, human form reveals their total lack of common sense with regard to technology and its limits. Some of them are merely stupid, others completely nonsensical, more appropriate to the prior category, many are just brilliant. The grammar belongs to them.

• do you have to pass the equator to get to Turkey
• what towns are on the equator
• countries which run through the equator
• what's the distance of istanbul from the equator
• India is as much a country as the Equator
• continents that doesn't run through the equator
• frostbite near the equator
• map of india with equator on it
• equator shit time lapse
• honduras location due to the equator
• map of thailand equator
• where does the equator run
• visa to equator
• what rivers run away from the equator
• ten countries along the equator that you fly along
• I travel around the world but always in a corner i can cross the equator but only only make one trip
• a list of all country the equator run through
• turkey spain or egypt what is closer to the equator
• lands lieng on the equator
• the capital of the country that crosses the equator
• india south of the equator
• why is the Equator famous

Those queries come from the activity logs of the last month only. Too bad I didn’t save the rest. I wanted to make a top-ten out of it but I can’t decide which one deserves the Darwin Award...

For all of you internet-indoctrinated morons, get an atlas! Google maps would do just fine.

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