My E36 M3 is E36 M3

I've been doing a long overdue shock/strut change. The rears were fairly easy but the fronts are damned near impossible.
The bottom 2 18mm bolts are the bane of my existence. I have air tools but the impact sockets are too thick to seat on the bolt heads. Even if they would seat, there is always something else in the way of my impact wrench. I can't even round these berkeleyers off pneumatically!

On top of that, everything else I try to change is a struggle. I worked 2 hours tonight and only managed to undo an 16mm, an 18mm bolt (the top one) and replace one fog light.

This car is the anti Christine. It finds ways to keep me from fixing it.

very odd. I bought my BMW in Mass and even the most rusty of nuts came undone easily enough. The only ones I broke were the ones that held the underbody brace to the framerails.

In reply to rmarkc:

The worst parts I have had have been splines. I had to bring it to a shop to press out the rear half shafts. My simple flex disc change turned into stripping down the entire underside. The spline in the slip section in the driveshaft are seized and wouldn't allow for space without pulling the entire thing. Never was able to get it to move, put it back in as is.

former520 wrote: In reply to rmarkc: The worst parts I have had have been splines. I had to bring it to a shop to press out the rear half shafts. My simple flex disc change turned into stripping down the entire underside. The spline in the slip section in the driveshaft are seized and wouldn't allow for space without pulling the entire thing. Never was able to get it to move, put it back in as is.

I had a 4wd Chev truck in the shop for a bad ujoint in the front shaft. Sadly, someone left the boot off the spline that goes into the front output shaft.

About a kilobuck later, it had a new output shaft in the transfer case, and a new yoke. Comealong, sledgehammers, air chisels, torches, finally gave up and pulled the box out and pulled it apart.

My suspension has all been easy, but I had to make a massive shop-built puller to get the rear CV stub-axles out of the hubs. 1/2" steel plate w/ a stud pattern drilled and a 3/4" nut fillet welded in the middle. Bolt it to hub, apply pressure w/ the giant 3/4" bolt w/ a 3/4" drive breaker bar w/ a cheater pipe, oxy-acetylene on the hub, golf swings w/ 16# sledge on the head of the puller bolt, repeat repeatedly...

Cheap Chinese impact sockets beat the Bavarian bitch but not without a fight.
Now she has new springs, shocks/struts, rotors and pads on all four corners. Now all I have to do is:
- change the oil
- install the other fog light
- change the injectors
- reset all the codes
- fix the driver's window
- fix the sunroof