BMW e46 Damaged Emergency Brake Cable Stuck In Rear Subframe
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- Due to a corroded rear subframe, my emergency brake cable was stuck in the 4 - 5" section it passes through and the outer cable jacket broke when I tried pulling it out. After removal of the old damaged cable, the new cable would not pass through the subframe.
In this video, I more or less talk through what I experienced during a recent repair and what I did to get past this issue.
I'm just an average BMW enthusiast, DIYer who has benefited from lots of other repair videos. I apologize for the video being a little long. I only made this video in hopes that it might help others that stumble upon this same issue, as these e46 models are getting older.
Thanks for watching!
Man thankyou so much!!!! That sandpaper trick just did it for me :)))) I spent all day yesterday trying and sanding down the metal end to try to make it fit with zero luck and busted my knuckle open to the Cartlidge… just did the back and forth a good couple times aggressively and sandpaper came out caked! New one slid right on in thanks you’re a life saver dude. Wish I could send you a pic of my busted up bloody hands you’d get a laugh🤮😂😂❤️
Oh man, sorry hear about the busted knuckles! I truly appreciate you taking a moment to post a comment I still have this car and when I think back to when I made this video, I wasn't quite ready (mentally & mechanically) to fully acknowledge how bad the rust got back there and what future issues I would run into and need to address.😂 I just re-watched the entire video and realized, man I say "basically" a lot!😂 I'm glad this may have helped you in any way. That was the idea. If it weren't for others before me, I would have moved on from this car long ago!
Hi Craig, thanks for the video! I'm having the same problem but mostly in the subframe part. For the backing plate I just used a lot of liquid wrench on both sides, hit the front with a chisel and hammer and wiggled the back side with a pry bar. Now the rubber part that goes into the subframe is completely stuck and I don't know what to do. Just to make sure I'm doing it the right way: you pull it from the back and the front part is supposed to slide through, right? I can't believe how stuck that thing is!
Spray some penetrant where the cables enter the chassis tubes. Then cut the cable close to the tubes. Then use a drill with a good sized bit and drill.
It will twist the remains right out w/o damging the tubes.
Currently in the middle of doing this job, what a PITA. I too mangled the cables when they got stuck in the subframe, took me a total of 4 hours to get both cables out. Reinstalled the driver's cable after some sanding, but I sanded the passenger's side to the point where the metal fitting was just slightly larger than the plastic fitting that goes into the body for the lever and it still doesn't go in. Looks like I'll be forced to sand the hole in the subframe, but there isn't any space for my dremel, and doing it by hand takes forever. I think I'll buy some small files tomorrow morning and try filing the inside of the hole, hopefully that works. I can't wait until both cables are in, it should be smooth sailing from there.
Good luck!. Let me know how it goes!
@@VNEMUS Whoops sorry I forgot to update this! Sanded the subframe as much as I could but it was very hard to get to. In the end, I cut off the metal bushing on the lever-end of the cable, and fed the cable through the subframe without it. Then took the old bushing and drilled it out to just fit over the threads on the cable, and put it on after the subframe. It's all back together and now works.
@@timothyer2447 Good stuff! Glad to hear. Thanks for the update!
mine was stuck inside the subframe, i used a blow torch and it melted it free, then drilled the remaining rubber
Looking back at this repair, I probably should have tried the fire wrench method as you did!👍 Last year, I completely dropped the rear subframe to replace all the corroded rear hard line brake lines up to the master cylinder and replaced the subframe & differential bushings, fully inspected for subframe cracks (none found) and cleaned things up a bit. Then early this year, I manual swapped this car. Sort of wish I videoed some of that. Plenty of others that already have, I guess. Oh well! It's hard to believe these cars are over 20 years old now! Thanks for commenting! 🙂
@@VNEMUS Nice job!! i need to drop my subframe too, there is a clunking noise still here after changing the diff bushing and when i jack the car from the subframe it move, so the bushings are TOOOAST, mine is manual too MT5 big diff 3.38. But mine is my daily driver so i can't remove the subframe... i need to buy an other car like a little toyota or some shit to drive when i do big jobs on the car
Oh, yeah, if it's your primary daily driver, that definitely makes it harder to dig into the bigger jobs. If you had a shop do the work, it would be held up at least 1-2 days, nevermind the labor cost to do this work. These cars aren't extremely difficult to work on, mainly due to all the information available. Most of the time it's just having the space and tools, finding the time to do all the work and trying to justify the cost of the parts to maintain. The manual swap made no financial sense for me to do, but always wanted to do it and extremely happy I did. I swapped out my 3.38 for a 2.93 so it would be more highway friendly driving, but it's kind of a dog compared to newer vehicles. Still way more fun to drive!😊
@@VNEMUS that’s why we love e46s they are covered with our DNA, blood 🩸 & sweat 😓. With all the hours of work, the hate/love relationships, they are OUR car, not just an other car that you buy and everything is fine 😂
Just watched your video. You may already have changed them, but the brake lines need replacing.
I'm an MOT tester in the UK.,and I can tell you from experience , these lines are close to fracturing .
We put salt on the roads here in Scotland, but that subframe is the worst I've seen.
Good luck , it's a lovely car ,apart from the rust.
Yep I had to do all the hard lines straight from the abs to each corner by myself! It was a week long job took quite a while but I made sure to take my time on every bend and literally got them looking exactly like oem all in original clips and everything looks mint :) I highly recommend Nickle copper brake lines they’ll outlast the car probably compared to this shitty metal ones from bmw
@@the46guide94Yup, same here 2 years ago. At that time I had completely dropped the rear independent suspension and I replaced The rusted cradle and replaced all the subframe in differential bushings bushings. The rear hard brake lines were so bad especially up above the subframe cradle and where the tighter bends meet the rubber lines to the calipers. I lowered the fuel tank and removed both rear hard lines from the ABS and then I used those as templates to bend up the brand new lines, taping them to each other as I went along and it worked out perfectly. I'm so glad I did that. I can't even imagine how much it would have cost to have an independent shop do all of that labor!
i have this job ahead of me. this will definitely help. Thank you
Best of luck!
Thanks for the video bud. I actually am in the exact same situation just not as far along yet lol. 98 328is jersey/ny car just got a new trail arm all because of a broken shock stud, broken bolt extractor.. so this helped a bit. Cheers
get a 1/4 ratchet extension and beat it out or a scree driver just be gentle and patient
Doing this right now! Thank you so much for your help !!
How did you get it out of the trailing arm
That rust is crazy!
The car spent it's early years ungaraged near the ocean plus New England winters, salted roads.