After my tie rod replacement, my E39 developed a shudder in the steering under light braking. I could also wiggle the left front wheel and hear a knocking sound in the suspension. Because worn thrust arm bushings are known for causing a steering-wheel “shimmy” under light braking and because I had already replaced my tie rods, I decided to replace these.
I ordered my new thrust arms from Bavarian Autosport in Turner, NH, where I get all of my BMW parts. The particular thrust arms I ordered were made by Meyle.
To replace the thrust arms, I jacked up the car and set it up on jack stands. I removed the wheel on the side I was working on. The thrust arms are attached to the subframe with a large bolt and a nut. I used an 18mm wrench and a 16mm socket to remove the bolt from the nut. However, I left the nut in place so the thrust arm would be held still for the next step: popping out the ball joint.
I used the ball-joint-popped that I bought for my tie rod replacement to remove the outer ends of the thrust arms from the wheel carrier. To do this, I loosened the 22mm nut holding the thrust arm in place. I then put the joint popper on and cranked it down until the thrust arm popped out of the wheel carrier.
I then installed my new thrust arms in reverse order. The only issue I ran into was with the headlight-adjuster-level-sensor, which was attached to the passenger-side thrust arm with a terrible grimy little clip that must have been designed by an Audi engineer. This was the third time I had struggled with this clip, as re-attaching it is very difficult. However, once I got it back on, the rest of the job was smooth sailing.
Exhaust Fumes 