Rear shock installation on e30, e36, e46, e34 and most BMW models.

When replacing rear shock absorbers make certain that you remember to transfer the inverted cup washers from your old shock absorbers over to your new shocks before installing the upper mounts. These cup washers are an important part in the assembly, without them the rubber shock mounts will fail very quickly. The rubber shock mounts are designed to soften the impact of a harsh compression of the shock absorber. When the vehicle experienced an extreme impact such as a pot hole in the road the inverted cup washer bottoms out on the outer rim of the shock mount. This washer disperses the impact that would otherwise tear the center out of the rubber mount. The top of the shock has a similar washer to keep the shock from tearing out when the shock is hyper-extended.