Replaced worn balljoints (those outers can take a serious beating before finally willing to release from the LCA), and upgraded sway bar bushings to powerflex, PO already had powerflex LCA bushings installed.
One of the old sway bushings managed to slip out of the bracket, and breaking the bolts felt like they were barely torqued in to the 70s.. not 122 lbs as spec'd... He had paperwork from a bmw shop for the control arm bushings too

anyway, rattling sway bar is no longer an issue.. and gained a good +5mpg now that everything is snug and tight.

Now I have recently noticed a slight sound coming from the transmission, in neutral idle I hear a faint gear sloshing liquid/ticking sound, but with clutch pressed in it goes silent.. is this common or should I be getting it checked out? Of course I only noticed it due to listening like a hawk incase anything seems off after such a big amount of the car was pulled apart. Performance wise, clutch feels fine...

 

Sounds like your throw out bearing. Mine made a noise like that for 4-6 months before it shattered itself all over the bell housing at 120k. Luckily no damage beyond some cosmetic scratches inside, and it was still movable. I just couldn't shift without turning the engine off, but I was able to get it into the garage after a tow.

 

That's what I was thinking at first, but from researching it it seems to be a common mini quirk with the dual mass flywheel, and the throwout bearing is usually noise with the clutch pressed in, not the opposite. Either way, the noise is practically nonexistent, so I am sure I have plenty of time to save for a clutch kit by the sounds of how long people are driving with it making much more severe noises.

 

I understand that it is necessary to drop the subframe, as you have done, in order to change the inner ball joints, but I would think it easier to change the outer ball joints with the subframe mounted to the car. Correct?

 

for the outers, you can easily do it without disconnecting most of the suspension muchless dropping the sub frame, assuming they want to cooperate. My main agenda was the sway bar rattle, and knowing I had to drop it for those bushings and previous owner had coils, I decided to do all the balljoints as well. Needless to say with how stuck my outers were, I feel it made it a LOT easier to have the arm up on a bench to hammer away at the bolt... The Inners dropped out with a few precise ballpeen hits, outers took a good 20 minutes of brute force for some reason. the brand new pickle fork we had ended up with 1 prong bent almost 45 degrees by the time we were done.

 

Took the car through my work commute on the twisties today, thought there was an issue with the car for a while until I realized, the DSC is just working more now. Strangely I had no issues with DSC taking over power etc. on the corners with the worn out joints/ missing sway bushing.. but now that everything is snug the car seems to want to intervene if I am driving spirited on more corners that it used ignore when everything was loose.

Also noticed that my autoleveling headlights don't jerk so high as to look like I'm flashing people when braking downhill like they used to... Who would have thought a few balljoints/bushings could affect so many things.