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wishbone/arb advice


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At my last service the car got an advisory that the rear bushes were on the way out, looking at the wishbone's aswell they are pretty horrendous so I decided I'd just replace the whole thing and do the ball joints at the same time and try stiffen up the ARB. (already changed track rods about 6 months ago)  I managed to pick a set of wishbones up that already have powerflex bushes fitted, and I have ordered all new bolts for fitting. Was just after a bit of advice for when I set about removing the old one's and fitting the new one's. Any helpful tips, things to be careful of or like an ideal order to remove everything?

Second part is polybushing the ARB. I know the GTI bar is 22mm but I can't for the life of me find powerflex drop link bushes that are 22mm? Are the end's narrower or do they just not do them?? And I assume its best to just get new drop links and fit the bushes to them?

The steering is pretty vague and the wheel can be wobbled a bit with barely any steering action going on which is why I decided to give everything a freshen up. After 16 years it all looks pretty grim.

Think that covers everything. Apologies if it is slightly rambling :rolleyes:

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I'm in need of a front end refresh as well.

rear beam bushes on these seem pretty durable, get a second opinion.

as for the 22mm, you'd be surprised how much will have worn off that roll bar in 16 years.

 

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yeah.

rear wishbone bushes are shoddy, problem is when you change them once it becomes annual.

not a fan of the polys, once you understand how they work and what they absorb you see the importance.

 

that's the most complicated relevant time consuming piece of 80s awesomeness I can find 

Edited by Rich
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That video was actually awesome, I'll give you that! See what you mean about the bushes now, hmm.

So is there anything to be careful of while doing this or is it all fairly straight forward? Learnt how to do a lot of stuff since owning the car, changed suspension/brake disks, pads and that kind of thing, so I'd like to think I'm reasonably handy now. Just don't want to massively bodge something up and I can't find any sort of guide really on doing it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Not sure whether to jump on this thread or make a new one.

I've got knocks from the front and mad inside tyre wear. But the bushes all look OK to me. I've bought some front wishbone rear bushes, got the lemforders but my local garage said they don't last long and to get the powerflex so swapped them.

Anyway I've taken loads of photos. Can anyone see anything wrong?

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top mounts.

is the rear wishbone in the slots properly?

wobble it and feel for the play.

wheel size affects ball joints which is where the old left/right swap adage comes from.

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1 hour ago, dirk1978 said:

Can anyone see anything wrong?

Yes, there's a snail on your wishbone. 

You need to be in there prying for excess movement with a bar tbh, unless it is really shagged we cant tell much from pics.

Edit: is that rubber dust all over your cv gaitor and suspension? Is that from tyre or inner arch or something else?

Edited by Sausage
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3 minutes ago, Sausage said:

Yes, there's a snail on your wishbone. 

You need to be in there prying for excess movement with a bar tbh, unless it is really shagged we cant tell much from pics.

So there is! :-)

I'll get the garage to give it a good going over. I'm getting them to put a new cam belt on anyway as I don't fancy it myself.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thought about maybe trying to open the gap slightly, probably a mm or 2 would do it. Gonna try and take the drop link off the ARB aswell to make it easier to slot it in level without it in the way. Ran out of daylight today so I'll have a go in the morning ? 

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Cheers guys, did manage to get them done. undoing the ARB and shifting it out of the way seemed to be the key to making it a lot easier! Still, not the most fun thing I have ever done, but happily the car feels more solid now!

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On 21/10/2017 at 9:37 PM, Rich said:

ball joints affect the centre placement of the wheel, 14" and above requires the right to go on the left and vice versa.

Soon to start a major suspension refresh, including fitting 15s. As I'm fitting Sport or GTI hubs - will this still apply? Will be getting new wishbones that are listed for the Sport.

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