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Reworked coilover fitment guide


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A good toolkit is required, ideally a breakers bar, lots of sockets of varied sizes, ratchets and allen heads for them, also hex and star allen keys,

decent jack or two, good set of varied screwdrivers, spring compressors and a Hammer is always useful too!

This guide is a guide and not fact, anyone who wishes to make alterations or add tips can feel free!

Start with one high lupo (courtesey of Newnsie!)

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starting at the back, u can either pull back the carpet (not much room) or pull off the rear doorcards and undo the clips of the seatbelt surround. (some are tucked behind the lip of the boot)

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seatbelt cover pulled up out the way start to grip the top of the mount with pliers or similar. and use a spanner to undo the bolt off the top of the thread can be very stiff!

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when completely undone at the top, undo the bottom of the strut and remove. use a screwdriver under the spring to plier it out of its cup.

reassembel the replacement strut, (minus the little ring on top in the pic, we couldnt fathom this, assumed it was for the people running without bump stops, some coilover sets like my AP's never had these little rings, so we left them to one side.

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just repeat the process to get it back in, and do up the top tight as it will go, but dont overtighten, cos the top snapped off on these, so we hope they never have to be removed! best do the lower bolt after the spring is in.

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cimg7059.jpg whoops - too tight!

With the little gold plate on the bottom of your spring base, bolt it up through the bottom of the cup and fix tightly. place the new spring in (with the little rubber damper bit on top from the previous spring) and when bolting the strut at the bottom, ensure the spring is seated properly on its top bobble.

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repeat for the other side.

On to the fronts.

off with the cap:

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with an (ideally swan neck) spanner hold the bolt, then with the ratchet and allen attachment undo the strut (again can be stiff).

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when undone, keep everything in the order it came out as they go back on that way. u can reuse the bolts on the new dampers as they probably go on a lot easier!

wheel off looking at the next bit

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spanner and breakers bar to start on the two bolts holding the front shocks to the wheel hub. then switch breakers bar to a more usable ratchet to finish. (may be stiff)

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use the trusty hammer to tap out the bolts after the nut is removed.

bolts out and undone, remove the shock. (some models have brake lines fixed to strut, unclip these and cable tie loosely out the way)

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spring compressors to give a bit of a hand getting the top bolt off. (alternatively buy the top mounts and nuts from vw cos it will save hassle.)

cimg7068x.jpg use a swan neck spanner to reach in around the lip of the rubber along with allen key ratchet (warning - this bolt is extremely stiff and hard to undo!!!)

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successfully removed/replaced with little dome thing still tucked underneath place on top of new shiny coilovers and bolt down,

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replace the strut again, as before

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reassemble the top as before, done up tightly.

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loosely fit ower bolts, pull disc towards u at the top (best camber until u can get the tracking done) then tighten the bolts very tight (breakers bar again).

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grease everything thouroughly!

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repeat other side and pop the wheels back on!

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lowered lupo!

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just have to let insurance know and get the car tracked to avoid unnecessary tyre wear.

this guide should cover most things, the rest is common sense for an averagely practical person (which u would have to be to want to fit the coils yourself), make sure your coils are set at the same heights and things are done up tight. use the pics to guage how low u want the car on the coils. (the rears are right down, adjusters in).

we take no responsibilty if things break!

Credits go to Tom, Karl, Myself and Jake (who sadly couldnt be with us for fitting as he had exams to revise for :( but kindly lent us his spring compressors) and Jowey who happened to have given Tom a few doorcard clips which came in handy!

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  • 1 year later...

I've just changed my shock absorbers and springs for a lowered set, I messed about for ages with a swan neck spanner trying to remove the nut holding the bearing on to the strut, just a little tip here and it only applies if you're not replacing the rubber and bearing, the top rubber can be popped off, once it's out of the car for easier access to the nut. Mine was a 21 mm.

Thanks to BEP51 for giving me the heads up on how to do this. I've not done any work on my cars for well over twenty years and this was really a straight forward job to do. It took me about three hours in total.

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