Well, I just did my drivers side. all 4 arms.

It took me over 4 hours.

This was primarily because
1. I didn't have enough 18&16mm tools.
2. I had a pesky bolt on the rear lower arm

I had read that you need to lower the subframe to get the bolt past the body and fuel lines. I did that and the subframe didn't want to go low enough!

Secondly, I dilly dallied around torquing everything. I thought everything would go great after I made that exploded suspension diagram with specs on it (seen here). Well it would have if I had been able to get my torque wrench on all the nuts and bolts.

I couldn't get my torque wrench around the inner nuts on the lowers. I knew the torque specs were around 60ish lbs so I just tightened the **** out of both of them (under curb weight of course).

Also, I figure the only way to get a torque wrench on the ball joint on the rear arm would be to have the axle out. Well I wasn't about to do that and the spec was manageable so again, I just tightened the **** out of it.

Same story with the forward most tower nut.

Anyone got tips on these?

The pinch bolt actually wasnt as bad as I thought. I'd been soaking it w/ Blaster for the prior 3 days or so. The nut came right off no impact or anything. The bolt came off by me putting the nut on the end of the bolt and pounding it with a BFH.

I didn't do the TRE because it had already been 4 hours and I didn't want to run into a "surprise" seized TRE. I'll save that for a rainy day as I don't have any play in the TREs anyway.

Anyone have thoughts on torqueing those hard to reach spots??

Thanks!

 

I've never torqued those for the same reasons. God knows I've been involved in enough car work in the last 15 years to have a fairly calibrated arm and as yet the CA jobs have all worked out fine. I wouldn't sweat it.

 

Also regarding the subframe bracket.

Bentley said that for the smaller bolts from m.y. 98 onward a self locking bolt was use and should be torqued to 55ftlb but up to 98 that a regular (non locking) bolt was used and should only be put up to 18ftlb.

Well, I have a bolt with a lock washer on it. I set my TW @ 55 and when I made contact w/ the plate and got a little torque on it it seemed that the bolt was just spinning.

I left it. Any thoughts on this?

 

well ****, the bentley I'm looking at only accounts for 2 types of smaller bolts in the subframe bracket when in actuality there are 3.

I just found a post over on passatworld, thanks to vagsearch , that quotes the bentley thusly. My copy doesn't refer to variant C and of course that's the one that's on my car.

So...did I strip that bolt???

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Modified bolts for subframe support (this is bolt 31 above

The bolts for the subframe support have been changed three times since start of production.

Bolt -A- was used at start of production.

The bolt -A- has no ribs on the underside of the washer, it is smooth.

Then the bolt was changed to bolt -B-.

The ribbed bolt -B- has ribs on the underside -arrow-.

From 04.99 the bolt -C- was introduced. It can be used in all vehicles.

Bolt -C- has ribs on the underside of the bolt head and the washer.

The bolts have different tightening torques.

Tightening torques:
Hex bolt -A-
25 Nm

Ribbed bolt -B-
75 Nm

Ribbed bolt -C-
30 Nm

 

The new rear control arm ball joint misses the steering knuckle tapered hole by about 1 1/2 inches. The new CA looks exactly like the old one.

Should I have installed the ball joint in the steering knuckle, then "leveraged" the other end into the frame mount? I tried prying the steering knuckle back with a crow bar and that works but not enough. Maybe a longer crow bar?

Has anyone else had this problem?

Thanks,

John

 

This may sound silly but rather than trying to pry the steering knuckle did you try to move the ball joint? It's not stationary. Mine was a little stiff out of the box but I was able to tip the stud towards the hole and then use a jack to squeeze things into place...

 

Thank you for getting back to me quickly.

I'll try moving the ball joint. Since my post, I pried back on the knuckle and got the end of the ball joint stud in the hole, but it wouldn't go any farther. Then dark overcame the work site.

Where did you apply the "jack to squeeze things into place"? Under the ball joint end of the control arm?

I'll try to borrow a longer pry bar from my land lord, as well.

This will all look better in the AM.

John

 

I had my car on a jack stand while working on the arms. When I was ready to tighten everything up I put the jack right under the ball joint end of the front lower CA and jacked it up until the car was just about raise up off the jack stand (ensuring the suspension was "under curb weight").

That will press the front CA up in from the bottom and consequently press the steering knuckle up into the stud for the rear lower.

 

I figured out why the (front) lower rear control arm would not line up. I did not jack up the other side of the car so the sway bar was putting tension on the side being worked on. Jacking up the right side made all the difference.

I have come across this in other cars when replacing sway bars and bushings. You have to jack up both sides to relieve tension on the sway bars.

I hope this helps someone else.

Thanks for your advice.

John