Ready to give up...at least for this year

[flaboy]

Well it seems everything i try to do turns to sh*t.

bought new koni's today.can't figure out how to get them apart to put them in the sleeve.ok...that can wait.
move to the rear..talk off nut on top of tower..go under car to take out rear bar and bolt forshock..guess what.Previous owner welded end of bolt to sway bar mount..how and the hell am i going to get that apart??!!Daytona is in three weeks...don't think i have the patients to get the car ready!!



Tim

[JamesB]

post a picture. But you could cut the weld with a grinder if it looks like its not needed, otherwise there has to be a way.

[Eric Parham]

Hmmm, welded to just one side or to both? If just one, undo entire bar and then slide out complete with welded bolt. If both sides, will the bar bend enough to slip one side out first (then do as above)?

As for the new inserts and strut sleeves, do you have the internal or external nuts holding your current inserts into the strut sleeves? If you have internal, you might need to swap for external style housings, or just go with whole new struts rather than inserts.

[Bill Miller]

What Eric said about the front struts.

As far as that rear setup goes, all too often w/ street VWs (at least A1 and A2 chassis cars), the lower strut bolt will 'weld' itself to the metal sleeve in the lower shock bushing. I found the easy way to get the shocks out is to take a sawzall to the bolt. Cut the bolt between the shock and the mount, on both sides of the shock. Get new bolts, and figure out a better swaybar mount.

[flaboy]

OK..i know i'm not the most able person when it comes to somethings...but...the fron shocks were the wrong ones..the had rear shocks in the front boxes...that made me feel beter about myself!!

Rear bar...this weekend i'm going to try to take the mounts off the rear end cross member and see if i canuse a hammer and slid it thru the ends...this might work..don't know if the ends will slide back on but we'll see


for now i'm going to leave the front struts alone..because you can't put koni struts into a bilstine mount.


thanks for all your help,hopefully i will see some of you all at Daytona

Tim

[gran racing]

and see if i canuse a hammer and slid it thru the ends[/b]

Ut oh! Use the little hammer not the big one. :)

I think we've all shared the general frustration you're going through. My problem is when I get to that point, I start using the bigger hammer. Fortunately my wife can hear me from inside the house and tells me to stop working for a while and go back to it a bit later. Best of luck - sounds like you're almost there!

[Bill Miller]

Tim,

It's probably going to be easier for you to cut the rear bolts as I described.


for now i'm going to leave the front struts alone..because you can't put koni struts into a bilstine mount[/b]

I'm not sure what you're talking about here. If you mean an upper camber plate, you can get different bushings/bearings. When I switched from the Tokicos that the p/o had in my ITB Rabbit GTI, to Bilsteins, I just called Dick at Shine. Turns out that the Tokicos had the same setup as Konis, and I just needed some different bushings/bearings for the top.