MKII Front Spindles Discontinued

[vw154]

What do people do when VW informs you that they are no longer making replacement MKII front spindles. For everyone out there with MKII race cars, what does this mean?

Brian
Vantage Motorsports

[Flyinglizard]

Hubs or spindles? both?
Mk 3 will work but the bearing is larger and cheaper.
As are the brakes.
The spindle may work, but I have not checked to see if the 9.4 brakes fit the K 3 spindle.

I saw someplace the new IT rules ,allowed the Mk 3 brakes for the Mk 2. But I have no idea why.

[vw154]

Thanks for the reply, I had a quick look through the February rules and didn't see anything jump out at me saying I could run MKIII spindles. Do you have a link by any chance?

To answer your other question, it is only the steering spindles that we were informed of being discontinued. The hubs and bearings are still available.

Brian
Vantage Motorsports

[Greg Amy]

Using Mk3 spindles on a Mk2 is not compliant to the IT regs.

There have been several vehicles in the past that were no longer run in IT due to parts availability issues. Coming immediately to mind are rear brake drums from the Mazda RX-3 and one of the Datsun Z-cars? The CRB and the IT community have pretty much decided that you're pretty much SOL as parts as "NLA" parts go. It goes to the "warts and all" side of the philosophy.

However, I suggest that VW made enough of these cars over the years that salvage yards can supply what you need. Dave Gran had a hellluva time finding rear hubs for his Honda Prelude, going to great lengths to salvage any and all versions he could find...you can too, I bet.

- GA

[Flyinglizard]

Why are the 10in brakes allowed?

[Greg Amy]

Why are the 10in brakes allowed?
Who says they are? What car did they come off of? If not a Mk2 Golf, they're not compliant to the IT regs.

- GA

[joeg]

Keep in mind that just because a US dealer tells you a part is "NLA", that does not mean you cannot find a NOS part (not sure why you need that for a spindle since a good JY piece would work fine).

There are numerous obsolete inventory houses and computer search enterprises that generally do find them. You will need the oem part number, however.

Finally, for a VW, you can always search in Europe, although shipping can be a B--ch!.

Cheers.

[Flyinglizard]

Greg. The new Mk 2 line says 244mm. What is that brake package from?

My bad.. the 257mm is still only for the K 3, as it should be.
Edit; Pretty sure the 244mm are 88-89, 16V brakes.
Some of the ITA lines may be incorrect also.

[Ralf]

The correction to the brake spec line is still incorrect. My letter was supposed to change the specs, but all they did was add the specs I gave them and they didn't remove the improper specs. There is no 244mm disc or drum.

[vw154]

Greg, while I hear you in the fact that parts can usually be sourced elsewhere, we will NOT be using junkyard front spindles. Through the years of racing that Vantage has been running VW's we have found they only last one year here at home before they break. When they break, it usually ends with a wrote off car and a hurt driver. We are not interested in hurting drivers as we only do this for fun, cars can be replaced. As for the Japan or Chinese stuff, it is total crap. We couldn't even get a 15 lap race in at home without a rear stub axle bending or breaking. I tested the Rockwell hardness of the original 16V rear stubs against what we could buy today and they were on two different planets. That explained why the China stuff was junk. We do not want to go through the same thing with front end parts now as we did with stub axles. We searched high and low and found enough rear stub axles to get us by but, the front end is a different story now. What concerns me more is, let's say SCCA allows MKIII front spindles and brakes on the MKII, how long before VW discontinues the MKIII parts as well.

Luckily, in Canada there was a version of the MKIII diesel that was never sold in the US and this car had MKII front spindles on it with the same size brakes and all components. We just bought the last 4 in North America and they said they have no intention of reordering. So while we may be good for this year now, there is still next year to think about.

Brian
Vantage Motorsports

[Flyinglizard]

54;
1)The JY is the best place to find the German front pieces.

2) I have sold my VW, FWD racing book all over the World. As such, I talk to all of the racers. We look for failures to alert other racers.
The Hubs from China can fail.

The Mk 1 hubs will fail .. just a matter of time.
Boring them oversize to dasher bearings seems to be the standard op. It is not legal for IT. Break one at speed and most upgrade the hub..

The spindle/upright/ bearing carrier, has never failed. Any of them.
The OE ones are forged. They can be bent at the steering arm and the strut mount area. Many are bent intentionally to correct bump steer and camber issues.
My Circle burners have had the wheel stuffed back into the front seat, without the hub or knuckle failing .

The post 88 Mk2 has the larger bearing/hub. They will go 50hrs between renew. Adding lots of brake ducts increases this run time also as does a low brake use track.
The Mk 3 knuckle may fit the 240mm brakes I dont know.
Removing the seals of the bearings, pumping in Mobil one synthetic grease will double or triple your normal fail time.

[shwah]

Greg. The new Mk 2 line says 244mm. What is that brake package from?

My bad.. the 257mm is still only for the K 3, as it should be.
Edit; Pretty sure the 244mm are 88-89, 16V brakes.
Some of the ITA lines may be incorrect also.

Right - the A2 Jetta 16V has the same 10.1 inch front brakes that the Scirocco 16v, and the A3 Golf/Jetta 8v have. Maybe a correction was issued? All of the A2 Golfs and GTIs have 9.4 inch front brakes.

[Ralf]

My letter was to correct the specs. The spec line said 244mm. Since that isn't the correct conversion from 9.4", I sent a letter to correct that info. Of course as it stands now, the 244mm dimension is still listed. 244mm = 9.6"

[mossaidis]

Ralf, is there any spec line updating/backing that you may not be accounting for? (shrug) Mickey

[BruceG]

Using Mk3 spindles on a Mk2 is not compliant to the IT regs.

There have been several vehicles in the past that were no longer run in IT due to parts availability issues. Coming immediately to mind are rear brake drums from the Mazda RX-3 and one of the Datsun Z-cars? The CRB and the IT community have pretty much decided that you're pretty much SOL as parts as "NLA" parts go. It goes to the "warts and all" side of the philosophy.

However, I suggest that VW made enough of these cars over the years that salvage yards can supply what you need. Dave Gran had a hellluva time finding rear hubs for his Honda Prelude, going to great lengths to salvage any and all versions he could find...you can too, I bet.

- GA

Same thing for the no longer made rotor housings for the 12A Mazda RX7! Rumor is that Dick P. has built a Cheyenne Mountain type facility stocked with 12A rotor housings......LOL

[shwah]

My letter was to correct the specs. The spec line said 244mm. Since that isn't the correct conversion from 9.4", I sent a letter to correct that info. Of course as it stands now, the 244mm dimension is still listed. 244mm = 9.6"

Ah - you are correct. My mistake. They are 9.4" diameter.

[mossaidis]

One more item in the same vein Chris. For most 92-95 civics, the standard front brakes are 9.3" so roughly 238mm. The EG civics that came with ABS standard came with a 10.2" front rotor so roughly 260mm, i.e Civic EX. Where a EG spec line had at one ABS model, the carupdate/backdate rule would allow for the 260 mm rotor though it would not be the "standard" per say.

[Ralf]

Ralf, is there any spec line updating/backing that you may not be accounting for? (shrug) Mickey

For the cars in the spec line, the only difference is whether they are vented or non-vented. Diameter is the same. Pretty sure everybody updates to the vented, since the calipers are the same.

[vw154]

Well this is no surprise but I heard back from SCCA and they will not allow the MKII cars to run MKIII brakes/hubs/spindles. It was worth a try but I already knew the answer before even submitting the letter. It's too bad that another car in ITB will fade away and die. Disappointing after years of investment into building, running and having fun with a great car.

[Knestis]

It does kind of suck but there's no other practical solution with a car that old.

I daresay that even the MkIII Golf is nearing that point, the generation being effectively 20 years old now. When I built Pablo the First (c.2004), part of the reason I chose that model was that it was new enough that it wouldn't "go vintage" on me. By 2012, it was getting harder to find things as simple as aftermarket hoods. Wrecking yard 2-door doors were going up in price like crazy, as they got harder to find.

Opening the door to spec-line exceptions would be a huge leap, fundamentally changing the nature of the category.

K

[joeg]

That's half the fun of running an IT relic---part searching.

Those parts are out there.

[shwah]

Refresh my memory. Are we talking about the bearing/hub carrier that the strut/ball joint/tie rod/brake caliper bolt to? If so - there are SOOOOO many cars with these out there that I would not expect a legitimate supply issue for racers for about 10 years.

If we are talking about the hubs, I would be shocked if there were not a source, as there are still a ton of these cars on the road as well.

I get moving an A2 out of IT racing because it has been shafted by inconsistent application of power gain assumptions and thus weight of cars in B, but not because of parts availability.

[Flyinglizard]

Most Mk 2 were scrapped in the last 2 yrs. They dont pay to keep . VW people are cheap or buy new ones.
The current hubs can be made everywhere.

The later 88( 72/40) and up bearings last about 20hrs. The early ,smaller ones maybe 10hr. 66/35
The Mk 3 hubs, I show to be the same size as the Mk2+.
(72/40)
The Chinese hubs seem OK at the larger size. Not for Mk 1 tho. ( 64/34)

I am pretty sure that the Mk 2(66/35) small bearing can get stuffed into the Mk 1 carrier with some machine love.

The only reason to use the Mk 3 stuff is the larger brakes. as the hubs/bearing are the same,IMHO

The forged carriers dont really go bad IMHO. They will take about 8-10 bearing swaps and still have some squeeze. Red loctite keeps them snug . They can get bent steering arms in a shunt and bent in the upper strut mount area,requiring more slots.

I have never seen, nor heard of, a carrier broken, just bent.
The hubs all will break eventually at race loads with big stickys.