Rear tyre wear/suspension

[Crasher]

NONE are reusable, all are Torque To Yield and can fail suddenly in use if reused, that would be... interesting.

The only way to do it properly is to drop the subframe and then you think that rusty floor looks awfull so you do that and put the subframe back in ready to rebuild and think...yuk!



So before you know it the frame is at the powdercoaters...



As are the rest of the bits you are reusing



And then a huge pile of new bits



professionally £3k later...



yes I know it’s a Passat but the PQ35 pics are trapped on my useless Photobucket account

[TdiBlacky140]

Good work there Crasher. Cheers for the pics / tips.

I was half thinking of dropping the sub frame as a complete assembly with the arms and all still attached and painting the floor pan. Did you not remove the hubs, how did you replace the outer bushing of the lower trailing arm without removing the hub? Did you just cut the old bush out and replace it with a 2 piece powerflex bush, I ordered that bush from powerflex too in order to avoid removing the hub and pressing out / in a new bush and also to avoid the extra work involved as it's big enough job as it is, I figured.

3k is some whack to put into a car for essentially what is a few bushings, unless it's something special that you were going to keep forever or for a very long time at least.

I always take them "one use bolts" stuff with a pinch of salt, I've reused all the front bolts on my mk 5 and on my old mk 4 and never had 1 break / fail. If the bolt has a separate nut surely it's fine to reuse, even with a touch of thread lock. I admit, the bolts that screw into a captive nut can be a bit dodgey, but I find you have to be careful with them because the threads seem to be delicate enough and can strip easily on these cars, specially on the front sub frame where the threads seem to be like a soft aluminium crap in places. I don't see how them alignment bolts + their nuts can be described as a one use stretch / torque bolt, otherwise it'd be impossible to align a car as you have to loosen/tighten them repeatedly to set the alignment, same can be said for "aligning the front sub frame which can be set on these cars" so I'm not convinced. How did they align them at the factory without having to re-loosen / re-tighten a bolt at some stage.

I reckon I'll have every bushing replaced for €300 - €400 doing the work myself, that's using Powerflex bushings in the inner + outer of the lower trailing arms, €90 new Lemforder bolts for the lower arms both ends + sides, €41. I'm reusing this lower original trailing arm's; but all the other arms will be replaced with new ones from the motor factors as they are cheap.

I'll wire brush and paint the sub frame when it's off, but I'll just spray paint it myself, no expensive powder coating.

[Crasher]

The one in the first pic was a Touran and a budget job which is why we did not Powdercoating the frame, which upset me so much I nearly did it for free but it would have been £100 given away, the hubs are the Touran are cast iron and the outer bushes easy to do on the bench when all stripped down. The Passat uses ally hubs and the bushes are still easy to do but getting the bolts out is a terrible job, we have had to buy an induction heater as the oxy torch creates too much localised heat and can damage the metal as the ally pulls in the heat so fast you have to use a big flame

PQ46 frame from a base model Passat with iron hubs



On that Passat we used all OE style Febi and Merle bushings, on others we have used all Powerflex and on many a mixture

An upper inner bush



The bolts seize solid in the ally PQ46 hubs and have to be boiled out



I have some useful Powerflex bush pics but they are on my useless Photobucket account and on my hard drive at work

[TdiBlacky140]

Cheers for taking the time to post more pics
That first pic above of the complete assembly is how I was planning on going about the job and removing mine, it's great to see it in a pic beforehand though to see how it all looks. Cheers. I'll be doing it over a weekend and will have all the parts needed already present, I just hope I don't come across seized / damaged bolts that can't be reused delaying the job, apart from the alignment bolts which I'll have there new.

I've heard them induction heater tools are very handy but have never actually seen one at work, looks like they came in handy for you too.

[Crasher]

We always used to depend on the “hot spanner”, aka oxy torch but this is nut much use with ally parts as it just sucks the heat in and goes soft without a visual change as with steel or cast iron so yes, very useful tool. The subframe you drop out won’t have body rubber mounts as it is direct to metal on the Golf which simplifies the job and of course, manual parking brake calipers. You will probably find you need to make new brake pipes and the pipe clips to the axle will disintegrate



the caliper pipes will often twist if you try and undo them.



Using the induction heater

[TdiBlacky140]

Hey Crasher, does my Golf have a steel hub or an alloy hub? And same question regards the subframe, is it steel or alloy?

I'm looking through my copy of Elsawin manual and notice there's different one regards to steel or alloy. It seems like a lot of work, I notice there's two technical measurements to make note of before and after reassembling, for instance the Fig "a" they refer to being the measurement between the centre of the hub and the top of the wheel arch, I think mine should be 380mm. And also, they are measuring the distance on the trailing arm (the arm that bolts to the wheel hub and to the car body, it's the arm in your earlier pic of parts sent to the powder coaters which have the bushings removed in the pic), they're measuring a distance of 34mm +/- 1mm for "determining the position of the mounting bracket in relation to trailing arm".

Also they state in relation to tightening the trailing arm to hub bearing housing that the wheel should be in the extended position with the spring and shock already installed, "only then the trailing arm and hub bearing housing move to the necessary position". When in this extended position, should the wheel be hanging free or under weight (jacked up with gearbox jack to simulate weight?)

[Crasher]

If you are using Powerflex bushes you do not need to preset the bracket angles as the bushes are not bonded, the subframe and hubs will be steel.

[TdiBlacky140]

If you are using Powerflex bushes you do not need to preset the bracket angles as the bushes are not bonded, the subframe and hubs will be steel.

Thanks for confirming the sub and hubs are steel. I'm only using Power flex in both ends of the lower arm, that's a handy pro of the Powerflex bushings, I'd forgotten about that. I'll just jack up the hub with my transmission jack for the final tightening. Cheers again

I forgot to say in my earlier post, that pic of the small brake line you posted, I've had that exact hose twist on a friends Passat when I was replacing the caliper. I bought a new one as it was difficult to make such a small length with bends and turns in it.

[Crasher]

It is so common we stock it.