Front suspension top mounts creaking and setting the front camber woes

I bought some unbranded front suspension Top Mounts last year and it wasn't long before they started to make a horrible creaking noise when turning corners.

I've just replaced them and found the unbranded mounts had been rubbing, metal to metal, on the spring cups, as the bearings seem to have moved up and further into the mounts.

A lesson learn't about unbranded parts but even the new Febi top mounts don't have a lot of clearance between the underside of the mount and the top of the spring cup and I've assembled everything in the right order.


I have a Gunson camber gauge but haven't set the front camber yet, and wonder how VW do it, wether they somehow lever the wheel to the required angle and then torque the two bolts up, or what? as with the bolts loose, and the weight of the car on the suspension, the wheels assume a big negative camber.

The only way I've found to set the front camber is to have two axle stands under the front sub-frame, remove the wheels, and with a lot of trial and error keep setting, changing and checking the camber by lifting the car off the stands with a trolley jack under each outer swivel joint to mimic the normal ride height until its right, which is so painful I am thinking of buying a set of camber bolts so I can just dial the angle in.

...but just found this https://vw.snapon.com/SpecialToolsDe...itemid=3270008 ?

Had a think about the problem and bought the shown bar today to lever against the bracket and not the strut tube, I ground the end a bit narrower and at 17" long I'm quite hopeful that this will provide sufficient leverage to manipulate the hub in situ.