Problem changing suspension arm

Hi everyone. I got into a bit of a pickle today working on my B5.5 2003 ALT Passat. As per recommendations of my last MOT, I have been in the process of changing right hand side / lower / front suspension arm. I did one of the upper ones a couple of months ago, half hour job. The bottom one has turned out to be more of a Herculian effort.

To start with, it has been a while since I did any heavy mechanical work on my car, so an hour or so was spent swearing up and down the garden between garage and shed trying to find all my tools which I leave scattered everywhere. Not to mention that nearly every bolt was an absolute bitch to get out. Whoever at VW decided to position the subframe mounts where they are, should be shot. They are high torque, and it is impossible to get any of my heavy breaker bars into the tiny recess where the nut and bolts are. After much careful consideration and thought (swearing and sighing), I eventually managed to get a ring wrench around the nut, double ended ring wrench onto the bolt and get it loose with help from short length of scaffold tube.

I had trouble getting the lower hub ball joint off, however. Getting a bit arsey and forgetting that I have a set of splitters, I went crazy with my lump hammer. What really seemed to get things moving though, was using the jack with a stilsen handle to push agains't the bolt. Of course, I pushed out a bit more than I expected:

Attachment 35269

Not that clear in the picture, but ball joint spacer bushing on the left is seized onto the threaded rod. I realise now that normally that part isn't supposed to come out with the ball joint. :cussing: Anyhow, as usual, good old Dad is coming over to help me out. He is more experienced with stuff like this and has more patience. I tend to resort to shouting abuse at inanimate objects quite early on. I'm confident the old man will sort it, but I am interested to know if this has happened to anyone else and how they sorted it. I have been really stressed over it. Was worried I was going to have to wait until Tuesday to get spare parts delivered. At first I thought I had the wrong part.

Parts for this car do seem to be "rare as rockin' horse ****" sometimes. For a car which is probably only exceeded in abundance by the Mondeo, it is so difficult. About half the time, you give someone the reg, they say "yeah, sure it's in stock, come on over!" Unless it's something simple like an oil filter, it's nearly always the wrong bloody one. :mad: How naive and stupid of me to turn up at my local parts shop, take off my MAF sensor in the car park, so I could get exchange discount straight away, only to discover the thing they had was tiny. Looked like it was for a Polo. Usually I discover that they can get it in, but won't be for a few days and will be double the price! Managed to order a new MAF sensor eventually off Ebay, using the Bosch part number and it was still cheaper than VW. To be honest though, I find some VW parts to be surprisingly cheap, and others eye wateringly expensive. Sometimes i just go with VW if it's only a bit more than factors or Ebay. Worth the premium sometimes to save the stress. Anyway, I've gone rather off topic. Goodnight!

Aaah! Just answered my own question in a way, but hope this is useful to anyone in a similar situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd31...ature=youtu.be

We hit them with the hot spanner and when cherry, slip the cone into a vice mounted bearing stripping plate and **** the thread, don’t get the cone too hot and let it cool naturally so as not to affect its metallurgy.

This happens to me everytime I split the lower joints on my car.

That taper insert always comes out with the lower arm balljoint.

I cut down the balljoint threaded part down (this scraps the arm) so my trusty old sykes scissor spliter fits, clamp the whole lot in the bench vice and wind the spiltter up as much as I dare. Then I have to get my MAPP (hottest cheap diy flame) gas torch out and heat it. After a little while it goes bang and the insert is off.

Once cooled tapped back into the steering knuckle.

FYI. I cleaned it all up and used Loctite 638 retainer when I put mine back in. It’s never come out again since. (2 or 3 times).


54 Passat Wagon PD175
99’ Audi S4 Avant 2.7 QTO ;)