Willie

LCR Track car
Aug 6, 2004
8,939
1
Sunny Scotland
Yep, I am 100% correct, you make the back of ANY car stiffer than the front and you unbalance it. Front and rear ARB's should be the same thickness for neutral handling, I was referring to a 23mm bar vs the 19mm bar, the 19mm bar being worse obviously. Once you have your car on a track you'll know! ;)
Yup, I have alot of learning to do first before I start ushing things too much.
 

Willie

LCR Track car
Aug 6, 2004
8,939
1
Sunny Scotland
Pictures and stuff

Well, the repairs have started.......finally.
So, got up to my parent’s house to use their garage and sheds as Scotland in January can be a cold and wet place.
Day one, weathers great, game on.
Loads of salt and stuff on the roads so the motors a wee bit dirty.
Car
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First, the old man’s not too good at keeping his sheds tidy so job one is to sort this **** out.
Shed bench
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With the benches sorted out and a bit of working space created time to lay out tooling and TOY’s
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Willie

LCR Track car
Aug 6, 2004
8,939
1
Sunny Scotland
With my mates ##cough## copy of ELSAWIN at hand research was done.
The wheels bolts were loosened off prior to lifting. The front end of the car was jacked up and placed on axle stands, with the car raised as high as possible, as I’ll be dropping the sub frame I don’t know how much room I need but you can never have too much room.
As I have recently driven the car and I was going to drain the oil I thought I should do this while the oil is warm and thin. So under tray was removed, catchment tray placed below the sump plug and sump plug pulled. We have a Miller’s oil laboratory engineer on the forum, I have been meaning to take up his offer of getting my oil analysed to check for engine wear characteristics etc. So when the oil was draining I took a sample of this draining fluid mid stream in a suitable container. Hopefully nothing serious will be found in this but better to know, I’ll let you all know when I get the results back. The oil filter was removed and the filler cap was also removed. This was all left to drain off.
Next was to wire brush and coat all the bolts that are to be removed with WD40 to allow easier removal, hopefully!! These were left to soak and the wheels were removed. As I have 20mm hub centric spacers, for these alloys to clear the callipers, these are a proper PITA to remove. While waiting for my old man to get back to help with this I decide to remove the battery as I plan to change the transmission mount from the Street density to a Track density one and route a cold air supply from the front of the car. When the battery is removed I realised that the brakes won’t work without the battery and I need these one to hold the disc in place for removing the spacers, feck!! So with one shot at it my dad pressed the pedal and managed to remove the spacers, thank feck!!

The bolts have soaked for a few hours now so time to crack on with sub frame dropping, ELSAWIN was followed some bolts were backed off and double FECK, snapped one of the power steering pump bolts, one of four. It seems like there should be an amount of stub sticking out so hopefully I’ll get this out with the sub frame dropped. Reading ELSAWIN it mentions that the ball joint position needs to be marked prior to removing this, initially I couldn’t think of why but on closer inspection the swing arm has slotted holes in it to allow some degree of camber adjustment. As you can see from the pictures these are all the way out to the edge of the slot, so no need to mark these. I will be fitting new wishbones anyway.
Swing arm nuts from below
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Some of these bolts were very tight but with a 2ft long breaker bar these were removed. The sub frame was supported with a trolley jack with some wood, the final bolts were removed, sub frame lowered down and pulled out of the way.
Sub frame
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On initial inspection there seems like no big wear on either of the bushings LCA front and rear or much rust but these bushings will be removed as I have new ones and bolts (thanks to David at Seremotors for this) and maybe paint the bars too.
The wish bones were removed and the bushings inspected, the front ones have been in since new (2003) and the rear ones are Powerflex ones which have been in for 3 years. These are gonna be a bitch to get out. I have a small gas torch and a vice so hopefully I’ll manage.
Wish bone before removing bushes
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Willie

LCR Track car
Aug 6, 2004
8,939
1
Sunny Scotland
With limited tooling I rigged up the vice with sockets and bolts to press these bushes out. These are well stuck in, with heat I soon had these out.
Swing arms getting bushes removed

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So with the swing arms removed the new R32 23mm ARB was shown up to the sub frame and it looks okay. On measuring the OEM bar (with a vernier calliper) it seems like it’s a 20mm bar when in ETKA it says it’s either 18 or 19mm, strange!! This was replaced by Star performance about 3 years ago as my car was fitted with the older type of ARB that the coating on the bar was known to crack and not allow the bushing to do its job. This was seen on the early S3’s as well.
Sub frame and R32 bar

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On closer inspection there are quite a few bits of rust on this bar that I’d like to sort out. With a twist cup brush on a 4” grinder these are cleaned up to expose bare metal to allow these to be undercoated and painted. I was going to paint this with rattle tins but will get a price to see what a paint shop will take to do this.

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Willie

LCR Track car
Aug 6, 2004
8,939
1
Sunny Scotland
Day two, very nice still quite cold.

Buffed and cleaned sub frame

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The swing arms are looking well rough after removing the bushes, the paint is well gone, so back on with the twist cup brush and tart these up ready for painting.
Swing arms before and after buffing

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Trying a few places in my home town and see if anyone’s interested in a casher for doing these. Result, £30 for two coats of under coat and two coats of Black top coat. I might coat these in under sealant as well, after fitting.
Sub frame after buffing ready for painting

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Before sending these for painting I thought I would try and fit the new bushes into their place, I thought if this was going to need heated it would be better to do this before painting. The bushes have both been in the freezer for 24 hours to allow these to shrink as much as possible hopefully for easy fitting. So back to the vice, with the sockets, to try and push these into place. BIG mistake!!!!
Marked and squashed bush

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Enough said!! So on the phone and suss out someone with the correct tools to fit these.
So onto the track rod ends, these have been soaking for a while, hopefully they’ll come off easy. I marked up the locking nut and track rod with a mark and also measured the amount of thread sticking out, between the two, for refitting.
Mark and measure the track rod end

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Well this is a proper BASTID to loosen off, one of the many jobs that would be so much easier with the car on a ramp. Never mind with pooping string still attached this was loosened off. With a hammer and the nut still on top to protect the thread this was smashed with a hammer, this is not moving, a job for later me thinks with my trusty Plus Gas.
I had bought top mount bushes and bearings from GSF to try and cure a knock, this didn’t help the problem. In fact it made the problem worse!!! After speaking to a member on here it seems like GSF don’t do bushes/bearings for the LCR so I had fitted the wrong ones. So new ones were to be fitted. Spring compressors were fitted, bottom of the strut was supported with the trolley jack, top mount nut was removed with a spark plug socket and a 7mm Allen key.
Strut bolt being removed

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Willie

LCR Track car
Aug 6, 2004
8,939
1
Sunny Scotland
With this removed and the strut supported and the second nut that holds the bush onto the strut was removed same as above. This was lowered, bushes and bearings removed. The new ones were fitted and the strut was raised to hold this in place while the first bolt was fitted. I have ordered new upper nuts so these will be fitted when they come.
Old bushes removed

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So jobs done;
- Wheels and spacers removed.
- Top mount bushes and bearings one the front changed.
- Sub frame dropped, buffed and painted.
- Swing arms removed, bushes removed, buffed and painted.
- Battery removed.
- Oil drained, sample taken, new filter fitted and filled with new Miller’s XF long life.
Jobs to do;
- Broken stud to be removed from the power steering pump.
- Brake disc’s and pads removed and new Badger 5 2 piece discs to be fitted with new DS2500 pads.
- Swing arm bushes to be fitted.
- Swing arms to be fitted to sub frame.
- ARB to be fitted to the sub frame.
- Track rod ends to be removed and new ones fitted.
- Ball joints to be removed and new ones fitted.
- Sub frame to be fitted to the car.
- Street density Transmission mount to be removed and Track density Transmission mount to be fitted.
- Rear top mount bushes to be removed and replaced.
- Outer CV joints removed and replaced and inner CV joint boots removed, joint re greased and boot replaced.
- Oil catch can.
- Cold air induction feed from the front of the car.
- Phenolic gasket to be fitted.
- Throttle valve to be cleaned and resealed.

Hope this has helped some people.
 
Oct 17, 2006
2,141
0
Mid Wales
A difficult couple of days then!?!

Credit to you - I think that's more than I'd be willing to take on in my garage

Hope it all goes back together ok for you
 

Willie

LCR Track car
Aug 6, 2004
8,939
1
Sunny Scotland
A difficult couple of days then!?!

Credit to you - I think that's more than I'd be willing to take on in my garage

Hope it all goes back together ok for you
Leigh, its been very difficult, working on your own under a car lifted 2ft off the ground with limited tooling aint the best start but all going well so far.
As you said, going back together is probably the hardest bit.
But I don't think what I have done so far is beyond anyone, just takes a bit of research, balls and have a mate at the end of a phone if stuff goes wrong
 
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kennygray81

Guest
well done so far mate, as said by others, wouldent fancy dion that in my garage, so, respect to you, hope it goes well for you! :thumbup:
 

Reuvers

I is a Dutch man!
Oct 30, 2007
3,374
0
Netherlands
really enjoy reading about this.
especially like you inventive ways of getting around with 'limited' tools, although I must say I would love a space like that to work on my car!

great work and looking forward to the rest!
 

Willie

LCR Track car
Aug 6, 2004
8,939
1
Sunny Scotland
Shiney bits are here

Thanks for all your comments.

Well shiney bits have arrived, there not too bad looking for £30.
I'm still thinking about coating these in undersealant but will see closer to the time.

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The sub frame looks really good (don't have pictures of it yet), the marks you can see on the swing arms is paper stick to the paint, these will come off easily with water.
Never one to give up too easily I tried to fit the front bush but things started to bend so it was time to stop and get a pro with the right tools to fit these for me.

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There won't be any progress for a few weeks as I'm away for a bit.
But as soon as I'm back I should have a second pile of bits from David at Seremotors to fit.