My day of unporductivity... (long, but hopefully worth it)

[Greg Baxter <gbaxter@istar.ca>]

Hi!

I went and got the 16v rear axle today, along with front and rear Neuspeed 
sway bars. I have a whole bunch o' questions, so please bear with me... 
(Nothing's done yet, wait for the story...)

Today was going to be a good day. The sun was shining, the birds were 
singing, and the early late summer dew greeted me on the lawn as I went out 
to the Scirocco. I had found and plugged a vacuum leak on the engine, and 
it was idling much smoother, and was generally more well-behaved than ever.

On the way, I played tag with a red 16v, but got beat when I chickened out 
in an area known to me for speed traps. I did get the jump on him a few 
times, but didn't want to go crazy, with traffic and all. I got to the 
guy's house, but he wasn't there. His dad said that he'd be right back. 
Cool. I took the opportunity to look around at the cars in the driveway (he 
runs a tuning shop of sorts out of his home garage...) I was able to 
appreciate just how much nicer my lowered car looks than one that rides at 
a stock height. Yikes! What a difference!

Half an hour passes, and Chris shows up, but he's got to take care of 
someone else. Another ten minutes pass, and then he can deal with me. 
Great, we load up the rear axle into the 'rocco (Yikes! That's my recently 
installed leather in there! But nothing was damaged...) Cool! They've 
already got stainless lines on them! Now all I'll need is two for the 
front! He pulls out the sways, and they look all beat to hell, but I 
suppose that's the way that used swaybars are supposed to look. He tells me 
that the only thing that I'd have to drill is on the rear axle, no wait, 
you're getting a 16v axle, so you won't have to drill anything. I 
specifically ask him about the front a-arms, and he says nope, they'll just 
bolt right up.

He was also supposed to have a proportioning valve/pressure regulator 
(which one is it? And what should I be looking for? The dealership says 
that the prop. valve was discontinued, and that a pressure regulator that 
bolts to the axle will run me $163 CDN (+/- 120 USD) Yikes again, I think 
that I'll check out Ron's Parts. (I'll get to that in a sec...) I hand over 
the check for $500 CDN, happy with my purchase, and expecting to be much 
happier when I get this stuff bolted on later in the afternoon. (That's 
foreshadowing, kids!)

As per the recommendation of one Shawn C Meze, I decide to get new axle 
bushings 'while I'm at it...'  So I stop at Ron's Parts (Newly bought out 
by one of his former employees, Dustin, BTW.) They had told me yesterday 
that they could get me a proportioning valve (the thing that bolts to the 
axle and prevents rear brake lock-up) for $75CDN ($55USD.) I wait there for 
10 minutes before Dustin asks what I need. I tell him, and he sends a guy 
to the back to get what I need. He comes back with the prop. valves that 
screw into the Master Cylinder. I've got those, and they're not what I 
need. This guy comes out to my car to see what my car has now, and tells me 
that I've got these coming off of my MC, and that I shouldn't need anything 
else. I ask about my fear of rear lock-up and he says that to avoid it, I 
should upgrade to 10.1" fronts. He also looks at the axle, and says to get 
polyurethane bushings, that they'll tighten everything up incredibly. Oh 
yeah, there aren't any connectors on two of these stainless lines, so these 
two are useless. If I want to go with stainless all around, I can get away 
with just a 4 line kit. So off to the storage shop I go, with Dustin (after 
a 20 minute wait) and we get the bushings and the lines. The total damage 
was $200CDN (145USD.) OK, I think, so long as it's worth it, and I'll find 
that out this afternoon. (More foreshadowing, kids!)

One neat thing, while waiting at Ron's, in drove the guy in the red 16v 
that I was playing with a few hours earlier. His girlfriend looked at me 
and said 'that's the same guy!' I guess beating me made his day... :)

A buddy of mine was supposed to meet me at noon at my place, but because 
it's now 2:00, I call him at home, and he meets me at my place. The first 
thing that we have to do is change the brake fluids in all of our cars. (My 
Jetta, and his Isuzu Sunfire - he has VW envy big time BTW...) This is our 
first time doing this, so it takes us a bit longer than we'd like, but we 
get the Jetta done in an hour. (Like I said, It's our first time...) Then 
we come to his car, and the bleeder valves are much bigger, so we have to 
do some running around to get the proper hose to bleed it with. No biggie. 
Half an hour later, we start his car. It goes fine until we get to the 
pass. front wheel, and the locking nut that was put on by some dickhead at 
a tire-shop is not budging. Eventually he strips the lock nut.

While he was working on this, I was working on the rear axle, getting at 
the bushings that I want to replace. The damn thing's rusted on the bolt, 
so I try cutting it. I cut the fat edge off of it, and press it through the 
mount, but the bushing is still rusted to the bolt. I don't even want to 
try the other one, (but it's not rusted on!) so we both head off to the 
machine shop, getting there 2 minutes before closing. The guy there is 
really helpful, and presses out the second one, but can't really help with 
the first one that's rusted on. He heated it til it glowed, beat it with a 
hammer, but to no avail. We thank him anyways on the way out, and he sorta 
mumbles something about ...beer... We get the hint, and bring him a six 
pack from the local store... (Always good to make friends in a machine 
shop, right?)

With one bolt roached, and 5 minutes before the VW parts dep't (a half hour 
away) is set to close, I try the local 'parts shop.' The guy there of 
course doesn't have any metric bolts, but he gots 'em in 'white man's 
sizes...' (Whatever, let's not discuss that this car came from Northern 
Europe... I won't even discuss that....) We get it home, and it doesn't 
fit! DOH! Stupid white man's size!

So much for putting the rear axle on tonight!

I still had some daylight left, so why not work on the front sway bar? He 
said that there wouldn't be any drilling... (He lied)

Now comes the question part of the post:

1. 'While it's out' (the a-arm, for drilling, I mean) should I replace my 
ball joints? How about replacing all of those front control arm bushings 
with polyurethane? If I do this, are there any surprises lurking for me?
2. How do I install the damned bar? Looking at it, it appears to attach to 
the control arm on top? Is this correct? When I measure and mark the 
drilling points, should there be a load on the arms (should the wheels be 
on the ground? This would make sense to me, but how do I mark where the 
drill holes should be? Is there a template to follow where to drill 
available?
3. I guess I should take the arms off when I drill. Will this affect my 
alignment?
4. What should I lubricate the bushings with? (Assuming that I actually DO 
get to the point of being able to do anything!)
5. Why me? I'm a good guy!

Any hints, answers, or commiserating stories will be very welcome! (Sorry, 
though, my beer budget was blown at the machine shop...)


Greg
82 Scirocco
91 Jetta (With new GTLMA brake fluid! The one bright spot in my day!)


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