Re: help! - a-arm bolt trouble

["Wm. Josiah Erikson" <scirocco@insanetechnology.com>]

Toby,
	If you're talking about the 18/19mm bolts (depending on year, I
think) that hold in the front of the control arms, then read on. If not,
this information is going to be useless.
	First, why would you undo these to put a swaybar on? I would
unbolt the swaybar, put the front bolt back in, and bolt the swaybar back
up.
	And FWIW, my standard technique for getting these bolts back in is
to hammer them in. I can't get them threaded any other way, and I've never
had a problem. I don't have to whack on 'em really hard or anything, but
I'd say that it's harder than a "tap".
	Good luck! VW's with bent frames are no fun.
	-Josiah



On Wed, 27 Jun 2001, Toby Reed wrote:

> Alright folks,
>
> I should have known better.. I've had this exact same problem before when
> installing my poly a-arm bushings! (except on the other side of the car)
>
> Basically, I took the front control arm bolts out to bolt on a lower
> stress bar (some p.o. pulled the stock one off for some reason and never
> put it back on). I enlarged the holes in the new stress bar by about 2mm
> so the bolts will fit through it (my frame is stretched a little,
> apparently), and I carefully threaded the bolts half-way in, through the
> bar. The problem is... while the passenger side on went right in (I had
> trouble with this side earlier), the driver side bolt refuses to go the
> last little bit in to the back side of the "cup" that holds the a-arm (the
> part that has the threads in it).
>
> I've spent about 3 hours trying to coax it in using various techniques..
> shining a flashlight through the hole to see which way the arm needs to be
> moved and using clamps and a scizzor-jack to try and raise and "move in"
> the bushing relative to the frame "cup".. that "worked" according to my
> flashlight eyeballing but for some reason the bolt still refuses to thread
> in. It "sort-of" threads in... it feels like its going in, but then it
> just spins around without ever really entering the threaded part. If I
> back it out one rotation after cranking on it 20 times it just pops right
> out - so it has sort of cut its own "thread" in between the two misaligned
> holes (or something).
>
> As far as brute force goes... I tapped it gently with a hammer (i later
> read this is a bad idea because it can actually break the nut welded on to
> the frame), I tried an electric impact wrench.. neither helped...
>
> Last time I had the wheel off and the car jacked up so I was able to
> maneuver the a-arm around a bit in the "cup" and after about 10 hours
> finally got the bolt threaded in. I don't remember exactly what I did to
> get it lined up, though. I wish I'd written it down.
>
> I'm pretty much out of ideas. The thing is - the install instructions for
> the bar said to raise the car on ramps, so I did. Now the ramps are in the
> way of my front jack points so I can't really jack the car up, and I can't
> move it with the control arm bolt out - so I'm pretty much stuck.
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated!
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Toby
>
> --
> '87 16v
>
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-- 
'87 5KCSTQW
'84 GTi
http://insanetechnology.com


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