Suspension hell (kinda long)

[calimus@techography.net (calimus)]

OK, well I finally got the rear H&R's+gabrial shocks and rear control arm
all replaced today.  It took a week due to rusted brake line connections
causing me to have to cut the small brackets on the top of the control arm
so that I could get the lines out of the way and then wait for time (work
sucks) to get to everything today.  Replaced the old bent control arm with
the one I picked up from brett (hitman) at Cincy and came to a few
realizations.

1. shoving a 8v arm onto a 16v requires 4 holes being drilled for the small
brackets under the axle area for the brake lines

2. 16v rear sway bar can't be put on (maybe with heavy mods) due to bolts
holes in wrong places (not by much, but enough) and the metal angle part
connecting the cross member part to the arms being too long to put the big
end sway bar brackets on.

3. Also realized that stock sway bars due jack s*&!t since they don't come
out to the axle area itself ans stop before the bend occures in the arms. (I
could be wrong here, but from the looks of how it's all setup, I don't think
so, someone correct me with and explination of what the hell it does if I'm
wrong)

So with all that, I said screw the sway bar and shoved the new control arm
and H&R's all in place, bled the brakes and then found a problem.  I ordered
2 e-brake cables and put them on as well.  Problem is, once I got them all
tighened up, one cable is too damn long and dosn't activate the caliper.
Are the cables supposed to be 2 different lengths?  The old one's appear to
be, but they are so rusty and hard to bend straight that I just cna't tell
for sure.  Top it all off with as soon as I went to test the one cable that
was working, the little metal piece that holds the bracket for the 2 lines
bent down and broke off so there is no way to keep tension on the cables as
it just slipps off. (I could almost shoot the car right now)  So I said the
hell with it, at least the cables are in place and moved on.

Tires back on and car back on the ground, time to see how the new rear works
 before doing the front springs.  20min later, pull back into garage with
massive smile on face.  Jack front end up, yank tire off, pull strut assym
out and yank the spring.  Go to take strut cartridge out,
*^*&%^%(*&%^%(^%^*&%^%^%%^%^)^&^%(%%^$%$*^.  Freakin nut thing holsing
cartridge in place has been there for 14 years and isn't coming off with any
of the tools I got.

So now my buddy that works for Just Brakes is going to take them in and take
care of that problem, but it's going to be 2-3 days before the car is back
on the ground :-(

Good points of all this are:

1. I know what hell is like now, it's a scirocco with 14 year old OEM
suspension

2. Suspension will never be this hard on this car again as I'm making sure
to dissmantle it and put it back together on a yearly basis now.

3.  I know what heaven is like, it's a scirocco with good suspension

4.  Car crabbing has been fixed by donor rear end from Brett


All things learned and time/money spent, I am glad I'm doing this.  So far
the 20min of reward I got today has made it all worth it.  Now I'm greedy
and can't wait for the front end to be done so I can go play in some
corners.

Thanks to all that bothered to read the whole thing, just had to share/vent
a bit

William

1988 Scirocco crabby 16v - not crabby anymore