Idiot attempts elementary car maintenance. Contains VAG shite & ham-fistedness.

[Mally]

Piece of chain over TRE, hang down and secure in a loop with bolt and washers.

Long bar through bottom of loop, rest end under bottom wishbone.

Press down on other end of bar, undo nut.

If that fails, nut splitter or use sharp chisel to split the nut.

Once undone fit new nut if you have one, or buy cheap new joint and just use the nut on your old joint.

[worldofceri]

Acquired some bits and bobs to make putting this back together a bit easier.  Hopefully it won't chuck it down on Sunday...

 

 

New slider pins and rubber boot thingummies.

[worldofceri]

Alright.  Figured I should belatedly update this, seeing as I eventually got it all back together.

 

I think when I left off I was in a pickle trying to get the track control arm ball joint to part company with the hub.

 

I went out and bought a nut-splitter from Machine Mart (not been in there in ages - forgot what an Aladdin's cave it is) at the suggestion of someone a few pages back.  Having never used one before I had a practice with an old, rusty nut 'n' bolt I had kicking around.

 

 

Nifty.  So I attacked the car with it.

 

 

Result.  Unfortunately you can just see in the photo below, it's damaged the thread slightly.  More on that later...

 

 

Next step is to pull the hub off the driveshaft splines.  I expected this to be a right mission, as I don't have a puller of any description, but I found I could pull it off by hand with only a light tap on the end of the driveshaft to help it along.

 

 

With the hub now just hanging from the strut it's a matter of separating the two.  There's a VW special tool for this apparently, but a chisel works just as well to ease the clampy-bit apart.  I resorted to twatting the hub with a hammer to get it off, since it is scrap anyway, although it didn't really damage it in any case.

 

 

Knackered hub removed.

 

 

Bottom ball joint about to be separated from old hub by means of large hammer.

 

 

 

It should have been possible to re-use the ball joint, but when it came to putting it back together I found one of the three bolts that hold the ball joint to the wishbone wasn't straight any more.  Not sure if I caused that when taking it apart or what.  These bolts can be bought on their own on Ebay, but I wanted to crack on, so I went round to the local factors and picked up a new one.  I also picked up a new track rod end as, due to the damaged thread, I couldn't re-use that either.  Both parts I was sold are branded FAI; Never heard of 'em.

 

So at last I could start bolting it back together again.  At least I was now working mostly with shiny new nuts and bolts, not old rusty shite.  I pushed the 'new' hub onto the driveshaft, but then realised I couldn't get to the balljoint nut to torque it up properly.  Now the old hub came off easily, but could I get the the 'new' one back off?  Could I bo11ox!  I was pulling with all my might, having both feet up in the wheel arch, but I daren't whack the end of the driveshaft too hard in case I flippin' knackered that.

 

In the end I gave up and went back to Machine Mart for a hub-puller.  Another thirty quid FFS.  To top it all the Saab had a FTP in the car park;  usual tricks to get it to start failed. I was pretty raging at this point so I went for a sombre mooch around the outskirts of Coventry's city centre to cool off, taking in such sights as the demolished Royal Mail sorting office, the desolate canal basin and the worryingly bouncy footbridge over the ring road.  On returning to Machine Mart's car park, the Saab started first flick of the key.  FF actual S.

 

The good news is I had a new toy to play with, and here it is in action.

 

 

Discovered that you ideally need three pairs of hands to get it all back together since the hub and wishbone are constantly trying to push in opposite directions.  With the aid of a scissor jack and a couple of blocks of wood I somehow got it all lined up.  Not sure how.  One moment I was bent double sweating and swearing at it; the next moment it had slotted neatly into place.  Bolt it together, quick, before it falls apart again...

 

 

I was not looking forward to changing the TRE as the control arm itsself looked rusty as fook.  I did a bit of advance internet research beforehand on how to get the locking nut off with heat or whatever else.  Needn't have bothered, I barely had to show it the adjustable spanner and it span off.  Remarkable.

 

 

There we go, much shinier.

 

 

Last job before getting back to the actual job in hand (brakes) was to refit the splash shield with those shiny new stainless bolts I got from Ebay.

 

 

I'm glad I bought the slider-pin kit (in last post) as the old ones were almost as fucked as the hub I'd wrecked.  I would deffo recommend these as it's a good quality set and for the money (£8ish) beats dicking about with the old bolts/sliders.  Not sure if it was a mistake with the Ebay listing or packing but the listing says the kit is for one caliper but they sent me enough bits for both.  Annoyingly, I'd already done the other side re-using the old bolts so I wasn't about to take it apart again to fit the new bits.  If anybody want's 'em give me a shout.

 

I was mega careful getting everything lined up before bolting it all together, obviously.  The threads were a bit rusty, presumably from sitting around in a scrap yard for God-knows how long, but I spent a while cleaning them up as far as I could and they torqued up nicely, thank fuck.

 

 

Took it for a test drive and all was well, apart from the rear brakes seemed to be binding a bit.  The handbrake now seems to be out of adjustment.  I can only assume pushing the pistons back has caused this somehow via the hydraulic system as I haven't touched the rear brakes.  Mrs WoC has been driving it around for the last week or so and not reported any issue so hopefully it's self-adjusted itself with a bit of use.  Not been any reduction in the nun or kitten populations locally, so that's a good sign.

 

So what have we learned?

 

1. Nothing you think will be straightforward will be.

2. Some of the things you think will be a pita won't be.

3. Don't bank on 2.

4. You still don't have enough tools.