djtnut

Hi all,

I bought the BLAU parts steel spring conversion kit and finally had a chance to attempt the installation tonight on my neighbor's lift in his garage. We completed 3 of 4 corners. We're stuck on the driver's side rear.

Two key issues:

1) We were unable to extract the lower outer control arm bolt. I think it's called the eccentric bolt which seems to be used for camber adjustments. It seems like the inner housing (rubber maybe?) is fused to the eccentric bolt and just spins when we turn the eccentric bolt and when we hit the threaded end of the eccentric bolt, it seems to bounce on the rubber inside. We've soaked in PB blaster, tried turning with wrench while hitting with 5 lb sledge. Nothing. Bolt won't slide out of the bushing where the outer lower control arm meets what I'd call the knuckle where the outer CV joint and wheel bearing assembly are located. I'll try to post some pics. I'm at a loss on what to do here, short of grinding the bolt ends off and trying an air hammer on the bolt to free it up. Kit came with a replacement eccentric bolt, but I figure I may need to replace the outer lower control arm bushing. Are those sold separately? Or do they come with the lower control arm or knuckle?

2) When loosening the upper strut tower mount bolts from the frame of the car, bolt bolts broke off with the threads stuck inside the nuts that are welded on the top of the upper strut tower frame. We're going to try to extract them tomorrow or worst case, drill them out and maybe re-tap or air hammel/chisel the welded nuts off and use new nuts on top.

3) The fronts went pretty smoothly, however, when we lowered the car onto the ground, after finishing, it seems the ride height is way too high. Maybe this will settle down once the weight of the car is on them for a while?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

Best, David

djtnut

Not exactly sure how to post images. Giving this a shot. This is a pic of the lower outer drivers side control arm. That is the camber adjust bolt, I suppose with the nut off. You can see how we've been hammering on the threaded end of the bolt. I imagine we're going to have to cut or grind it off and replace the bushing.

djtnut

Someone suggested cutting the bolt out with a sawsall.

Attached is a pic looking straight up at bottom of bushing where lower outer control arm meets bottom of knuckle. I presume I would have the best success cutting vertically with a sawsall (with metal cutting blade) from left to right in this diagram, with the saw blade pointed straight up in the air and the direction of the teeth of the blade facing into the center of the car, i.e. saw blade fitting into the space between the lower arm of the knuckle and the outer edges of the control arm flanges.

I ordered two of the knuckle bushings (Part 8E0505172A) from local Audi dealer for arrival by tomorrow morning.

djtnut

Assuming my update above about the lower outer control arm bushing cut-out goes smoothly, we also need to figure out how to remount the upper strut tower back into the frame of the car.

As mentioned in my original post above, we broke off both upper strut mount bolts with the broken remaining bolt half and threads inside the nuts that appear to be welded onto the top surface (perch) where the upper strut mounts.

I think we'll try drilling those two bolts out of the welded on nuts and then see if we can extract the rest of the broken bolts out with an extractor. Only problem is there isn't much room to use the extractor T-handle.

So we think we may need to air chisel the welded nuts off the top of the "perch" so we can use replacement nuts on the top of the perch. Strut seems to be held in mostly by spring pressure and the bolts are there for extra support.

djtnut

We were able to grind and then air-chisel off the upper perch square nuts. Replaced them with nylon-locking nuts, fender washers and slightly longer bolts than the BLAU kit came with.

After much frustration, cursing, prying, hammering, air-chiseling, sawsalling, more cursing, more prying, propane blow-torching, and more sawsalling -- we finally were able to remove the lower knuckle bushing in several broken and sawsall'ed parts. What a bitch. Quite easily the hardest thing I've ever done to a car.

Got the top of the strut mounted to the upper frame, bolted the lower strut onto the lower control arm. Just waiting for the new bushing to arrive at Audi dealership tomorrow morning via overnight shipment and then put that in tomorrow.

The inner cylindrical surface of the lower knuckle where the bushing goes has a bit of damage from the sawsall blade, but I don't think it will effect anything. Plus, I think I'll be done with this car before long and it will be time to send it out to pasture.

djtnut

Success. Car is back in action. See post about knuckle bushing for follow up on how that went.