Car is still without a gearbox, so towed it up to the workshop to fit my widetrack stuff this afternoon, bought the Passat wishbones,steering rods and driveshafts from stephcasscar (sp?) from on here and ChrisP kindly collected and delivered the bits, cheers for that mate For info, the Passat bits at the front increase the track by 16mm per side. And allow a lot more negative camber. With the car up on the ramp and air tools at hand I soon stripped off the old wishbones, removed the OEM bushes from the Passat ones and fitted the Bugpack bushes that were on the car along with new VAG ball joints,all easy work with the hydraulic press. As the steering rods that screw into the rack have to be swapped for the longer Passat items. for better access, I left the wishbones off and with the steering on full lock, undid the steering rods with my err 'special' 32mm spanner, which looks alarmingly similar to the spanner used for Transit viscous fan couplings (complete with a warning on the handle) Note how FecKing rusty the front shocks are... Fitted the Passat steering rods with new VAG track rod ends which are handed L and R on the mk2, used 16v PAS TRE'S which fit the Passat rods. With the Bugpacked Passat wishbones fitted it was just about time for the garage to be closed, but I had a few minutes in which to strip out the rear calipers/carriers and discs in preparation for fitting some 10mm stub spacers to increase the rear track, supplied by Designadubs. A bit too much neg methinks.. Plan was for boss to open up the garage for me in the morning, fit the rear stub spacers, so that I could bring the car back here so it's 'out of the way', as we're always short on space... Thought before I go home, I'll just ry those rear stub axle bolts First one, snap [:^(] So, I've either got to try and get the broken bolt out in the morning and risk the other 7 bolts will do the same, or just get it mobile and find another beam to fit Old cars eh? Edited by: GVK
You might be right about the -ve camber on that... best of luck with getting the bolts in, you could just weld the bastards on..... (forget I spoke) Look forward to a comparison when its back on its feet.
Thanks Jake, It's strange,on my old D reg valver, the bolts came out really easy, not a problem. It seems whatever I have to bits on this car, and I've had most fecking bolts undone on it in the last 3 years always seems to be seized . Subframe bolt snapped as I was fitting the front Eibach ARB for example.. I'm sure it's been on fire at some point. I'm hoping *some* of that -ve will adjust out, but as there's no 'box in there, I can't really do the alignment yet. Edited by: GVK
looks like it's all coming together nicely apart from those blasted bolts! Good luck with the rest best get rest the nice and cross your figures
Very interesting Gary - I have had a suspicion for some time that it may be difficult to get the camber off with this conversion - looking forward to seeeing if you can get anywhere near 0-0.5 deg -ve Cheers Rob
ive just had 2 axles apart and both had siezed stub bolts...i also found the heads were so rotten they rounded easy with a wizzy gun might be worth using a flank drive sockets and a breaker bar with some heat
Yup, one of mine broke aswell, comes out easy engouh with a nut welded on. Plenty heat helps Most of that camber will adjust out, if more is needed just elongate the slots on the strut a fraction and/or use a thinner bolt, easy peasy
Looking good gary, be good to see what difference it makes to the handling on track. I think i'll do the same conversion myself sometime soon....
Result, only 6 of the 8 rear stub bolts snapped GasAxe to the rescue, they weren't seized in the axle, just through the stubs, so the heads snapped off even with a poo load of heat. Got them all out, chased the threads, fitted the rear 10mm spacers with the longer!! DD supplied bolts, which really could've been 10mm shorter ideally, never mind it's all fitted now, when I get the 'box back I can set up the camber and toe, I'll be happy with 2 neg as that's what I run anyway.
yeah... andy was saying his is super stable, be good to see what difference it will make round corners. I remember my oldmans old passat handled really well for its size. The same running gear on a mk2 should be spot on
With the standard bolts I can't get much less than 2 degs neg camber, we could hardly push the thing this morning as it had about a mile of toe out
2 deg is more than enough, what happened your ride height, did it go about 30mm lower than before, mine had to be raised about 40mm on the threads to make it moveable
