Blinking heck, that's not a great end to the day. Home made press reminds me of pulling torsion beam apart on my clio van and stripping threads as it was m10 skinny stuff.
Posted this up elsewhere a while ago and kept the link just incase, apologies if you've already seen it - Personally I couldn't justify buying one at the time for a single job, but if you're doing it on more than one car / regularly might pay for itself. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175113446657?ViewItem=&item=175113446657 Cut'n'paste from Google Translate - "Hello, you are bidding on a special tool for pressing in the rear axle bushing on the VW Golf 2 (8/83-12/92), Jetta 2 (2/84-7/92), Corrado (10/88-7/95), please check the socket diameter! 2 variants have been installed, Seat Toledo1 (1/91-3/88 except 2L 16V) and possibly other models from the VW group. It is to be used for bushings (new) with a diameter of approx. 45.0 mm. The scope of delivery includes the 7 parts as shown in the picture below: socket for the bush, centering sleeve, spindle, 2 nuts with washer and axial roller bearing. The axial roller bearing makes work much easier and minimizes wear on the spindle. In the picture above, the tool with the rear axle bush is shown as it is when pressed in. The bonded rubber bush and the 2nd tool are not part of the auction and are only used for better illustration. Since this is a wear item, especially the spindle, I only accept returns in the delivery condition. An important note on the spindle, which is made of hardened material and is not a hardware store item and therefore has a high tensile strength. Please also check my other auctions, I also offer tools for Golf 3, Golf 3 Variant / Passat (35i) Variant, Golf 4 / Audi A3, Mercedes-Benz and tuning cones for older VAG turbodiesels."
Bushes came out quite easily last night, correct size socket and a BFH One is probably re-usable but I don’t think we’ll bother. New ones incoming.
New ones arrived today (I can’t recommend Murray’s Direct on eBay highly enough for speed of despatch) so I couldn’t resist fitting them. Well, I don’t know if the hole is tapered but it was significantly easier this time round I had to fashion a new brace piece and use different sockets to clear the bracket but I could then swap back to the bigger brace when there was a little more space. I made sure everything was well greased including the nuts and washers and it all went swimmingly. I didn’t even need the new 3ft breaker bar I bought specially today As an aside does anyone know why they are such a stupid shape? I note the polyurethane alternatives such as @caddyboet has used are just round.
They are designed to deform in a particular fashion, to create a small amount of rear steering, when you load the suspension in a turn.
As @Tristan said, OE ones are designed to flex inside that steel sleeve and allow the rear beam to rotate ever so slightly under cornering load. The polybush ones apparently do the same thing as despite being slightly stiffer rubber they lack the steel sleeve so can flex a similar amount. Just a different way of doing the same thing I guess. Are you running new brake lines as well? Or reusing your old ones? I was hoping to reuse mine but ended up having to cut them all to get the rear beam off.
Reusing the ones in the pics above and hope to repurpose the longer ones that are on the car currently. Need to have a look and see how they run.
Phil, GTI/rear disc lines are different to 1.3 ones iirc. They have a very defined "S" bend of sorts on them just after the floor pan. I don't think 1.3 ones are long enough to replicate this. I have a pair removed from a car, I can send you a pic if you want.
We started to put the rear beam together today to see what we were missing and how the brake lines should run. We found that I had ordered the wrong bolts for the stub axle to the beam so located a couple of suitable bolts to be going on with. Put the brakes together and found that the calliper carriers were rubbing on the discs so they had to be ground back. Then found that the spacers don’t fit the discs. The centres are too deep for the hubcentric spacers so they will have to go back. Finally, what the hell are the brake pipes made of? When I cut them to meet the caliper hoses I could not make the flare with the flaring tool I have, they are much too hard. This poses a bit of a problem in as much as when I come to flare the ends of the existing pipes under the car where they join the proportioning valve I don’t think it will be possible. I seem to have two options, buy a better flaring tool or replace the pipes front to back with copper.
@Tristan Do you know why they have to have the aggressive S bend in them? Seems unnecessary given the line is essentially “static” up to the bias compensator.
I was doing the same jobs today and used my flaring tool for the first time. I’m not sure which one you have but I bought this one on EBay and it worked brilliantly. With regards to spacers I was aware of the issue you have so am going to use stub axle spacers instead. I prefer them as they fit between the beam and the stub axle so you wheels sit fully on the hubs and you don’t need longer wheel bolts either. I bought them off of Stayner Works on Facebook and they come with new stub axle bolts as well.
@caddyboet yes I think I need to buy that tool. It worked on the existing pipes well? I was going to go for the spacers you have but I think I still need spacers on the face as the calipers protrude past the face and there is not much dish on the wheels we have. I need to fit and see for sure though.
