After much scanning of the forum and some really useful stuff from GVK I decided to go for an H&R ARB kit rather that Eibach with was my first choice. This was primarily due to the larger diameter, front 25mm, rear 28mm. The kit does state "coilover suspension only" Which, (at the moment), i don't have, but the feeling on the forum, which was confirmed by the company that sold them to me, was that this is from German TUV approval rather that any performance or funcional issue. The kit arrived in 4 day shipped from germany, which I thought was pretty good and this is what you get for your money. There were scant instuctions for the fitting of the rear bar, and absolutely none for the front, I guess they were working on the "fitting is the reversal or removal" principal? I started by put the car onto pretty high axle stand to give me a decent amount of room, supporting it on the rear beam and on the body. Bearing in mind that the front subfram has to be free. You will see that the car already did have poly bushes on the ARB and I didn't have any trouble with any of the bolt, I know that the front subframe bolts are prone to siezing. The first thing that I did was remove the ARB track contral arm links While I was doing this I removed the front hub carrier as I had to replace a hub however it would not have made any difference to the removal and fitting of the ARB I then gently supported the subframe with a jack, just a light pressure to support it without making it unstable on the axle stand. You then need to identify the front subframe mounting bolts. There is two, one on each side. Then (with the jack still in place) loosen each 5 full turns and it should look something like this. Then identify the rear subframe mouting bolts, again two one on each side. The 19mm bolt is the mounting bolt and the 13m is the ARB bush clip bolt. I then removed both bolts, 19mm and 13mm, on each site and genlty lowered the sunbframe with the jack until it was unsupported, however I made sure the jack was only a few mm's under the frame just in case! Apoligies for the quality of the pic, but working alone and taking the pictures is a bit trick at times. At this point I had to lever the rear of the subframe done a bit with, (I used a socket extension bar), to allow the clip to be pulled into a vertical position, and then pulled the bar out one side at a time. And this is what you are left with, one spindly ARB, the end links and the two clips and bolts. ARB removed. I then really cleaned out the bush mounting slots in the subrame as they were full of sh*t I had read so may posts of ARB's fitted upside down that before I removed the old bar I scratched on it the orientation, and then overlayed the new one to make sure that it went on the right way, a tip from GVK is if when fitted it's near to the exhaust it's upside down. (However must be a bummer to realise it at that stage ) This is the difference between the standard 18mm bar and the H&R 25mm bar.... Huge I then fitted the subframe mounting bushes, which are provided, they are also fairly soft and split to you just slide them over. I used a lot of copper gease and pushed them home. It sounds simple but there was no instuctions so had to work out how the bush should be position and were the clip should be when pushing the bar and bush home. A couple of tips are if you are working alone you need to lever the subframe down and temporarily jam it open to allow the clip to be fitted. I used an appropiately sized socket. The clip has to be fitted and held vertical, (there is a groove in the bush to accomadate the hinge flange) and the split in the bush points to the front of the car. But most critically the bar and bush must be pushed in at a 45 degree angle, or it just wont push home. If you do all of the above it slips it reasonably easily. With the bar in place I tightened up everything loosely. (I hadn't replace the subfram mounting when this pic was taken) I the removed and replace the end link bushes, which are provided, and was very straightforward as they were already polybushed and will be a bit more difficult if standard bushes were fitted Applied a bit of silicone grease, slipped the end link on a loosely fitted the bushes Job done, I just need to wait until the car is on it's wheels, bounce it up and down a bit to settle everything and torque it all up. Hopefully I will get the rear bar on over the weekend
