Audi 100 Front Wheel Bearing Saga - Days 4 & 5

Audi 100 Front Wheel Bearing Saga - Day 1

Firstly: The Audi 100 was designed with the Audi 50 (Polo Mk1). It has a stupid front bottom link triagulated via the anti-roll bar. Unlike the 50, everything on the 100 is massive. It was designed to take the V8 motor.

1300 hrs - Saturday.

Car in the air, after loosening the hub bolt and wheel bolts, and wheel removed.

From experience of changing the bottom links, I know it is bl00dy difficult to manouver the arb/link laying on your back. So I tried to avoid disconnecting the arb.

The front struts are mounted on adjustable top mounts. You can change the shocker insert from inside the engine compartment. Basically, you can dismount the spring in situ, leaving it loose around the top of the strut, and push down the shocker rod. So I put my diddy spring compressors on and tightened them as best I could.

I then removed the caliper and hung it out of the way. (Stupid sliding system using a 7mm allen key. Took me 10 mins. to locate it). (My shed is a mess with all the jobs I am doing. Only have one 7mm, must buy another).

Removed the caliper carrier and disc. This took a good hour, as the bolts were so rusted in that I had to work them backwards and forwards, with a breaker bar and penetrating oil.

1430 hrs

Tried to pull out the ABS Sensor. Gentle persuasion would not work. Small lever would not work. So I decided to disconnect the wiring and bring he sensor off with the strut.

Disconnecting the wiring plug was easy. Unscrewing the self tappers, fixing the wiring to the wing with 'p' clips, was not. I cleaned the rust off and scraped out the cross slots. Sprayed penetrating oil and bashed a 'posidrive' bit into the cross to seat it snugly. With a 't' bar and extension on the bit I pressed and turned only to see the 'p' clip turning with the screw, and winding the cable in knots. So the screw was rusted to the clip. I bashed and twisted and bashed and twisted, and they eventually came loose.

1500 hrs

I then attacked the steering ball joint, only to find that it was canted at such an angle that the edge was jammed onto the top of the steering arm. Now the Audi steering tie rods are not like a Golf. They do not turn so the ball joint can find its own level. Fecking idiots at the Audi dealer who did the steering alignment last Oct. had not lined the ball joint level. It is a fun task loosening the tie rod adjusters. The dealers hate, it and they are working with the car on a lift. The adjuster uses two 24mm nuts and one 19mm flats on a left/right threaded bar. To put it simply. loosening those, on your back, in the rain, is no fun at all! After a lot of penetrating oil, and a lot of heat from the brazing torch, and some bashed knuckles and burnt fingers, I loosened it, and leveled it, and tightened everything up again, with lots of 'copaslip'!

1600 hrs.

Put the ball joint remover up to the ball joint. Would it fit? Would it hell as like! The steering arm is fabricated and about 50mm wide. My diddy little remover won't go near it. I checked the price of a large joint breaker. 90 and a 10 miles round trip on the m-trax. No thank you. As I would never consider using other than elegant means of doing a job, i wondered what to use. My small two arm bearing puller is reversable and fitted nicely. I put a nut onto the bottom of the ball joint thread,(I always do this, it stops the remover from slipping off the end of the thread) and fitted and tightened the puller as much as I dare. It is not big enough to do the job on its own. So, I protected the ball joint rubber boot, with a piece of aluminum, cut to fit around it, and warmed up the arm with the brazing torch. A couple of taps, with a dead blow hammer, on the end of the puller screw, and the joint was loose.

1630 hrs.

Loosened and removed the bottom ball joint bolt. This was easy as I'd had it in and out last Oct. to replace the lower links.

1635 hrs.

Removed the upper strut mount, so the strut would fall down with the compressed spring loose around it. Then, just lift up the strut, from the bottom ball joint, and remove!
No chance. The arb is so strong it just pushes everything back up. This strut weighs a ton. It is very very difficult to lift while kneeling on the ground. Sorry, kneeling in the mud.
Tried everything. At one point had mrs daved standing on the end of a 3m scaffold tube wedged under the sub-frame to press down the arb. Still no go.

1700 hrs.

Decided to unbolt the arb.

1710 hrs.

Strut off.


I am now too wet, too muddy, too bloody, too burnt, too bruised, too knackered, to carry on.

To be continued?

 

This brings back memories (not good ones). Have a well-earned perlenbacher

 

Voted yes, but we need pics!

 

designed for a V8 you say....go on you know you want to

 

There is no voting option too : Scrap the Audi and get a Golf mk1 or Mk2.

If you had one of these cars you would have been finished in no time, and could have been indoors watching Grandstand by 2pm with a beer, just missing Football Focus.
Admittedly it is a while since I watched television.

 

Ahh yes the joy of the Audi 100 front end...

Does your car have Pro con 10 fitted?

Audi planned service time to remove a gearbox from a 80 with procon10 was 8hours..

Thats my quota of useless trivia for today...

 

Yes, it has Procon 10. Luckily the Audi 90 does not, as it is a basic. If it had been a Sport, it would have had Procon 10 as well.

 

PICS!!!!! GRRRRRR!!!

My little Canon doesn't have a waterproof case. Anyway, I could hardly see through my steamed up, rain spattered bins, to see the big bits, let alone a small digital screen.

 

What? That V8 thing has not one, but two pointlessly over valved heads.

Now, the Ur S4 motor. Nice simple 20V Turbo 5!

 

Oh contraire - currently (in the words of gingernuts) Danster has an 'undervalved lawnmower'.

Could this inference be carried across? !!

 

My undervalved lawnmower runs................unlike ginger's pile of 5 overvalved non runners!

 

32 valves are the future, 4 x better than your lawnmowers

 

Your maths fail you prof. Graded : E-

My lawnmower sports 2 valves (in a sidevalve configuration no less)
4 x 2 does not = 16v (widely known to be sheite) or 32v for that matter.

However valve size selection of the sidevalve configuration of my lawnmower engine is not restrained by bore size, allowing the installation of the Uber Sized Valve for optimised performance!


Edit mafs due to being an imbecile!

 

Your maths fail you Danny. Graded: U (unclassified)

 

to the power of an large uber number!
profs still ain't right either though!

Edit: Right, edited that previous post too make it look marginally more sensible. (how much for you to edit your quote?)

 

Erm, a tank of Shell's finest for the 16v sound reasonable?

 

Pfft, Sod that, I will just take the embarrassment.

 

depends on the size of the tank...

 

The full 9 [STRIKETHROUGH]yards[/STRIKETHROUGH] gallons