Hiya, im changing my wishbones tonight, is there anything i should worry about? do the bolts sieze up and all that? also the wishbones i bought are the german ones from GSF are they ok or crap? many thanks lads
Don't fit them!!! the only good thing there good for is the bin! well the Mk2 ones are. cost me to sort out as they made my car fail its MOT. Get the VW ones...........well worth it!!!
Teh only problems really are the bolts snapping (rear wishbone bolt) and the stupid hollow sleeve thats fitted to the rear bush (it`s a t**t to get out!) I ended up levering out the rear wishbone bushes with the sleeves still in, a bit rough but I`d spent an hour trying to get the damn things out! You may be able to use a thick self tapper to screw into the sleeves and remove them?# My febi ones were fine, but others have had probs with them.. Edited by: KeithMac
Bloddy hell, i just came in from doing it! on the passenger side one of the big bolts heads snapped off [:^(] the drivers side went ok though, is it safe to drive the car still??? i took it for a spin for a hour and seems ok. by the way i couldnt replace the passenger one cus the screw snapped in so its still there quite safe i think? lol. What am i going to do to sort this crap out now? i dont wanna buy a new front frame thingy! many thanks for any help
Another strange wishbone question here: I am rebuilding my MK2 GTI at the moment - I had the 2 wishbones removed and cleaned them down and hamerited them them to protect them from rust, I removed the bushings and installed new Febi bushings and faced the bushings the same way as the old ones were -Now I have one problem and it is that I dont know which wishbone is right and which is for the left - Is there any way of telling? There is writing on the bushings on one side only maybe this should be facing up?? Edited by: jamesd
Hi, just replaced mine, they appear to be reversable ( although if they still have the ball joints attached these point upwards Take the hub off the bottom of the strut so you can pull these out the way and get the wishbone horizontal when yoiu slide in the rear bush. (slide in the front one first and locate the bolt) good luck marine Bax
its not the one where the bolt goes up into the car its the one nearst the front of the car which goes from side to side the bolt is still there just the head is snapped off so it seems ok. please tel me it is safe to drive [:^(]what am i gonna do!!! how much am i looking at to sort this out ?
I wouldn`t like to say it`s safe really as the inner bush sleave should be clamped up tight. I think your onle option is to try and drill the bolt out, you could hacksaw the bolt off neares the treaded end to remove the wishbone, this would give you less to drill out as well. Could try heat and an easy-out extractor but if it`s rusted in solid it`s normally quicker to bite the bullet and drill it out. When you put it together use plenty of coppaslip just in case you have to dismantle it again..
A few years ago i bought a wishbone from partco, cus i needed it there and then and no where else could supply. The wishbone lacked one of the ridges for the main bush, this wasn't a problem until i fitted powerflex bushes some time later. I then bought one from GSF and it looked exactly the same as the VW one I never had a problem with the GSF one...
I brought bare wishbones from GSF and put polybushes in. One of the holes for the pivot you could fit a 21mm socket through the other you couldn't! It was like a dick in a bucket. Thus I failed my MOT cos the bushes moved. Don't get GSF they are s**t! VW wishbones are only 8 more then GSF get the VW ones!
Dave, the bushes went on the same time as the new suspension, so a little tricky to tell. However when a mate took my car out for a spin a few months back (he drives a standard '89 8v gti) he was gobsmacked at how tighter and precise my car felt. His words not mine! They are very much more stiffer than standard, you can tell that just by holding them. I would suggest to fit them along with new vag track rod ends and ball joints...this would make a huge difference over tired standard stuff. There are cheaper uprated bushes on the market such as bugpack and i've good reports about them. I've been very happy with powerflex though depends if you like purple or red i guess
Hmmm - whilst it's likely that the front wishbone bolt won't collapse now it's head is gone, there's no guarantee that the broken stub won't move and undo itself, although it prob won't. Nevertheless it would be irresponsible to leave it like that, especially if you sell to an unwary person. Bite the bullet, put it into a garage to remove the broken bit, they'll burn off the wishbone but it won't cost a fortune to replace. A good pair of stillsons should get the stud out.
