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| Question: | "Brendan, you've ripped apart your suspension and replaced it, can you tell me how you did it?" |
| Answer: | "Well, I had a mechanic do most of it, but pull up a chair and listen." |
| Level of Difficulty: | Advanced difficulty, consult mechanic |
| Time: | a weekend and a half alone or 2 days at mechanic |
My road to the perfect suspension has been a long one, and I'm not even done with it yet. Hopefully, before I get another car, Suzanne will have all new hips, knees, feet and shoes. I had a mechanic do quite a bit of it, but I watched closely.
I'd seen and heard about strut bars from the quattro list, and the more and more I heard about them, the more I wanted one. It was known as the "poor man's suspension upgrade" and the best bang for your buck, etc. What it did was tie the two strut towers together, so that the sheet metal connecting the two towers wouldn't move away or towards each other, but would push or pull against each other in a turn. The end result was a much more precise steering experience. But how to attach it? Was there some sort of factory location for it? No, of course not, this was going to require fabrication. Little did I know how much.
My strut bar was definately a big pain in the ass. Not only was it in bad condition, but had some sort of funky dried tape all over it. Nevermind that it was made of aluminum (becomes inportant later).
The good thing about mechanics is that they will do many things that you don't really want to do, or don't have the parts to do. I mean, with the possible exception of Huw Powell, what other human wants to pull their own transmission and install their new clutch? The bad thing about mechanics is they charge exorbitantly for work that is not documented in any book. Something like attaching a strut tower bar to a car not made for that bar can jack the price up to a few hundred dollars. Way more than I was willing to pay.
I wanted to have a nice slick-looking weld job done to my bar, so that it would look nice and not have big gnarly bolts sticking out of it. At this time, I found out that it was not impossible, but extremely difficult to weld aluminum (my bar) to steel (my car). Looks like I would have to use bolts.
I was determined to make this look professional, so when the summer came, I went out and got my bar sand-blasted and powdercoated to match the color scheme I have going in my engine compartment. Blue is better, as they say.
Huw agreed to help me out with installing the bar, but, as usual, I would have to do the grunt work while he sat back with his coffee and watched me sweat, all the time waxing poetically about the nature of the universe.The job was very difficult and very long, and I ran into many, many problems. First, the circular collar that goes around the strut tower bolts was too circular, and knocked into the firewall divider. To make it fit, I had to lop off the circular bits and make them flush with the firewall divider. It fit horizontally at that point, but certainly not vertically. The power steering reservoir was in the way, and would have to be lowered, along with the entire cruise control pump assembly being directly in the way of my beautiful blue bar.
Remounting the power steering reservoir was relatively easy, but you are going to need a drill that can cut through 1/8 inch steel. The power steering reservoir is just a plastic tank with a hole in the bottom, attached to a hose that runs into your power steering pump. It's as simple as hell to move because you can just pop it out of its bracket, which just needs to be re-drilled to mount at a lower point. If you drill about 2 inches below the present holes on the bracket, the power steering reservoir is low enough to allow a bar to be put between the towers. That's what I did.
Remounting the cruise control pump was quite easy. If you take your entire cruise pump assembly bracket off, you can drill two holes in the (control arm?) 2 feet below it's present position, and remount it there. For some reason, when I moved the cruise control pump and assembly, it suddenly began working again, like it had for the original owner. Driving home that night, I was cruisin! If I had run into problem with making it work again, I surely would have gone to Huw's write-up Cruise Control. You should take the time to throw some primer and paint on the drilled-out holes, as these will rust in time.
To mount my bar, I drilled three equi-distant holes in the mount pieces and marked where they touched the towers. Those points were where I drilled into the tower. I'll save you from a long and laboriously-sweaty story at this point and leave it at this: It was pretty damn hard pushing a drill through two layers of german steel. The holes were good, and the only thing left was dropping bolts and washers into the holes to secure the strut bar. Easier said than done.
I had to remove the wheel well liner and hold it down, out of the way, all while reaching up and threading lock washers and washers onto the ends of bolts coming down from the engine compartment. It took hours, a lot of blood and many tears, but in the end, it looked wonderful and worked immediately. Even backing out of Huw's garage, I noticed a marked effect on how the car handled. When I turned the wheel, there was no hesitation, and if I wasn't careful, I would smack my head off of the drivers window if I turned too quickly. All in all, a great success. My advice to you: get a steel bar, and get it welded.
Bushings wear out, so when they do, have a mechanic replace the hell out of them. Control arm bushings on their way out will not cushion your control arm pieces from knocking into each other, and you'll get large clunking sounds whenever you go over a bump or into a pothole.
| Part | Quantity | Part # |
|---|---|---|
| C.arm bushing - Front & Rear | 8 | 857 407 181 |
Sway Bars are easy to understand for engineers, but for the common guy, a sway bar just works and we can leave it at that. In the 4000 quattro, there's a front sway bar that keeps your front under control, and some say there should be a rear sway bar (more on that later). For right this second, we'll focus on the front sway bar, and what you should do about it.
If you've never worried about your front sway bar, then it is probably time to begin. Sway bars have metal pieces linking them to the control arm, and rubber bushings to cushion them. Over time, your metal pieces get funky and your rubber gets dried-out and cracked. The solution? Buy the parts and pay a mechanic to replace them. Why get nasty when you don't have to? It's a hard job to do without a lift, so why even try?
| Part | Quantity | Part # |
|---|---|---|
Pay a mechanic for an hour or two of his time, and reap the benefits of his hard work. You'll notice an immediate change.
Struts & Friends
Struts are relatively simple pieces of equipment, designed to keep your car riding within a certain range of height. If you didn't have them, your springs would be so springy that you'd quickly lose control of the car. Struts can be hard or soft, 'sporty' or 'family', adjustable or fixed, expensive or economy. I went the hard, sporty, economy route.
I wanted a ride that wouldn't break my teeth when going over bumps, but I also wanted a ride that would corner much better than stock (tires & wheels have a LOT to do with this), and lower the car a tad. With those goals in mind, I searched through the opinions, facts and other assorted bullshit out on the web and came up with two contenders: Bilstein and Boge.
Bilsteins are more expensive, last longer, and are less stiff than the Boge. They are also a higher quality piece. How much in each of these categories is anyone's guess, but at around 100 USD a strut, they were a tad expensive for me.
Boge are OE on this car, and as such, would probably automatically 'feel right'. The ride of the Turbogas model was the hardest strut I could find and at about 50 dollars per, I knew I had found my piece.
You'll need other pieces to go along with just the strut though, to get the full potential from your setup. None of them should cost you a ton of cash:
| Part | Quantity | Part# |
|---|---|---|
| Ball Joint - Front/Right | 1 | 855 407 366A |
| Ball Joint - Front/Left | 1 | 855 407 365A |
| Ball Joint - Rear | 2 | 857 505 365 |
| Dust Sleeve | 4 | 811 412 135B |
| Rubbr Stop | 4 | 893 412 131B |
| Tie Rod End - Front | 2 | 811 419 812A |
Springs
With such a neat-o little strut setup, you're going to be able to use a much nicer, progressively-wound spring. Here, your choices are relatively limited to: coil-overs, H&Rs or Eibach. I'm sure there are more, but these are the major ones I considered.
I don't have much to say here, because there are SO many different opinions on this matter. For the 4000 quattro, you are going to need a wheel that has the same rolling distance as your original 195-60-14. You really MUST try out a few different sites on the web devoted to this subject to truly understand a recommendation as simple as this one: Use OEM wheels. Try to find something from a 90, 15 inch, with the right offset and just go with it. The longer you play around with wheels, the more stress you get and you'll just end up looking at OE wheels in the end anyway. You can use up to a 17 inch wheel on these cars, but at that size, your fenders will have to be modified. Stick with 15, and maybe 16, but at that point, wheels and tires cost quite a bit of cash.
Update: June 14, 2001
I bought a set of TSW Evo wheels (15 inch, 4 by 108 bolt pattern) with some nice Pirelli P700 tires on them.
The difference is amazing. It feels like I'm riding on planks with rubber on them. Do this upgrade if you can.
A picture can be found here or in the Gallery.
If you have any money at all to spend on tires, forget all-season tires. Get yourself a ratty set of 14 inch OEM Ronal R8s (picture) that come stock on 4kqs and throw some really good winter tires on them. In the summer, switch to 15/16 inch wheels and get really good summer tires that are capable in rain (I'm running Kumho Ecstas 712 205.50.15 as of 2002-2004). Dont get racing slicks, and don't get off-road stuff. You drive a german luxury car, not a ferrari or SUV.
Hopefully, my experiences will help you make some decisions about where you want to go with this car the next time it clunks, or has understeer.
You can email me with any questions.| Copyright 2004 EndoSquid Productions |
| mailinglist@endosquid.com |
| Page last updated: April 28, 2003 |
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