S3 Chassis overhaul

[Terry Field]

'96 S3 Live axle chassis with 44k miles on the clock. I want to take advantage of the winter months to overhaul whatever is needed on the chassis in terms of replacing bushes etc. Apart from the A frame bush where it joins the diff, and the front anti roll bar bushes, what else should I be looking at?

 

Terry

 

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[James_Russell]

I set out to do the same job on my car a while ago.

The majority of the rubber bushes are the 'Metallastic' type- or 'anti-vibration methods'. In case you don't know, these consist of an inner and outer sleeve with rubber in between. They're a bit of a pain to change and most of mine looked fine (~20k miles, track use) so I left them alone. You'll find these basically anywhere where a bolt goes through a suspension component- wishbones, radius arms, trunnions, A-frame to chassis etc. These bushes can be sourced from redline but aren't exactly inexpensive and often require cutting out and pressing in.

However, I did replace the metallastic bushes in the trunnions, damper eyelets and damper stems. At the same time I replaced other wear and tear suspension components- like the anti-roll bar balls and ball joint, trunnion and ARB dust covers.

Hope this helps!

 

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[jonboylaw]

Terry,

I would give her a back-end strip over the winter.

 

Rear Arches off,boot floor out, fuel tank out, maybe take the axle out then clean up all chassis rails with white spirit. then paint/powder coat and waxoil as required, re wrap the wiring etc and back together with new bushes. Should not take too long and you will then be confidant of not having to touch it for another few years. Would probably take a couple of weekends to complete.

 

 

 

Jonathan

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