Front spring change in <15 minutes? Story of Saturday

[rum4mo]

I think that you will find the LHS is a walk in the park, ie plenty of room to push the hub down and out of the damper.  Don't you just love it when the first side that needs changing is the worst!

[Breezy_Pete]

Music to my ears.

[TMB]

It looked to me that removing the big ball joint nut would be a real pain due to lack of room. Also getting the joint split looked like an awkward job as you can't get a scissor type ball joint splitter in. Maybe you can get the fork type in but they usually destroy the rubber ball joint cover. I'd far rather remove the three bolts on the arm.

 

Not much room...

 

Edited 10 January, 2018 by TMB

[Breezy_Pete]

Well it went like the video this time, I'm glad to say.  Didn't have to undo anything that the grumpy-looking fella on the youtube didn't.

 

The job got more complicated after the old strut came out, and I started cleaning up the whole area, the bits that are normally obscured by the strut. Then I went to blow any dust out of the ABS sensor connector and...

Found this shocker:

 

 

As luck would have it, this was before noon, giving me time to get to my local TPS for a replacement.

Glad I spotted that!  Any top tips on replacement with minimum fluid loss?, never done a flexi hose.

Edited 13 January, 2018 by Wino

[rum4mo]

I think that I employed the old "thickish sheet of plastic under the fluid tank cover.  Changing these can provide a challenge in as much as being able to separate that flexi section from any rigid piping, I seem to remember needing to get a new bit of pipe made for my old Passat when I fell into that trap, typically I only had a problem changing the first one - but that is the way things go?  The rigid pipe end adaptor/connector was gripping the pipe so something had to give (pipe).

 

Edit:- maybe I fed the same points on the other side with more release oil and allowed a lot more time for it to soak in, than the first side. I'd be guessing that you will be replacing the lot as their time has come?

Edited 13 January, 2018 by rum4mo

[TMB]

Oooh that's nasty. Just shows what can be lurking unseen on cars.

 

Yeah, as rum4mo said, a piece of polythene under the fluid cap should slow any leak while the pipe is disconnected.

 

 

[TMB]

A proper brake pipe spanner helps getting the unions off.

 

[Breezy_Pete]

Cheers fellas.

It caused me no more dramas.

There isn't actually room for that style of spanner up against the inner wing, too much meat on the spanner (I have that same one ^), but the nut was in perfect condition so came loose easily with an open-ended 11mm.  Took the caliper off so that the banjo bolt could be topmost, and loosened that end. Then with the missus standing by to finger-plug anything that was leaking too dramatically, undid the flexi from the rigid. Barely dripped at all.

Popped the new one onto the rigid pipe, let a bit of fluid run through it, then onto the caliper, no worries.

 

Round the block test drive suggests I got very little if any air into the system. Will check over everything again tomorrow, but I think it might be time for a cup of tea, or something.

 

[TMB]

Nice work!

[Breezy_Pete]

Cheers Lee.

When I look at the split pipe in the shape it would be when installed, it's really quite hard to spot that problem. I'm not convinced it would have been spotted at MOT; only because it was pulled into a different shape during the strut work did it show itself clearly.  There's a braided fabric layer under the split, and presumably another rubber layer under that, so I guess it wasn't actually as scary as it looked to me earlier.

 

@rum4mo, I guess I'll ask my MOT man to have an extra- good look at all the others when it's done in a month or so, and take his advice on their condition. Logic says to change them all, I agree.

[Breezy_Pete]

The guy at TPS took several minutes to find the hose part number, and looking at this page I can see why it might be confusing. The diagram you need has 'for vehicles without ABS' in the title, which is offputting, but there isn't another that doesn't say that as far as I can see . 7zap says it's part 1 there - 6Q0 611 701E but I was sold 6R0 611 701H  (£21.62 inc. VAT).  A quick check on the ever helpful OemWolf site says the former was replaced by the latter in 2014.

 

So: if you need a front flexi for a 2005 Fabia it should be 6R0611701H, same both sides. Not sure if it's the same for all years, but probably.

Edited 13 January, 2018 by Wino
part number correction

[Arghhhhhelp]

1 hour ago, TMB said:

A proper brake pipe spanner helps getting the unions off.

 

Very handy tool

[Breezy_Pete]

The brake hose 'emergency' was definitely an over-reaction on my part. Peeling back the rubber from the split shows no sign of any deterioration further in.  I reckon that would have held up for a long time even if Mr MOT hadn't spotted the perished/cracked bit:

 

 

 

[rum4mo]

Always better to react to that though, I think that "up here in the North" salt really does mess these fittings up a lot, when I last worked on my daughter's late 2009 Ibiza front brakes, the ravages of time had reduced the "across the flats" size of the offside brake bleed valve by "one size" - so I replaced both of them, 8 or 9 years seems to be when I normally replace them either due to external corrosion or there being too big a step formed at the sealing area on the cone.

[Arghhhhhelp]

Hello, 

Anyone have any knowledge regarding the size of the drive shaft to wheel bearing housing (splines) between a 1.9tdi and a 1.9sdi say both cars in a 51 plate .....

I'm needing to source another hub carrier and sort of found one but ...

My car is 1.9 SDI the source part from a tdi.

I can't recall if one has more splines any knowledge regarding this would be very helpful.

 

Reason for new hub carrier

The caliper bolts have worn the threads thanks to the former bloody garage that used to fleece the former keeper...... !

[rum4mo]

I thought that the usual plan was to repair or at least repair these threads, using either a dedicated kit with drill + tap + threaded inserts + setting tool, or a sort of "top hat" threaded tapered/splined insert that got pulled into the hole after drilling it out slightly?

[TMB]

Pretty sure the front bearings are all the same for up to about 2005 cars (72mm for PAS equipped cars). I should imagine that the splines are the same too.

 

Bearing part number is 6Q0 407 621 BR