Just sorted the cause of the creaking coming from the front of my Octy Tdi.

Turned out to be the top 3 inches ie. half the top coil had broken off. The spring was not held on by the top strut mount and had pushed over it. It was working directly against the top of the turret !!.and was therefore a right tw@ to remove as it needed spring compressers on to recompress the spring enough to get sufficient clearnace for the the strut to lift out of the hub clamp. :mad:

So 5 hours later !!! shes back on the road.

Tip for anone attempting this .. At the bottom of the strut the bracket which slots into the hub clamp stopping the strut from rotating inside the clamp has a little tag on the bottom that is bent over under the clamp. If you don't bend it back straight it stops the bracket from sliding out of the clamp and makes lifting the strut out of the hub clamp an absolute F3cKER :mad:

[ see piccy below]

Unless you know its there [cos you can't see it by 'accident'] then you have to really hammer the strut upwards and out of the hub clamp by brute force and at the same time wedge the clamp open wide....took me 2 hours of wiggling cos I didn't see the little lug until I had eventually got the strut free :thumbdwn:

Anyway all done now and back to scrapping woodchip of the house walls.

There is a propper tool that fits into the hub and rotates 90 degress which opens the hub right up and the strut falls out.

Part numbers and details of the tool are allready on the site.

Cheers Lummox, I found details of the little flat socket thing used to open it up in the Bentley manual once I had actually got it off when i bothered to read it when I looked for the torque settings for the strut nuts..sods law !,, just about sums up my weekend:(

.. a bolster chisel makes a good alternative

JR

JR, you are a star