well Sunday actually, my A2 got its new JDD gearbox and new LUK Clutch. The original clutch now on 170K miles was like new, there is 0.3mm wear on the spinner plate which I think is absolutly astonishing, at that rate of wear the clutch would do in excess of 600K miles
I had bought the new clutch kit so fitted it, but if I had know it was so little wear I would just of fitted a new release bearing and cross arm pivot bolt and top hat.
As it was it got the full clutch kit, new cross arm, pivot bolt, spring clip, and top hat
Clutch aligned perfectly using my custom made aligning tool, gearbox lifted using a wire rope winch and the drivers side CV shaft flange removed the gearbox literally slipped straight into place, no pushing , shoving, it just dropped straight onto the dowles.
I had already cut off the triangle from the gearbox casing for the gearbox mount and machined up a spacer for the third mounting bolt, also the middle bolt is not threaded on the JDD box, its a clearance hole, so I reduced the inside of the flange by 12mm to allow room to fit a 10mm nut on the original bolt
Once the gearbox was in and bolted up I continued the rebuild, the original A2 gearbox shifter linkage (the part bolted to the top of the tower) was used as the JDD one was unsuitable due to different cable attachments
Here came the first issue, the linkages all worked perfectly until the cables were attached, the the cable end foulded on the gearbox mounting by about 2 to 3mm, not a big problem a little material was removed from the side of the mount. However this was a pig to do with the gearbox and mount all fitted. I could have removed the mount, but chose to chain drill the bit of the mount to be removed and then cleaned up the edge with a course file. 20 mins and that hurdle was over
next fitted the driver side flange, attached the two drive shaft and filled up with oil
The next issue was when fitting the dog bone lower mounting, there is only two of the three mounting bolts available on the JDD box when using the A2 dog bone mount, this I already new and have no issue with the lack of bolt (other VAG cars of much higher power only use 2 bolts on the dog bone mount), the issue I had was the small end of the dog bone mount was fouling on the 'not to be used' gearbox mounting point. This is a lug on the gearbox casting that needs to be removed. This would have been dead easy with the gearbox on the bench, but with the box in the car it was a challenge with a hacksaw blade without saw frame and took some 40 mins to saw off the lug, boy do your arms hurt when sawing lay on your back with you arms up in the air
Lug removed the dog bone now fitted and cleared perfectly
I had already bought a set of four B4 shocks, top mounts, bump stops, drop links and ARB bushes and new bolts. Starting with the passenger side and having previously soaked the bolt and captive nuts on the top mounts with penatrating oil, I set about undoing the three bolts, well they all spun the captive nut such that the nut err was no longer captive !!!
head scratching moment, time for lunch and a think
spring compressors on the spring with it still in the car, compressed the spring, 7mm allen key in the strut top, deep ring spanner o nthe nut and nut undone and removed, strut now removed from car complete with spring leaving the top mount in place.
Now attached the top mount with a 4 1/2 " angle grinder cutting disk hitting the three not so captive nuts until they gave in - this damn top mount has been on my A2 for 18 years and was doing its best to avoid the divorce, but it eventually gave in and is not in the scrap pile of bits.
The strut was well past its sell by date with no extension of the strut and a good 2" of free travel before resistance was felt and then not much resistance. The new B4 on the other hand have a fair amount of extension fource and no free travel, resistance being the same and much more than the old struts in both direction
New top mount fitted to new strut, nut torqued down and spring released, copper grease on the three new bolts and strut refitted to the A2, inserted into the hub and new bolt torqued up, ARB bush fitted with new streatch bolts and new drop links fitted - one side done, only took 3 hours and that was the 'easy side'
Now to the drivers side, access is rubbish so unbolted the webasto and moved out a few inches, then undo the bolts holding the brake reservoy, well one bolt came out, then the second once spun the captive nut, third bolt came out OK - bloody A2 is fighting me today
Tried gripping the captive nut with grips, not a chance. its a steel captive nut, light bulb moment, hit it with the mig welder to get it glowing red, grips now have something more to grip on and bolt came out with ease, combination of mainly heat and a little better grip on the captive nut
New captive rivet nut fitted - jobs a goodun
Now I can see the three mounting bolts for the top mount - 2 hours into this side already
I bought a ratchet spanner from lidl, looked made for this job and only £8 - totally usless because the ratchet is too course
got my birthday present out, 1/2" drive air ratchet, fitted a 13mm stubby impact socket (6 flat thick wall socket), popper it onto the first bolt, and held my breath when hitting the trigger - bingo first bolt came out a treat, some rust on the end of the thread but came out. Repeat for the other two harder to reach bolts, both took the air ratchet and socket and out them came.
Conclusion the air ratchet hits the bolt with shocks and tends to break the bolt free, wished I had used the air ratchet on the passenger side top mount now - oh well !!!
stute out complete with spring, compressed, top mount removed, new strut built up with spring and new top mount, fitted to car
hub attached, new bolt smothered in copper grease fitted and torqued up. Wife calls me in for tea, it 7pm so called it a day
Not a bad effort, 9am start, box in by 10am, hit a couple of gotchas on the JDD fitment all resolved by lunch time, afternoon spent highting the A2 Top mount divorce - I won, winner winner chicken dinner (that was what wiffy made me
To be continued when the lower ball joint rubber boots arrive on Wednesday fingers crossed
Cheers
Paul