Update: turns out that we most definitely have the wrong control arm because VW widened the track of the T4 in the last two years of its life. And mine is one of the first of those.
Of course, VW still make the control arm but none are in Australia and they retail in Europe for 170 Euro which is probably about 400 Oz...plus freight and taxes.
So let’s do bushes. Front bush is common to all arms but largely out of stock in Oz at both non genuine suppliers and VW. Not sure what to do yet...still thinking.
Rear bush is unique to this arm but possibly interchangeable...but only VW has them stocked. I could get them from the UK in three weeks (maybe) for $15 each or by next Wednesday for $75 each. I bent over for the latter...
The rest of the parts have arrived except the wheel bearings which have to come from Perth...for the average American, this is like someone living in Boston getting parts from Seattle...by road freight.
So...it's going well!
Last week, while replacing the front pads and rotors on the T4, I noted that the rearwards bush on the left side lower control arm was rooted. Upon reflection, I decided to give the job of fixing it to the local shop.
Rather than spending a hundred bucks on new bushes plus another hour or so of time to fit them into the existing control arm, I decided to simply get another complete arm. This may have been my first mistake.
The shop sourced the arm and installed it yesterday. First issue was that the bolt that attached the lower end of the shock and the drop link for the anti roll bar was no longer long enough to do so properly. The replacement control arm has an additional 10mm of shoulder cast into it on the shock side that the OE arm doesn’t have...we can get around that by using a longer bolt. In the meantime, the nut is not fully engaged but it’s secure.
But then...
We put the T4 back on the ground. And the camber on the wheel is clearly ridiculous. The top of the tyre poles out by nearly an inch. We try and take some measurements to compare old and new arms but we are obstructed and also pissed off. Thinking at the time was that the stuffed bush clonking about had made something else go out of whack. So I organised that and bought it home.
Took it to the wheel alignment place this morning and left it with them. Came back to find nothing had changed. It was so out of whack that the alignment gear wouldn’t fit. And that the track rod end was also rooted AND clearly the eccentric nut in the rear bush that controlled caster was in a different position to the other side of the car (yes that’s why we wanted you to redo the alignment, my good man) so there wasn’t much point trying to hard to align anything especially since they clearly didn’t want to try too hard in the first place...[sigh].
Back to the shop. Remove the wheel. Yes, the track end IS fucked and so are the wheel bearings...and the upper ball joint isn’t wonderful either. Great. But can we sort the wonky camber in the meantime?
Why, yes...maybe. The upper ball joint attaches to the hub via an eccentric bush and leaning on the retaining nut demonstrated that minimal torques were involved in retaining the bush instead of the 120 torques required. This bush adjusts for camber. So we did and it made a difference...but not enough of a difference.
We also played with the eccentric bolt on the control arm that controls caster so that it kind of matched the position of the same bolt on the other side in the hope it might do more...err, not really.
Just for giggles we checked the track rod on the right hand side. Yep...it’s fucked too. As is the wheel bearing. And there might be some play in the upper ball joint....
So we loaded the parts cannon and I drove the bloody thing home.
Back in my shed this afternoon, I went back to basics. First thing I checked was the ride height on the front suspension. VW says my T4 should measure 280mm from the centre of the lower shock bolt to the top of the upper shock mounting bolt, on both sides AND the chassis should be dead level to the floor. Suffice to say that it wasn’t. 276 mm on the left and 272 mm on the right was enough to put it at roughly 1 degree down at the front.
So I fixed that by playing with the torsion bar adjusters and that’s now sorted. Since the torsion bars attach to the upper control arms, camber is impacted. But still not by enough.
Now thoroughly pissed off, I dug out the measuring tape and attempted to try and get to grips with the dimensions of this sodding new control arm. Lo and behold I think I have found something. A further dig unearthed my rusty old calipers and confirmed that something is indeed wrong.
It appears that the new arm is roughly 10mm shorter than the original arm. And this missing 10mm is taken from the section between the shock/drop link mount and the tapered socket for the lower ball joint. Which explains why the wheel sits out at the top and in at the bottom...and also explains why (with $600 worth of parts and labour already racked up) my car is still broken and I am really, really annoyed. Dammit!!!
This exercise is going to drag on for another week....