I am really pissed, installing H&R coilovers, lca in the way of bolt...WTF Audi?!!

[Jacob]

I am installing H&R coilovers. I cannot for the life of me get the 18mm head bolt through the yoke of the shock and the fron LCA.

It's because of 2 reasons...
1. The front LCA that it bolts into is rotated forwards. When one hole is lined up for the bolt the other is off by like 15 degrees up or down. I can see that the bushing for the arm is also rotated.

2. And this pissed me off more. I can't even get the bolt started in the hole for the strut yoke and the fron LCA because the rear ****ing LCA is in the way. It is too close to the hole and it won't even allow me to get the ****ing bolt started in the hole.

Please help me! AIM: Ninety2SiR

And AW is down!!!!!!!! FAWCK!

[silva]

Put the bolt in from the front, towards the rear control arm. This makes no difference in the way the suspension operates.

After it goes most of the way through, you will need to twist the front control arm to get the bolt to go all the way through.

The easiest way to do this is to grab the control arm with an adjustable wrench or a set of adjustable pliers.

Grab the control arm close to the outside edge, right under the driveshaft boot. It is relatively easy to twist it.

[Jacob]

Thanks silva, rotating the front LCA helped a lot, still a PITA. I got done today at 5:30 am.

[Ultrasport Steve]

What the heck is an lca? I have installed numerous H&R coilovers on B5 A4/S4s...lower control arm? there is an upper control arm. That upper bolt is a bitch to get back in. What I do is pull down the frontmost control arm..and place in the hat..then put the bolt in the opposite direction temporarily. This holds the suspension close to where it needs to be. Then I pull down on the rearmost control arm and put it in the back hole. When I get it in..(with WD40 on it)...then I quickly, while holding everything in place, move the bolt around to the back side and slide it forward in its OEM position. Sometimes this happens quickly..and I have taken as much as 30 minutes with this bolt at the extreme...why? because the previous installer banged it in with a hammer and bent the crap out of it...and lost many threads in the process. Having someone there to hold stuff is almost mandatory in this install. It just helps...another thing...use an extra jack to jack up the whole suspension assembly..this will get the parts close to where they need to be...this really helps with installing the top three uppermost bolts.