ever had this happen....

[Mr.Audi]

so as a mechanic friend of mine were working on installing my stasis ss setup on my b7. Now to my knowledge ive never heard of or seen something like this happen before.....

so as we were removing the front suspension setup and removing the upper ball joints front the carrier(knuckle) they were seized pretty good. tried everything from heat, and all kinds of lub and un seize... what ever. Needless to say after a major tussel we got them out, but cracked both!!! no lying to ya..... cracked both. Spreading/prying the little ears/tabs to get them apart to release the upperball joints they both cracked... fukn blows

so now i cant finish because i need to replace both arms, carriers, knuckles.... what ever.

anyone have suggestions, past experience, or knowledge of where i can source new ones.... shit even used ones at this point. Trying to save and diy not always so great.... even with the right tools and setup.

[Mr.Audi]

: (

[akaEsCo01]

Since you have to replace everything, you might as well get some K-Mac camber control arms since you are lowering your car. Also, how were your bolts seized so bad, you live near the beach or something?

[audi?]

The first order of business was the shocks. so I pulled the wheel off and went to remove that pesky bolt the attaches the upper control arms to the hub carrier. It's stuck of course. No problem, I have my handy dandy little portable press. Yeah right. The bolt didn't come out but the end section of the hub carrier split right off. This sucks big time. Called all around and can't find a hub carrier anywhere. So I decided to take the carrier out and see if I could get it aluminum TIG'ed. Do you have any idea what you have to do to get the hub carrier out?? Of course I had to drive all over town in my kids car to find a 17mm Allen wrench to undo the front axle. Now my car is sitting in the driveway with absolutely nothing in the wheel well except the half shaft hanging there. Oh yeah, I also had to undo the tie rod to get the hub carrier out. Of course that bolt also broke. Oh well, ordered a new tie rod online and paid to have it here NDA for an additional $30.

Looks like it does happen.

[Geoffafa]

damn sorry to hear that. Hope it all works out

[Mr.Audi]

DAMN... iam not the only one.... this shit is unreal

the knuckle assembly cheapest ive found is$312 a side.... now iam looking in junkyards

[scoobycarolan]

not to sound like a d-bag, but this is why I have shops do the work. They break it, they fix it.

[Mr.Audi]

not to sound like a d-bag, but this is why I have shops do the work. They break it, they fix it.

YEA... but would they be responsible for a malfunctioning part? would they just cover the price of the part and labor assuming they broke it. I really dont know what the outcome of a situation like that would be...... kinda wonder though. I cant be mad at my friend or myself, it seems to be like one of those once in a blue fuckin moon type things. We did everything correct, it just didnt cooperate.

[Dangler]

this happened to me in a sense....the upper control arms wouldn't come out of the carrier...so we used and air chisel with a pointed tip, and hammered at he ball joints from the underside and they popped out fine. but during reassembly, is where the issure occured.

my friend used an impact gun set too high and hammered the bolt back in, crushing/breaking a "tab"....its all intact, but if i were to undo the bolt, the tab would fall off. i will be needing to fix this in the future...

contact Carson at Riverside audi in NJ he charges 20% dealer cost on all parts...

search for him on audiworld or even on google through riverside audi

he maybe able to work out a deal

[Mr.Audi]

this happened to me in a sense....the upper control arms wouldn't come out of the carrier...so we used and air chisel with a pointed tip, and hammered at he ball joints from the underside and they popped out fine. but during reassembly, is where the issure occured.

my friend used an impact gun set too high and hammered the bolt back in, crushing/breaking a "tab"....its all intact, but if i were to undo the bolt, the tab would fall off. i will be needing to fix this in the future...

contact Carson at Riverside audi in NJ he charges 20% dealer cost on all parts...

search for him on audiworld or even on google through riverside audi

he maybe able to work out a deal

WHEN you installed the new knuckle(or carrier) did the bearing come in the new one, or did you have to press out the old one and press it in to the new one??? if anyone can help me with this tidbit id be very thankful

[Sanjman]

not to sound like a d-bag, but this is why I have shops do the work. They break it, they fix it.

not to be a d-bag either but... this has nothing to do with why shit fucked up... and mechanics would probably just say they were bad and cracked and tack on the 300 bucks for the parts PLUS labor.

[Mr.Audi]

WHEN you installed the new knuckle(or carrier) did the bearing come in the new one, or did you have to press out the old one and press it in to the new one??? if anyone can help me with this tidbit id be very thankful

IAM QUOTING MYSELF.... I NEED SOME HELP!!!!!!!

thanks
jesse

[Dangler]

I Hope this helps....go to this link http://www.trademotion.com/partlocat...layCatalogid=0 ...this is the online parts department for riverside audi and its run by carson....call them up and he'll definately help you out, from what i hear he's an awesome guy....i haven't dealt with him yet

[Mr.Audi]

just went and ordered the replacement parts from the local vw dealer. cost a fukin grip! ouch.... had not planned on tacking on another $650 to this ordeal. But fuk it, over and done with now. Just have to wait for the parts to arrive fri/sat. and install as they come in. thanks to all for the help.

[Wholsea]

This issue has plagued us since the B5 platform.

I've done control arms on 4 B5s, with different issues with this pinch bolt on all of them.

One I took the hub assy about and pounded it out with a hammer, ended up having to grind off the end and bang on it while a friend was using an air hammer on the other end.

Another I used a lot of heat, and PBBlaster to get it out, was a lot more work, but it eventually came out.

Another, both ends sheared off and pounding didn't work, so we had to drill it out.

Bad design if you ask me, swapping control arms shouldn't take 10-20 hours to do...

Don't know about the B7s, but there are a number of other areas of the B5 suspension that suck...

Like this turd

The bit that holds the tie rod end. I've sheared and had to drill two of them.

Not to mention the 1"x2" openings for the 9 foot (joking) bolts that hold the lower control arms in.


Or areas with nice big bolts, but not enough room to fit a socket wrench:


Many many busted knuckles on something that should be very simple.

[Scott Evil]

^^^Oh yeah. I still have some scars.

[Mr.Audi]

yea it is a fukn bitch...... so i bought new knuckles and bearings, so iam just waiting now for everything to arrive so i can install the rest of the suspension. Hopefully this all goes well and i will have all this done before monday!!!

thanks for the help, and iam glad iam not alone on this one. I thought i was going to be the only one.... but guess not :P

[Zebman]

I took the entire assembly out instead of pulling those ball joints out. Much simpler.

[CardNation]

What year is your car and how many miles?

[Mr.Audi]

05.5 with 23k