Fitting ARBs and Drop links

[Dr H]

I'm sure this has been discussed before but I can't seem to find it anywhere

I'm fitting my RS2 ARBs and Drop links on Thursday night. Do I torque everything up with the weight off the suspension ?

Cheers

Leigh

[Pisobiker]

Leigh,

as long as both the suspensions are at the same level, ARB will be in a "non working" position, no matter if the car is on the ground or lifted up.


Marco

[Dr H]

Ok I get it

I guess the safest way of making sure the suspension level at each side is to lift the car off the ground.

Cheers Marco

[Pisobiker]

I would first fit and torque down the ARB on subframe's fittings (with the droplinks already connected to the ARB). Then connect the droplinks to the suspension struts (which with the car lifted and the wheels off will be much easier ).


Marco

[S2central.net]

Yep the joints on the links will rotate accordingly, but you must have the weight of the car before torqueing up the ARB brackets - otherwise you will tighten it in the wrong location.

A good trick is to lower the car (with wheels off) onto a pair of axle stands set under the hubs at approx the height of rolling radius. Then you can crawl underneath and tighten the ARB bolts.

Be extremely careful of course to make sure all is secure and have a backup support should the hub slip of the axle stand !


Cheers,

Paul


PS - Watch out for the ARB bolts seizing / stripping - especially rears which collect more weather abuse. Happened me once. Use lots of penetrating oil if in any doubt.

[Dr H]

Cheers Paul/Marco

The guy who is assisting has warned me about shearing nuts on drop links. However I am replacing the rear links and using new nuts etc. so hopefully it will be OK. He is also a big fan of plusgas which seems to work great for releasing coroded and siezed nuts.

He has a pit so we will be able to drop the car onto its wheels and access the ARB brackets from underneath.

Thanks for the advice

Leigh

PS Paul did you get the PM from me about the WGFV I owe you?

[Dr H]

Me and a mate fitted the RS2 ARBs tonight. Did it over a pit and didn't have to take any of the wheels off . However things didn't go that well...........
As I rolled the car into the garage and got out we had a power cut. We started to do the work using only a 12v lamp rigged up to the car battery. About an hour later - just as we were tightening the last 2 bolts the bloody power came back on .

ARBs are so easy to do you can even do them in the dark

Found out that my car has plastic front drop links but metal back ones . Replaced the back ones as one was worn.

Has anyone got their ARBs from VAGPArts. I did and I was missing 2 nuts and 4 bolts. Anyone else had this or was it just an error on my order?

First impressions is that the car is a LOT more stable over uneven roads, just seems tighter. Roll is less, but I already have konis (with standard springs) so rolls was minimal anyway. I managed to get a little oversteer tonight so I guess that is good

[AbsS2]

Cool

Waiting on my kit to arrive from VAgparts too..