Finally New Lows With Plenty Of Excitement! :)

[mark-mk3gti]

hi all,,

finally got round to taking on the top nuts, me and my mate chrisford_vw did at his pas garage so we had air tools 

First issue, couldnt get the compressor to work right, so couldnt use the knocker gun,   so we tried with a rather long (2ft bar) but just turned the top plate and shaft right away.
so I decided we need to try and hold the top plate, but not with much success untill chris found these



now we had somet to grip them plates with, lol



straight away the nut came undun, even the damaged one, and we were able to remove them with really little effort, so it appears that the nut had corroded to the top plate not the shaft as I had thought.

once we had the first one off, it came to trial fitting the new plates I picked up, all the early stuff, plate, bearing, nut, but it didnt look right, and we bounced it a bit and the plate moved, we both werent happy with this,  lol it just doesnt look right, but im told this is the way to get mk2 suspension on a mk3 with mk3 mounts, anyhow fortunately the kit came with mk2 mounts so we put them on instead...


im just not happy with the way the spring top sits, so abandoned the idea of using mk3 mounts..

so we finally done the first corner and had some good results with height!

before


after


( i know they are different sides, i forgot to take both pics of the same side, lol)

the rears went on easy enough, fortunately the bottom bolt's nut is held onto the leg with a funky clip, so just a matter of prizing the bolt out, which to be fair took some effort then had to put a bar in the leg and push it down to remove the leg, as chris will vouch quite hard work and the first time it caught him on the jaw   which i was apologetic about, i thought they would drop, not spring up, lol

the rear should come up a little cos its full of tools and old kit, so hopefully should be slightly nose down

but theres more

we were in a rush to get to pick his littleun' up and set off and straight away some nasty banging from the front right, we had a look and the top stop plate was higher than the other side, and the rubber peeled slightly, bugger top mount appears to be knackered, we had a good look and this appears to be what is the problem, chris rung round and noone had one in stock, and vw and tps wanted 60+vat and 50+vat respectively per side!  but didnt have any!  and we were running out of time so it was either fit orignal gear back which we didnt want to do, obviously, so he rung his uncle and thank god he had one on a shock setup he had in his back room, so we went back, nearly 5pm lol and changed to top mount, drove round the block and alls good. 

But for peace of mind i want to get new mk2 top mounts, so does anyone know of any good ones that may not be original brand? im guessing gsf and ecp ones are gonna be crap?

I know you get what you pay for, but i dont drive it hard, and its mostly cruising round the ring road for work etc.

Had a look on fleabay and spotted these?  what you guys reckon?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150664309910&category=42609&_trksid=p5197.c0.m619#ht_623wt_905
"VW Mk2 Golf G60 German Febi-Bilstein Top Mounts - Pair"
are they a good make?

so here it is after a good 7hrs hard work by myself and chris

if you read this mate, thanks very much again!! and will be getting the beers in!!!

before

after

[chrisford_vw]

Looks loads better mate glad I could help
And http://www.vwspares.co.uk/g2suspension.php

[N900 MJT]

Looking good mate! Always best to get new topmounts when you do the suspension - I would fit VR6 ones as they are a little stiffer

[mark-mk3gti]

Looking good mate! Always best to get new topmounts when you do the suspension - I would fit VR6 ones as they are a little stiffer

Can't at the mo, need to find some spring tops that will fit mk2 springs and mk3 top mounts, the early mk3 spring tops didn't look safe, I don't know why it didn't work, I asked a couple of peeps about it and all said it would, don't understand and is confusing,

Chris has some 10mm reducing spring tops, may have a look at them when he finds em and then could use vr mounts hopefully!

Gonna look at mk2 g60 mounts, should hold out a bit better (hopefully) just returned all stuff to tps and mk2 top mounts there are 67.50 each! 

[Wayne]

I don't think mk2 top mounts will fit, I think you need to run mk3 top spring plates and mounts.

[mark-mk3gti]

I don't think mk2 top mounts will fit, I think you need to run mk3 top spring plates and mounts.

Hi Wayne, tried to do it, but spring plates to small, and didn't look very safe, mk2 mounts on fine cos had all the other bits to fit with. And according to etka either setup works on a mk3



I'm running the setup on the left, and ideally want to run the setup on the right, but those small plates didn't fit.  So gonna look for some with a bigger diameter that will work with mk3 setup..
But in the interim I'm gonna refit some new mk2 top mounts so I know they are at least new...

[VR6_Wherry]

I'm probably wrong, but i thought early Mk3s had the same spring plates as the Mk2? 81mm and then the later Mk3s had the 65mm?

[mark-mk3gti]

Might be worth dropping rubjonny a pm for more info on what is needed.

http://www.golfgtiforum.co.uk/index.php?action=profile;u=1992

already did that, he said to pick up the early parts, i found a post that he done last year which confirmed the part numbers, and thats what i bought,


then looked like this on the shock

couldnt run em like this, didnt look great





so i am now back to the big spring seat and the mk2 mount, as they are shown on the left of the etka pic.

and i couldnt use the bigger spring seat with the new bearing and nut etc as the bigger seat is also fairly taller and there wouldnt be the thread to get everything back on correctly and still use the later mount.
scratch that im wrong, it would but would compress the spring at least an extra 15mm however the bearing wouldnt sit on top correctly as it is domed and not flat like the other.

the only thing i didnt do was confirm the part number of the spring seat ive fitted (came with the kit off a mk2) to that shown on this diagram (33) but they look identical, and everything else is the same as the diagram, so i am fairly sure i got em right,  and im guessing there pictures are not to scale as the part (34) is not bigger than (33)


besides needing to do tracking and camber which ill get done asap after fitting new top mounts, it feels solid and no issues other than mentioned and they will all come together in next few days, it seems ok.

hopefully chris will find those 10mm drop top plates and if they are of a big enuff diameter i can re assemble with later mounts, if not ill put the g60 ones on for now and see how they go..

[mark-mk3gti]

btw ive just found that the parts i refer to as mk2 stuff is indeed also early mk3 which is what i should be saying, so appears i bought the wrong later items in the first place, 

so what i am actually running is the early mk3 fittings,  is there a 95 and below vr6? cos in theory i could use those and itd be happy days all round


EDIT: of course there is there is one round the corner from me,   :embarassed:

scrub that cos itll have later fittings probably, as changeover is 95 i think,, still progressing and always learning