200q20v suspension = 1, me = 0

[Chuck Pierce]

Last year when I redid some of my front suspension getting the balljoint 
out of the strut housing did present a challenge.
What I ended up doing was I got one of my carpentry tools to pop the 
ball joint out. If you have a "Cats claw" (   
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/toolsplus/esttm-5.html  )you take the less  
curved end and set a corner of it on top of the threaded portion of the 
ball joint and pry against the strut housing and it will pop out. WHen 
putting the sway bar back together I took a tie down strap and put it 
around the bar and a portion of the frame and stuck a breaker bar in the 
strap and twisted it till it pulled the sway bar where I wanted. I did 
not find a need for a monster piece of pipe.
I was working by myself so I had to improvise.
I found the suspension challenging but not something that was over whelming.
Try again with the widam that has been provided. You will get it.

Enjoy

Chuck Pierce
91 200tq Avant

Ken Keith wrote:

>Man what a pain.  Changing springs in a 200q20v sure ain't as easy as
>in a Coupe GT.  I wasn't able to get it done and had to put it all
>back together.  The sticking point was getting the ball joints out of
>the strut housing, fighting the sway bar pressure (and losing).
>
>A call to my Audi tech friend confirmed that there's no shortcut to
>simply being able to apply leverage against the control arm/sway bar
>to push it down and out of the strut housing.  He said it's a two man
>job on a lift, with a beefy 6" pipe for leverage.  I probably could
>have gotten it out, but I doubt I would not have been able to get it
>back in again by myself.  I only had the car on jack stands and I
>think even with a long bar I might not have enough room for downward
>travel to get it done.
>
>I thought by undoing the front sway bar brackets it would let it drop
>enough for the ball joints to come out, but no dice.  I'm wondering if
>I would have dropped the whole subframe if that would have helped
>anything.  I'm much more of a fan of releasing the stored energy in a
>controlled fashion than trying to use force to overcome it.  But maybe
>that's just how it's supposed to be done?
>
>I spent most of the day beating up my hands on it, and the only real
>thing I got done was replaced the noisy squawking starter.  I'm
>starting to see the value in paying to have someone else work on my
>car, and free up my day for more productive and less frustrating
>things.  If indeed I have to have a shop do it, at least in this case
>I know it's worth it.
>
>Has anyone done their own spring install, and is there a trick or
>special method to getting it done?  If there's a way to DIY, I'm
>willing to give it another shot, but otherwise I'm going to have to
>pay to have someone else do it.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Ken
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