History of the control arms on the 44 chassis cars

[QSHIPQ at aol.com]

Some history on the engineering audi used over the years is easily tracked 
thru the iterations of the 44 chassis cars.  5k's use a small ball joint 
18mm, with a large inner control arm bushings,and the smaller (13mm nutted) 
upper strut bearing.  The 200tq (some - later) upgraded, uses the 19mm ball 
joint, and the 5k inner control arm bushing (and the larger v8/S4 17mm upper 
strut bearing).  This is based on the 5k lower control arm (in terms of track 
and construction).  The v8 uses a unique control arm which is VERY beefy, 
uses the 19mm ball joint, a smaller inner bushing, and a different outer SB 
bushing.  The subframe to SB bushings were also revised, and include larger 
cast SB mounting clamps.  The upper strut bearing is of the later 200tq type.

The S car did the final revision to this setup, which IMO, is the best (given 
a crappy triangulated swaybar engineering concept).  It uses a control arm 
similar to the v8 (read beefy), an even smaller inside C/A bushing, with a 
larger bore inner sleeve.  The biggest difference was the addition of an 
inner sleeve that fits inside the stock bearing sleeve, but is slightly 
longer, retaining the bearing sleeve inside the bolt hole (specifically, to 
physically remove the C/A, the innner sleeve has to be removed as well as the 
bolt).  This latest revision was to address the ripping of the bolt holes in 
the subframe when the innner bushing failed.  Audi also made the innner 
bushing bolt screw into the car body, thru the subframe.  The outer ball 
joint is still of the 19mm type, the outer SB bushings of the v8 type as 
well.  The front Subframe to SB mounts are now round in shape, with a cast 
retainer that prevents bushing creep that the previous generation 44 cars 
experienced quite often.

All that said, to really do this right, audi should go after the traditional 
front control arms which aren't designed to allow caster/camber/toe changes 
r/l during cornering.  I would also advise that you make doubly sure you have 
the right parts for *your* car, some of the above are interchangeable, some 
aren't.  I also would note that when I did Paul W's car, the pn on the 
package were incorrect (the packaging indicates two right C/A), the parts 
were incorrect (C/A and upper bushings) application (18mm parts given for a 
19mm applicaton - major no-no) , and the replacements I put in were 
mislabelled as well (R side was in the L side package and vice versa).  All 
these parts btw, bore the VW/Audi packaging (read not aftermarket)

HTH

Scott Justusson
QSHIPQ Performance Tuning
Chicago IL
'87 5ktqw
'84 urq
'83 urq

In a message dated 1/31/01 8:03:40 AM Central Standard Time, QSHIPQ at aol.com 
writes:

> > Yeah, Bentley is hyper over changing the inner control arm bushings to
>  >  correct brake shimmy problems, saying every 50K or to correct most any 
>  brake
>  >  problem.  IMO, this is a smoke screen to hide the fact that they 
couldn't
>  >  figure out the source of the problem.  In my vast experience, with 3 
type 
> 
>  44
>  >  chassis cars, I have never seen a bad inner control arm bushing.