Front Shock Replacement: Workaround or Tool needed

[Richard Justin Andrews]

jack up the car a couple inches and use a pipe wrench..

this works.

HTH!
rich
'86 4kq

i'm assuming this is a type 44 car?
At 01:04 PM 11/12/01 -0500, you wrote:
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>And my second question for the day:
>
>I bought 4 Bilstein HDs  and started to swap out the old ones over the
>weekend. I thought I would do the fronts first, since the "top down" method
>seemed so easy....
>
>Well, once I got in there, the big problem is the threaded collar holding
>the shock in. Bentley calls for a "2078" (book  is at home- maybe is a
>"2079") which must be about a foot long hollow spark plug wrench sort of
>thing, except its business end fits into a hex shaped recess about 30mm in
>diameter on the top of the collar. Even my local friend who has massive
>collection VAG tools from a VW dealer that went belly up in NY state a while
>back did not have the tool.
>
>Any other ideas? I figure I could abandon the top down approach, remove the
>strut and spring, and try to get it off with a pipe wrench on the bench, but
>if you know a better way, or want to lend or rent the right tool, please let
>me know!
>
>I'm trying to get the beast back on the road for a Thanksgiving trip:
>DC-Chicago-DC.
>
>Thanks again
>
>Tom F.
>91 200q20v Avant
>and a bunch of Vanagons