rear tie rods and front struts

[steinbru at vnet.ibm.com]

Ref:  Your note of Tue, 13 Aug 2002 17:04:13 +0100 (BST) (attached)

Pat,
I your CAN do the fronts "on car" by remove the cap with a pipe wrench
between the coils (once car is lifted --slightly!!), the coils spread
--a thin wrench would be nice too.  You cannot get to the strut bearings
w/o pulling them though.  Depending on mileage and condition, I'd just
borrow a puller and do the whole job with strut out.  FWIW, I put in
Boge Pro-gas fronts and Turbo-gas rears and love 'em.  (Igor's mods
were needed to fit the rears --12mm shaft vs 10mm original).
--Gary  *lots of type 44's*

----------------------------- Note follows ------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 17:04:13 +0100 (BST)
From: Graham Thackrah <gthack at geog.ucl.ac.uk>
To: paanta at splatterfish.com
Cc: quattro at audifans.com
Subject: rear tie rods and front struts

Hi Pat,

I haven't done a front strut insert replacement on a type 44 but the
special tool needed is to undo the strut insert retaining cap from the top
of the strut tower, like you say. You *could* improvise by pulling the
whole strut and dismantling so you can carefully use a pipe wrench on that
top cap, no special tools needed then, apart from spring compressors. Its
a lot more work, granted, and if you're not careful you could end up
needing an alignment, but after replacing your strut inserts it may be
worth doing that anyway <shrug>. How are your strut mounts/bump
stop/piston boot too? If you pull the whole strut out you could check
over/replace them too (though I think you can replace the piston boot and
bump stop without removing the strut too?)

Just a few thoughts,

Graham.