[s-cars] Replacing my front bearings, do I need an alignment after?

[Igor Kessel]

Mike Sylvester wrote:
> Half the bolts on the car have an "always replace" note.
> I believe that the ball joint pinch bolt has this same note.  I could be
> wrong on that, but I think that bolt is much more critical.
> Also every bolt on the car has a torque spec.  Do use a torque wrench on
> every nut and bolt?  I'm not trying to be an @ss, I'm just being  practical.
> Sure if you have a new bolt use it, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get
> one in this case.

I tend to replace near each and every bolt and nut if it is recommended. 
Namely with the wheel bearings I did go out of my way to get those from 
a dealer when I did mine. The thebpartsbin.com sent me just the bearings
although I ordered the whole kits. When I looked it up on their site hte
p/nos were changed and the bearing had the p/n what used to be the kit p/n.
The kit iself had a new number and was announced to be out of stock.

I called up thebpartsbin.com and had gotten the earful of lames that the 
p/nos were good and that it was I who screwed up. Needless to say they 
have lost my biz from that point forward.
I then called my favourite dealer who did not have the bolts in stock. 
Since I am friendly with the parts department they made an extra step to 
accommodate my needs and let me have just the bolts from the two CV 
Joint boot kits. They later replaced them with the bolts that I had 
ordered and paid for that day.

All in all I did get out of my way and lost an extra day of downtime 
because of those bolts. They bear tremendous centrifugic loads that this 
two ton whale of a car exerts upon them in the corners and I nave no 
slightest desire to take my chances with the stretched and fatigued 
bolts after their 7 years of service in this application. But that's me. 
I am known on this list to be a pedantic overzealous engineer type.

> The top mount with the slotted holes that I am referring to is the upper
> strut mount.  This does not get removed when removing the strut tower.
> There are 3 stud/nuts that hold the upper spring perch to the body.  The
> holes in the body are not slotted, therefore an alignment is not required.

OK, I got it. I myself have never removed the struts for reasons other 
than the spring/shock replacement, in which case one needs to separate 
the top triangular mount from the larger round camber plate. I guess it 
could be done indeed.

However the special strut bearing tool that Mark Pollan lent me in 
December has greatly simplified the job.

-- 
Igor Kessel
two turbo quattros in the stable,
the third one is in the works