Mk 2 Poly bush wishbone nightmare

Just in from trying to fit some new wishbones with poly bushes to the MK2

Managed to pick up some new bones with the bushes already fitted from e-bay.

removing the old wishbones went less than smoothly.

the front wishbone pivot bolt wouldnt come out all the way out because i'm running a vr6 motor and the sump is in the way so off comes the sump.

the rear large round bush has a large bolt through it that has snapped off flush so will need drilling and tapping.

the one side that did come apart quite easily was a proper pain to re-fit and I ended up filing the rear crossmember so the bush went in, and still needed a few hits with a lump hammer I also managed to take a chunk out of the back of my hand on the disc protector and trapped my finger in the antiroll bar

any tips?????

remove rear engine mount bolt and jack the block to get at the front wishbone bolt.
when replacing you have to put rear doughnut bush in first then the front as there's a notch in the subframe (which you've now just filed out) that stops you doing it the other way around.
removing that snapped rear bolt is going to be a pain, please don't use "easy out" reverse thread removers it will prob just snap and then you will be trying to drill out tool steel. just carefully drill it out and chase out the threads. otherwise you gotta lift the carpet and cut the bolt out from under the rubber bung in the footwell then weld in a new one.

Its pretty much as Ra man says, its gonna be a fight i'm afraid.

Sometime you just have to work out how much work is involved in getting the old bolt out and just bite the bullet and remove the captive nut anyway.
If you need new bolts I'm bound to have some in my bucketobolts.

thanx guys you say there's a rubber bung in the floor? i have found one but it looks way off where I need to be and i'm contemplating using my trusty hole saw (70mm dia should do the trick) to find the back of this elusive captive nut. Stand by for hilarious expensive consequences when I dril in the wrong place.

hi fella when and if you f**k it up iam willing to weld the floor back to it's original condition

cheers fella ive put off cutting it up till tomorrow gonna have a few sniggering spectators then.

try not to make it look like a swiss cheese as its an arse to weld a flintstones car

Lol @ flinstones car !

The bungs inside the car iirc it's oval shaped, I've seen a how to on this somewhere it may pay to search on google.

guy wrote:

Lol @ flinstones car !

The bungs inside the car iirc it's oval shaped, I've seen a how to on this somewhere it may pay to search on google.

Too late i found a bung in the floor which is directly over the captive nut but its too small to work through. So i've blasted a 70mm hole just in front of it. What i've found is a captive sleeve which i'm pretty sure I dont want to knock out as i'll be left with a pretty big hole. So i'm drilling through it from the top and then gonna tap the threads back in the insert. . . . . sounds simple.....

Drilling didnt work out so I cut out a section of the floor and then cut through the captive nut and removed it. So I now have a hole through the floor....... the good news is that the captive nut is still available from VW (part number N 904 333 01) you then have to weld them into the floor, but still a better job than welding a nut to a plate then to the floor. the bad news is its Saturday afternoon and VW parts dept went home at 12.00 slackers!