Anti Roll Bar Bushes ARB - Talk to me

Foghorn

Foghorn

Member
OK - The dreaded knock has just started on 2003 and having had this problem with my 2001 I immediately suspected the drop links. This will be an easy fix.

However I had a quick look under the car to inspect the ARB. It has the wide collars so me thinks this is the revised bar? What is strange is the rubber bushes are still in the collars (or they feel to be) but on the offside the bush butts up to the collar and on the nearside the bush is approx 1" away?

Is this correct - as my thoughts are they should both be next to the collars?
 
Sorted it out guys

Having back tracked and found the advice I tackled the job yesterday on 2003 @72k miles.

The drop links were £15 delivered from eBay and the bushes came in at £11 from Audi.

What surprised me was the shift on the ARB it had moved about 2" to the offside! Other than the knocking there was no effcet on the steering/handling.

The plastic collars are not fixed but can actually be moved along the bar - so centralising the bar to make sure I got both bushes up against the collars after placing them in the correct place took two of us and some best guess work with the tape measure.

I have taken advice from a previous poster and used some jubillee clips to stop movement again.

Drop links were very loose at the joints so obviously due for replacement. Whole job took 3 hours because I took my time with a tea break! If you push on reckon 1 to 1.5hrs you can crack it.

( car was fitted with the thicker (older) ARB as the bushes come in two sizes )
 
Up on a ramp with a strategically sized and placed block of wood at each jacking point it took my mechanic half an hour. Two replacement drop-links,[fleabay £15], and Polo bushes, [VW garage £5]. I also was amazed as I watched him all the while AND he fitted two 13-23mm jubilee clips.

When you say it's only eight nuts to loosen and tighten back up I reckon the bushes were the time consumers as they are in a bit of a tight space and need a socket on 'em.
 
I too was interested in the Polo bushes as you can get them for £5 from eBay but when Audi mentioned the ARB came in two thicknesses I decided to go with the 'official' parts - larger diameter and code matched the ones coming off perfectly.
 
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