Just did these myself today, decided to take pics to benefit others as it took me a long time cause Ive never done anything like this before. Hope this will help others!
FRONTS REMOVAL:
1. With car on flat surface, apply hand brake and put car in gear or park.
2. Jack up front under rocker panel where the VW manual says the jack should go, I used a piece of OAK approx 4"x3.5" between my floor jack and car. At this time do not raise tire off ground.
3. With tire still contacting ground slightly, crack loose wheel lugs just a tad using 17mm socket or VW lug wrench(I did job alone so had noone to put foot on brakes to keep wheel from turning)
4. Now jack up the car far enough to place a jackstand under where the LCA(Lower Control Arm) connect to car.
5. now that one side is on jackstand, lower jack and go to other side, it makes the job much easier and faster to get entire front
up in air.
6. Jack up other side in same spot, loosening lug nuts a tad, then jacking rest of way and placing jack stand at rear of LCA (same as first side).
7. Now entire front end is in air, now remove jack altogether and remove both front wheels/tires from car.
7a. At this time locate the ABS wires, I highly recommend pulling them out of their anchors, this allows a little more free play in wiring so they dont get stretched when removing struts (driver side has 2 clips take out both, might need to use a flat head to unlock the clip, slot it in the side of the clip and youll hear it click with a little bit of pressure).
8. Locate the sway bar link, and remove the top 18mm nut that attaches link to strut, Just lay
each link down out of the way. Do BOTH sides of car.
9. Remove three 16mm nuts on very bottom of LCA. These need a deepwell or wrench, do both sides of car.
10. Push down on LCA so they come off and away from ball joint, just push it down and out of way best you can,do both sides of car.
11. PINCH SPINDLE: At bottom of strut, using a M14 Triple Square on stretch bolt, and 18mm deepwell socket on nut, remove the stretch bolts that "pinch" the spindle around strut bottom. at this time do one side of car( as you can see i didnt have a M14 bit, i used a 3/8 extension to hold and torqued the other side).
12. Using a strut spreader tool, insert tool into rear slot, and twist it 1/4 turn to open the "pinch" on spindle (i didnt have a strut spreader, tried a 1/4 inch extender).
Shoved the bar (or spreader) in here
13. With pinch "open" you will feel the spindle begin to drop, you will need to stomp on the rotor to get it off. Mine came off pretty easy, this is where having both sides of sway bar links off helps alot, otherwise you are fighting the sway bar. It helps alot if you can push the LCA and sway bar down, having a buddy hold them down makes it alot easier so when you stomp the rotor it pops down low enough easily. This part was a pain in the ASS. My car only has 1500 miles and my friend and i had to beat the shit out of it to pop it off, i think the pb blaster we used helped, we ended up using a pry bar to open the spindle, dont think it hurt the car.
14. Once it was at bottom, i was able to get a screwdriver in there to get it out completely.
15. Now go under the hood and open up the rain tray above strut. Pull out the foam seal at edge, then pull some rubber weatherstrip off so you can lift rain tray enough to expose three 13mm bolts on strut tower.
16. Loosen the 13mm bolts, on the last bolt reach down and hold the strut with one hand so it does not drop when you remove last bolt. As you pull out strut, make note of the REARWARD hole, take some blue tape and put a piece of tape around edge at the rearward hole. this will assure the strut mount/bearing plate goes back in exactly then same later.
17. I put the strut into a vice to hold it(careful how you clamp it!!)......using a spring compressor tool (got mine real cheap at harbour freight) compress the stock springs enough to remove pressure so when you remove nut it doesn't kill you!
18. once compressed, remove the large 21mm NUT on top of strut. This is where a special tool is needed, I ended up buying a offset box wrench set at harbour freight for only $15 for entire set, they did not have a set with 21mm though, so i got SAE set and used the 13/16 size which worked perfectly. You need to hold the middle shaft with 7mm allen wrench/socket. Notice Tape on rearward hole.
19. Remove the 21mm nut , remove strut mount/bearing plate and remove stock spring from strut. Notice how bump stop is oriented.
20. Install new lowering spring over strut, be sure to install spring with writing/part numbers right side up, so you can read springs when upright, also be sure to slide bump stop on correctly (also make sure the arrows on the rubber bump stop are oriented front to back of the car), install strut mount/bearing plate and install nut hand tight.
21. before tightening, slide the dust boot up into the bearing plate and be sure its seated and snapped in, you can slide up the bottom of dust boot sleeve alittle instead of stretching the boot too much. Also be sure bottom of spring itself is seated properly into strut seat. Now tighten the 21mm nut, holding the 7mm allen. Torque these down pretty hard.
22. Now set this finished strut over at car near where it came off from.....and remove the other side strut repeating steps 11 thru 21. DO not mix them up.
Putting everything back where it came from is easy!
FRONTS REMOVAL:
1. With car on flat surface, apply hand brake and put car in gear or park.
2. Jack up front under rocker panel where the VW manual says the jack should go, I used a piece of OAK approx 4"x3.5" between my floor jack and car. At this time do not raise tire off ground.
3. With tire still contacting ground slightly, crack loose wheel lugs just a tad using 17mm socket or VW lug wrench(I did job alone so had noone to put foot on brakes to keep wheel from turning)
4. Now jack up the car far enough to place a jackstand under where the LCA(Lower Control Arm) connect to car.
5. now that one side is on jackstand, lower jack and go to other side, it makes the job much easier and faster to get entire front
up in air.
6. Jack up other side in same spot, loosening lug nuts a tad, then jacking rest of way and placing jack stand at rear of LCA (same as first side).
7. Now entire front end is in air, now remove jack altogether and remove both front wheels/tires from car.
7a. At this time locate the ABS wires, I highly recommend pulling them out of their anchors, this allows a little more free play in wiring so they dont get stretched when removing struts (driver side has 2 clips take out both, might need to use a flat head to unlock the clip, slot it in the side of the clip and youll hear it click with a little bit of pressure).
8. Locate the sway bar link, and remove the top 18mm nut that attaches link to strut, Just lay
each link down out of the way. Do BOTH sides of car.
9. Remove three 16mm nuts on very bottom of LCA. These need a deepwell or wrench, do both sides of car.
10. Push down on LCA so they come off and away from ball joint, just push it down and out of way best you can,do both sides of car.
11. PINCH SPINDLE: At bottom of strut, using a M14 Triple Square on stretch bolt, and 18mm deepwell socket on nut, remove the stretch bolts that "pinch" the spindle around strut bottom. at this time do one side of car( as you can see i didnt have a M14 bit, i used a 3/8 extension to hold and torqued the other side).
12. Using a strut spreader tool, insert tool into rear slot, and twist it 1/4 turn to open the "pinch" on spindle (i didnt have a strut spreader, tried a 1/4 inch extender).
Shoved the bar (or spreader) in here
13. With pinch "open" you will feel the spindle begin to drop, you will need to stomp on the rotor to get it off. Mine came off pretty easy, this is where having both sides of sway bar links off helps alot, otherwise you are fighting the sway bar. It helps alot if you can push the LCA and sway bar down, having a buddy hold them down makes it alot easier so when you stomp the rotor it pops down low enough easily. This part was a pain in the ASS. My car only has 1500 miles and my friend and i had to beat the shit out of it to pop it off, i think the pb blaster we used helped, we ended up using a pry bar to open the spindle, dont think it hurt the car.
14. Once it was at bottom, i was able to get a screwdriver in there to get it out completely.
15. Now go under the hood and open up the rain tray above strut. Pull out the foam seal at edge, then pull some rubber weatherstrip off so you can lift rain tray enough to expose three 13mm bolts on strut tower.
16. Loosen the 13mm bolts, on the last bolt reach down and hold the strut with one hand so it does not drop when you remove last bolt. As you pull out strut, make note of the REARWARD hole, take some blue tape and put a piece of tape around edge at the rearward hole. this will assure the strut mount/bearing plate goes back in exactly then same later.
17. I put the strut into a vice to hold it(careful how you clamp it!!)......using a spring compressor tool (got mine real cheap at harbour freight) compress the stock springs enough to remove pressure so when you remove nut it doesn't kill you!
18. once compressed, remove the large 21mm NUT on top of strut. This is where a special tool is needed, I ended up buying a offset box wrench set at harbour freight for only $15 for entire set, they did not have a set with 21mm though, so i got SAE set and used the 13/16 size which worked perfectly. You need to hold the middle shaft with 7mm allen wrench/socket. Notice Tape on rearward hole.
19. Remove the 21mm nut , remove strut mount/bearing plate and remove stock spring from strut. Notice how bump stop is oriented.
20. Install new lowering spring over strut, be sure to install spring with writing/part numbers right side up, so you can read springs when upright, also be sure to slide bump stop on correctly (also make sure the arrows on the rubber bump stop are oriented front to back of the car), install strut mount/bearing plate and install nut hand tight.
21. before tightening, slide the dust boot up into the bearing plate and be sure its seated and snapped in, you can slide up the bottom of dust boot sleeve alittle instead of stretching the boot too much. Also be sure bottom of spring itself is seated properly into strut seat. Now tighten the 21mm nut, holding the 7mm allen. Torque these down pretty hard.
22. Now set this finished strut over at car near where it came off from.....and remove the other side strut repeating steps 11 thru 21. DO not mix them up.
Putting everything back where it came from is easy!
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