I hope the story that follows will help someone be less stupid than I have been the last 2 days. No, that doesn’t sound right, no one would have been as dim as me notwithstanding.

Story starts with passengers complaining of squeaks from front left brake/wheel. Further development was noticing a clunk/rattle when going downhill on washboard/rough roads this last weekend. Noise seemed to be affected by brake application. Signs say examine front end and brakes. So I do that, could not find any loose or broken suspension components but did find that my brake pads were getting thin, and one pad on pass. side had a broken spring. So here is where I should have sat down and thought things through more. New pads are a good idea, but what about new rotors too? I did measure old rotors, they were within wear spec, so ADD boy here rushes out and buys some expensive Pagid pads and leaves rotors alone.

Quite a difference in thickness between old and new eh? Hint: that should have triggered a response in my brain other than “gee, look at the thickness difference”. Oh and another oversight, I mentioned that I measured the old rotor thickness, doing that I did note the ridges on the rotor (peripheral and internal) where the pads do not touch. I didn’t think that would be an issue, ha!

So I popped in the new pads. Bentley describes the procedure well, but did I do a careful reading? No, I didn’t. I removed both bolts from the caliper slider and removed slider to install pads. That is NOT how to do it. There are bold warnings not to re-use those slider bolts and the new pads came with just 2 new bolts (with pre-applied thread locker). I was puzzled by this, I thought I was shorted 2 bolts. So I used loctite and re-used the old bolts. This was both good and bad as you will see later. I finished pad replacement Monday evening and did not take van for test drive, yet another dumb-assed mistake. Next morning I had an important errand and as I drove out I noticed a rubbing/clicking noise from front right wheel. Bloody hell, drove back and popped that wheel to look. Rushed examination, pulled pads, noticed scoring on inside pad where it was hitting the un-worn area of rotor. Aha I thought, and beveled that part of pad a tad with stationary belt sander. Noise still there. Borrowed car and rushed out. I had the chance to drop by Autospiel that day and talk to Russ about this noise. I explained situation, he asked if I had checked that the rim, or balancing weights were not hitting caliper, I said no, I believed it was the pad on the un-worn part of rotor. Why don’t I listen and think? I decided to by a couple of new Brembo rotors from him (39 bucks a piece), and at same time, noticed them on the counter, a set of radius arm bushings (mine are old and worn out, I’ll post about replacement later, nothing to do with brake job). Got back home and set about rotor replacement.

This time, doing it right. First remove the pads. Undo lower bolt of caliper slider, in this pic I have 13 mm wrench on bolt and crescent wrench on flat of slider rod.

With that bolt out, the caliper body swings up and the pads exposed. Pull out pads.

Now those aneurism inducing 22 mm bolts (2) that hold caliper body to suspension upright. They are on tight (200 ft-lbs) and not much access for the lift deprived driveway “mechanic”. Shoot, forgot to state the usual warnings, ie support van SECURELY on jack stand/good wooden blocks during this procedure. You are really putting a lot of grunt into the van when loosening and tightening those bolts.

Ok, caliper off and hanging on breaker bar stuck in suspension. The slider part came off and is sitting to the right in this picture.

That hex socket bolt need to be removed, 5 or 6 mm? can’t recall.

Then the rotor should slide off the hub. Well, it started to but then hung up on something. At this point I really was not sure of anything, I consulted Bentley again, and again, finally used a puller.

I think it was this rust that was making the rotor difficult. Look at the state of it! What in the name of all that is holy was I thinking when I first decided to leave the rotors alone?

What it looks like with rotor off.

New and old.

New rotor on. I must say that it did give me a warm fuzzy feeling to look at it.

Caliper body re-installed and 22 mm bolts torqued back up to, ugghh, 200 ft-lbs. Pads installed, caliper slider swing back down into position and new bolt used in bottom position. You may find that you have to press in the brake piston to get the caliper to fit over new pads. I used a C-clamp to push piston in.

Other side done, wheels back on, tools put away, brow wiped. Ok, test drive…. rub, rub, rub. Son of a gun (or words to that effect), the noise is still there. Noise goes away when braking, that is a clue. On passenger side I had installed a no-name (drivers side is a Girling) caliper a couple of years ago when I broke the nipples off both calipers. I cannot recall why I got a Girling for one side and a no-name for the other side, but that is the way it is. I looked closely at the caliper. Oh yeah, scoring. So it seems that the added thickness of the new pads pushes the slider outboard enough to hit the rim (stock 14″ steelies yeah, yeah, I know I need bigger wheels. It is on my to do list)

And one of the curious little tits on the rim that is hitting.

Allright! Time to do some real work. Blending disc.

Grinding disc.

Caliper modified.

And yes, happy ending. Rubbing noise gone, and as a bonus, the brakes work.

Summary time:

– read the manual closely, don’t be a dolt like me and skim.

– replace rotors if replacing pads. Don’t screw around, the rotors are so inexpensive it is not worth having them turned. I suppose if you liked experimenting with different pads rotor replacement would get expensive. I have read that for good pad break in, the rotors (if not new or turned) should be scuffed to remove any old pad compound. But after all I went through, I’d recommend just buying new rotors and be done with it.

– be careful with those 22 mm bolts holding caliper on upright. The buggers are awkward to get full force on, don’t let wrench slip and for god’s sake support van well.

– think before and during  doing this job. Please don’t be like me.

– Russ told me that the Pagid pads I chose are excellent, the only downside is that they make more dust than the stock pads. That might be a concern if you had alloy wheels.

The other day while replacing the upper control arm bushings on the van I wondered if the spring could be removed without using a spring compressor (Bentley shows compressor being used). I asked on the Yahoo syncro group and a couple of listmembers said it could be done, and they have done it. So today I had a go at it, and at the same time try out the spring spacer I made.

I have to warn you, while this procedure does not expose you to the same dangers as using a compressor , there are dangers to life and limb. That might sound like hyperbole but it isn’t. Please take care if you do what I am about to describe, take it slow, think, be cautious.

Also, what will be described was done on a van with stock springs and with a modest spring spacer. I do not think that it will work with longer springs or thick spacers.

Ok, on with the show. Van jacked up and supported by some solid 8X8 shorts, wheel off, sway bar drop link disconnected, radius rod/arm removed (inner adjusting nut not moved). The lower shock bolt loosened (22 mm socket).

Upper ball joint disconnected, those 2 socket cap bolts.

At this point I was not sure how this was all going to work, seemed like the spring perch would hit drive shaft.

Plastic cap removed from shock shaft end, 17 mm nut loosened but not removed.

Bottle jack supporting shock through hole in lower control arm.

Shock bolt was driven out easily.

And look at how clean that bolt is. I’m lucky, while I have some nasty rust on body, most if not all of the “mechanicals” are in great shape.

When the bolt was driven out and the bottle jack released, the lower control arm fell down. I did not expect this, of course in hindsight I should have.

The 17 mm nut was removed from top of shock and then shock and spring fell out.

Slight digression here, comparing the orange spring (2 white stripe code) from my ’82 diesel westy with the newly removed syncro spring. 20 mm difference between them. Confirms IG16 Wiki data.

And what do you know? The spring pads are different after all. Same part number (although writing this now I recall the syncro spring pad part number has an “A” suffix).

Shock fully extended with syncro spring.

Shock fully extended with orange spring. I would say a shock shaft extension would be need to use this spring in the syncro.

Side by side comparison.

I had to make some slight adjustment to the collar of my spring pad spacer to make it fit the syncro spring pad. Needed to reduce collar diameter a few millimetres

My T-handled tool in through access hole under seat to engage and guide shock shaft up through hole in shock tower.

The shock spring combo needed to be drawn inward to allow shock shaft to go up through hole in tower. I used a ratchet strap.

Here it comes, I’m using the bottle jack to push against the bottom of the shock. Lower shock bolt is installed.

You have to guide the shaft so that the step on the shaft does not get caught on edge of hole.

There you go, installed with spacer. You can see “shadow” line on spring pad that shows how much was in tower without the spacer. I did not re-attach sway bar or radius rod, but did put on wheel and drop van to ground. I bounced van as best I could and measured hub to fender distance. It looks like the spacer did the trick, now 19.25″ at front, 19.125″ at rear. Very preliminary measurement, probably will be a little different after driving.

So then I took it all apart again and removed spacer. I only have one spacer made, but the exercise was worthwhile – I can remove spring without a compressor and I refined my spacer to fit right.

And a bonus, I think I found my pesky squeak – it might be the bushing between sway bar drop link and the sway bar. I had made my own bushings from polyurethane skate board wheels, I greased them during this work and now squeak is gone.

As I am planning on fiddling around with my syncro’s front springs and shocks I thought I might need a tool to guide the top of the shock back into position when re-installing. Bentley calls for VW tool 3141, the best pic I could find with a quick search is this Snap-On one. I had some 1/2″ diameter aluminium rod handy, and a M10 X 1.00 tap (same thread as used in pressure sender on engine, I needed one to make my sender relocation manifold). The lathe made making the tool easy, shaft is a press fit into handle and is pretty secure, but I probably still need to blob on a bit of weld on the joint.

End of shaft.

End of old 2WD front shock – it has the same thread.

Tool screwed onto end of shock.

I hope to be able to show you how it is used when I pull the front springs from the van, but I need to borrow a spring compressor before I get going with that.

So on our last trip I noticed a squeaking when suspension moved, noise coming from front driver’s side. I suspected upper control arm bushing so I set about replacing them on that side. It is a pretty straight forward job, and here are a couple of diagrams illustrating where the bushings are.

I jacked up and supported driver’s side front of van and removed wheel. When I detached the upper ball joint I could move the control arm by hand, and the squeak was there. 19 mm nut on one end of camber adjusting bolt, other end is 14 mm socket. Arm off and in the workshop.

Close up of one bushing.

Other side of bushing. There is a good chance these are originals.

Here is one of the new bushings. Vaico brand, I don’t know where they fall in the quality line up, but I got them in trade for some used vanagon parts. There is a great Samba thread on UCA bushings here.

I wondered if an O-ring would help keep any grease in.

Then I tried some silicone over the O-ring, a variation of what Tencentlife did in above mentioned Samba thread. I ended up removing the silicone and adding a second O-ring.

Now getting the old bushings out. I don’t have a press so I used a bit of aluminium tubing, a biggish socket, and an old 2WD control arm bolt, and a heavy hammer to drive the bushing out.

Look at that clutter. Workshop is in a real sorry state.

Old bushing out.

Bore of UCA where bushing fits. On the syncro it is a simple press fit, no spot weld needed.

Using a vice to press new bushing in.

Part way in. Ok, you’ve noticed that I painted the UCA. A very casual crap job and wasn’t needed (original paint still good), but I had a can of orange paint and I thought it might look cool. Overnight drying time was not enough, paint still soft, came off here and there. Perhaps I should lock up the paint.

A bit of pop can in UCA to keep a large socket in place while bushing driven home.

And the other bushing pressed in.

Out at the van, rear of support where bolt goes through and eccentric washer sits.

Front of support.

Rear eccentric washer in place. It was a fiddly job offering up the UCA into correct position and not have the washers fall out.

But in it went finally. Everything re-assembled. Guess what? I still have a squeak!

Next post will deal with camber adjustment and perhaps finding the squeak.

Not really much to add to the previous rad replacement expect that it is my van (’86 syncro) and I thought I’d make it a post just for my documentation/memory aid purposes. I suspected my rad needed replacement for no other reasons than I think it is the original rad and that I noticed the rad fan coming on more often when idling after a hwy drive. The replacement is a Behr unit, made in South Africa. The old rad still had the a/c condensor rad attached in front, probably not helping heat escapement. The new rad did feel lighter than the old one, whether this is due to deposits in old rad or construction details I can’t say. No real details to note except that it is a pretty easy job. I clamped off the coolant lines so a total coolant replacement was not done, I glued on the little rubber washers on the spikes on top and bottom of the rad (so that they didn’t fall off during installation, and I sprayed Fluid Film on exposed fasteners in the general area. After install and bleeding, I have only idled van long enough (took 20 minutes) to get first stage of fan to come on, no road test yet.

I’m just back from test drive after installing my re-bushed propshaft and I can report that the noise I was hearing, and that I had thought was transmission noise, has gone! I’m chuffed!

But to ward off the Evil Eye, I’ll not claim victory.

I decided to make a split bushing for the internal location. I first turned down some Delrin to final inner diameter (23 mm to match the turned down yoke shaft), then mounted it on a mandrel to turn down OD to 28 mm (was OD of upper bushing and I guessed that the inner one was the same).

I kept the bushing on the mandrel and clamped it in my wee milling head. I also used a small C-clamp on the bushing to stop it from popping off during slot cutting. I used a 1/8″ end mill to cut the slot, made the slot 6.8 mm wide (chord length) which I estimated to be slightly more than needed.

Finished split bushing.

And as I tried to install it, I realized I had no way of holding it compressed to get into the narrow bore, no grip after it goes into outer bushing area. Oh, btw, this is how the bushing should appear when it is finally in place at the bottom of the housing.

I had an idea, some stainless shim stock to act like a funnel.

That worked and I was able to tap the bushing home. You can make it out, down at the bottom.

The yoke shaft would not fit in, I had to chamfer the end of the shaft a little more, and polish the end. But I finally was able to tap the shaft in and it is nice and snug. Quite snug actually, it takes about 20 Nm to rotate the yoke, but no radial movement at all. Oh and another thing, I removed that flange on the upper bushing, didn’t make any sense. I’m feeling quite chuffed in managing to get some sort of bushing replacement made. I hope they will wear well.