I of course used my Bentley manual, thesamaba.com and type2.com for assistance. Here is a compilation of a couple posts with some details on the job (I’m sorry no credit is given – if you are the author please let me know). My comments are in italics. Pictures are after the details.
The upper torsion arm can be easily raised up if the lower torsion arm or the steering knuckle has already been removed. push it straight up with a piece of wood on a floor jack (this did not work for me or others that I contacted, it only lifted up the vehicle). And it is easier than raising it up by the lower torsion arm if they are still connected. Because you are only working against 1 torsion spring and not 2. I tried yesterday to put the upper rubber stop back in with the steering knuckle installed and It would just raise the bus. When removing the upper torsion arm the only way I could do it was, like previously mentioned, raise it high enough to remove the rubber stop, then let it down as far as you can without it resting on the stop holder. Tapping on the side of the torsion arm helps work it out. Dont try to pry it out from the end of the beam where the seal is. It would be real easy to damage the seal and the seal holder.
It’s all a fairly tricky and difficult job. Including getting the springs back in the beam or the arms back on the ends of the springs. The small weld bead on the ends of the springs to hold the leafs together had come off making it difficult to stab the holes. But eventually it all got accomplished. But a lot of it seemed like it was borderline. As to whether it could be done or not.
Also use some rust penetrant on the clip holding the pads before you try to pull the clip out of its engagement.
here is what you need for the whole job:
1) jack
2) 19mm socket on a breaker bar – for lugs and caliper bolts
3) 6mm hex key – for wheel bearing locknut and rotor fixing bolts
4) hammer and screwdriver to knock free the hose clip
5) 11mm -to free the backing plate.
6) 27mm wrench – ball joint nuts
7) large 2 arm puller – for lower ball joint (I used a pitman puller)
8 ) small gear puller – for tierod end
9) thin 36mm wrench – for eccentric bushing hex , or large slip joints.
10) 8mm hex key- to free torsion arm grub screws
11) hammer and screwdriver – to knock out the clip for the upper snubber
12) 5 ft of 1″ pipe – to lever the upper torsion arm off its stop
13) hammer and screwdriver to remove sway bar clamp
14) hammer – to remove the torsion arms from vehicle.
\Getting everything apart was not the hardest part for me. Soak everything in PB Blaster the night before to loosen up all the hardware. The hardest part was prying the torsion arm up and removing the rubber snubber. There are two ways you can do this: I used a long section of 1″ black plumber’s pipe to pry upward on the torsion arm while my buddy removed the snubber. Some people have luck by simply jacking the torsion arm up from below with a floor jack. In my case, this just resulted in lifting the whole front of the bus, but your experience may differ….this is certainly the easier route. As to removing the rubber snubber, you will also want to soak the little clip that holds it in place with PB. If you wind up like me, you will break this clip upon removal and require a new one. Mine were rusted in place and I had to clip a pair of vise-grips to it and whack the vise-grips with a hammer. I picked up some back-ups from my local VW dealer. They swore up and down that they didn’t carry them, but they do…you just have to be persistent! I think that they were $2.50/ea.
With the snubber removed, you can let the arm slowly drop back into position. Then you will be able to whack it with a mallet (or a hammer and piece of wood) until it drops out. Make sure that you have the lock nuts and set screws turned all the way to prevent binding.
END OF PROCEDURE
Ok, I started with the upper ball joints. I took off the bolts with an impact wrench, and both joints loosened from the steering knuckle.
Next, I used a piece of barto pry the upper torsion bar off of the rubber stopper.
The rubber stopper has a sort of pin that sticks through a hole and is held in place by a retaining clip. I put a vise grip on the clip and yanked it out. Then the rubber stopper come out of the hole. While holding up the torsion arm pull out the stopper.
You can buy new stoppers, but I just cleaned mine up on a bench grinder.
From here you can lightly tap the torsion arm out, but alternate side to side with the tapping. In other words, you’re not supposed to take one out first, and then go do the other (over my head as to why).
Ok, the lower joints gave me a lot more problems than the top. First I used the impact wrench to remove the bolts. The steering knuckle did come off of one.
On the other I had to use my pitman arm puller to get it to separate fromthe knuckle.
Then I tried for a while to remove the sway bar clamp, until I read that I would probably need to replace this anyway, and it’s not that expensive. So I used a cutting disc and cut it in half.
Then I just removed the sway bar, and did the alternating tap thing on the lower torsion arms and got them out.
I bought new ball joints and brought them to a VW mechanic where he swapped them out for $15 each.
