Removing spring plates

Has anyone got any tips about easily removing IRS spring plates ? I've removed the trailing arm and dropped the springs plates all the way down, removed that bit (the name of which I can't remember) that holds the spring plate to the frame/chassis and the outer bush, but getting the damn spring plate off the end of the torsion bar has been literally a pain - winding it up and down liberal applications of RP7 and a couple of large pry bars has taken me best part of 2-days to do.

Having finally got 1 removed, I suspect that the urethane inner bush may well have been "seized" on the inner part of the spring plate. The urethan bushes are Sway-Away units, but the double spring plate seems to be a standard VW IRS unit - I read somewhere that Sway-Away bushes only fit Sway-Away spring plates - is this true, could this be the source of my troubles ?

I'm sure other folks must have come across this problem, and so surely there's gotta be an easier way of doing it. Any hints, tips or advice would be welcomed, as I've still got the other side to do.

I have used 2 tyre levers in the past. One on either side and start lever-ing it out.

Kombi Kid had a torsion bar stuck in a bay kombi and we got it out by hammering a "2m" bar in from the other side. Came out easy.

Thanks - the twin tyres levers apporach is pretty much what I ended up doing. At least it would appear I'm approaching this from the right direction....

yeah if you have 1 side off get a bit of pipe or something and knock it out from the otehr side.... Lack of lubricant on the spline is the problem.

vw54 wrote:yeah if you have 1 side off get a bit of pipe or something and knock it out from the otehr side.... Lack of lubricant on the spline is the problem.

Thanks - this buggy's been sitting for 10+ years doing stuff all, so lack of lubricant doesn't surprise me.

are you trying to get the spring plate off the torsion bar or the whole lot out of the housing

EEk! I did a bush replacement on a Beetle in two hours, 15 min from 'ground to ground' on the weekend... Tyre levers or big screwdrivers help with 'stuck' spring plates...

bigbaja wrote:are you trying to get the spring plate off the torsion bar or the whole lot out of the housing

Basically stripping the whole thing down for respraying, so in answer to your question, yes, spring plate off the bar, and then everything out of the housing. Bear in mind this is not a standard Beetle chassis/floorpan, but a space frame racing buggy, so I don't think all things will conform to "standard" Beetle parts or processes.

VWCOOL wrote:EEk! I did a bush replacement on a Beetle in two hours, 15 min from 'ground to ground' on the weekend... Tyre levers or big screwdrivers help with 'stuck' spring plates...

Mmm, thanks, 2:15 .... I really needed to know that !!! However, this is my first time doing this bit, so next time round, not only will I know what to do, but hopefully bits won't be siezed, rusted, perished, stuck, chewed up, rounded of, sheared off or just generally f*cked.

In hindsight I suspect now that lack of lubrication, and many years of sitting doing nothing has just caused stuff to stick together - once I'd managed to "break" the spring plate free of whatever was holding it in place, and that was only a mill or two of movement, it all came apart relatively easily. I suppose the 80:20 rule applies....