Spring plate removal and replacement

Pauld · 24 Feb 2010, 9:42 am

Hi everyone, just a quick one, I put my bug into a kerb about a year and a half ago and after having replaced the front beam I thought everything was sweet untill the left hand wheel bearing went for the second time inside two years so I went looking for the problem and found that my spring plate is twisted, now how do i go about replacing the plate itself and do I need any specific tooling and how do i set the height after replacing it with a different arm?

ian.mezz · 24 Feb 2010, 12:09 pm

Pauld wrote:Hi everyone, just a quick one, I put my bug into a kerb about a year and a half ago and after having replaced the front beam I thought everything was sweet untill the left hand wheel bearing went for the second time inside two years so I went looking for the problem and found that my spring plate is twisted, now how do i go about replacing the plate itself and do I need any specific tooling and how do i set the height after replacing it with a different arm?

a car jack
car stands.
assorted spanners
4 longer bolts to pull spring plate back into place.
a paint pen to mark where old one come out, so yo put the new one back in the same place.

Pauld · 24 Feb 2010, 2:01 pm

is there anything i have to look out for when I pull the plate out? the only thing im worried about is when i take the plate off if its going to jump out anywhere and mess up my ride height or anything silly

ian.mezz · 24 Feb 2010, 6:21 pm

Pauld wrote:is there anything i have to look out for when I pull the plate out? the only thing im worried about is when i take the plate off if its going to jump out anywhere and mess up my ride height or anything silly

a paint pen to mark where old one come out, so yo put the new one back in the same place.

vw54 · 24 Feb 2010, 6:38 pm

two years so I went looking for the problem and found that my spring plate is twisted,

OK u said the front beam then yr talking about the rear spring plate

So is it the front of the rear thats been bent

Pauld · 24 Feb 2010, 7:40 pm

i just finished changing the rear spring plate, i only mentioned the front as i had changed it at the time of the accident and only mentioned it as a guide of how hard an impact there was, apart from the father in law being hit on the thumb when the plate dropped down but its all in and i will have it finished tomorrow after i do the wheel bearing