This was possibly the most unpleasant job ive ever experienced. I used the guide that one of the members (Joel) has posted, http://forums.aussieveedubbers.com/viewtopic.php?tid=68078 
and it was extremely helpful, HOWEVER everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.

This. Is. My. Story.
Started off as a normal day, and I decided to replace teh bushing on my 74' L bug. I was going fine until it came to the part where i removed the coupler and attached some string to the end of the rod.

As i was pulling it through, however- i somehow managed to drop the string in the abyss of the gear shaft. I couldnt get to it and after much french I just decided to pull through the rod, but after i got to the end of it, i retreived the string and decided to attach the end of it to a peice of wire and rethread it.

BUT, once i had re threaded it, I began pulling the rod through and i found that it had threaded just below the stupid ring which usually housed the bush. SO then i had to thread the rod BACK to the front and repeat the process cept this time I would make sure it would tthread through the ring.

As i was doing this, the wire attached to the string suddenly got caught on something in the shaft. So i spent the next half and hour trying to remove the wire- only to force it so much that it snapped in my hands (AHHH). SO i then had to cut the wire in a spot that wouldnt get in the way of the gear rod.

From here on, I just began to thread through the rod without the aid of the string. But, since i had tied a knot with the sting to the rod it wouldnt fit through the tight bush hole. SO I had to first cut off the string, thus defeating the whole purpose of the bloody thing.

The last obstacle was rethreading the rod when it got stuck a further 3 times and i had to pull it back and rotate it and stuff. And finally- FINALLY i had reattached it to the coupler.


And thats my story. I could have told the numerous other minor details which made this thing a PITA

Moral of the story is. DONT USE STRING! (or drop it if you do).

This was supposed to be a 2hour job but it ended up being 5+ hours for me.... It was a character building learning curve haha.

THE END.
*sighs*

Remember Obeone "What doesn't kill you, makes you pissed off and hit things with a FBH " use the force to guide you next time.

haha. ouch!

It took me two goes to get it right
I busted the bushing the first time...
and had to buy a new one from a local supplier.
$20 FRICKIN BUX for the bushing, WITHOUT retaining ring.

I just used the retaining ring from the original bush and ring set i bought from cvd for $5.99.

Got it right the 2nd time once i had a look at Joels write up

Don't worry it happens all the time. I like when you read in the workshop manual something like"remove the 4 bolts and take off cover" - only 2 seconds to read-when in fact you can find only 2 bolts and after four hours with levers,extension bars,wedges,pulleys, hammers and chisels you find they didn't mention a small screw that appeared on only a small number of models that yours happens to be one of!! Or on japanese cars where you need hands the size of a four year old to be able to get at something or an extra joint between your elbow and wrist!

Ahhhh! isn't it fun being a mechanic,the feeling of satisfaction when the job goes right particularly where you rip about a thousand bits of skin off and bleed like a stuck pig. Fortunately this doesn't happen to us in the motor trade everything goes like clockwork all of the time.

mmmmm........ VC Valiants that have RH threads on the right wheel bolts and LH threads on the left wheel bolts

Makes sense

feel for you buddy.... some days you're the hammer, some days you're the nail.

Every time I go near my car it draws blood!

Thank you bizzarre I had just managed to erase the VC valiants from my memory bank,what about the radius rod bushes? if you need a ball joint tool I still have one!

I've just had a situation something like I mentioned earlier. My speedo stopped working in the cab so I ordered a new cable. I'm in my 50s and have had loads of VWs and so a speedo cable iis not even worth a second thought. Got the cable, took off the circlip at the wheel, took off the cable from the speedo, pulled .....nothing! Wouldn't budge.After a lot of swearing I found my beetle is supposed to have an EGR valve and so this encorporates a gizmo that's rigged inline to the speedo cable so that the EGR warning light comes on when it's due for renewal and so has two short cables. Couldn't bloody well believe it, just a simple cable change,done it heaps of times but there you go, I should have known better.

Quote:

Originally posted by chunks54 feel for you buddy.... some days you're the hammer, some days you're the nail. Every time I go near my car it draws blood!