jnecr
Veteran Member
Well I did it.
I got all the stuff in last Monday and I did the transformation this afternoon. It took about 4 hours from driving into the shop to driving out of the shop. I took a couple pictures along the way and hopefully some pictures to hope show why the new spindles are needed.
The used brakes and spindles from VWvortex.com (there are two sets of these):
What I started with (driver's side):
What I ended with:
The reason why you MUST change the spindles if you want to upgrade our brakes:
You can see in this picture that the caliper carrier is one piece with the spindle itself (the caliper is lighter gray metal piece while the carrier is dark grey like the spindle). The 1.8Ts and VR6s do not have this, in the very top picture (of this post) you can vaguely see that the carrier is bolted on to the spindle. In this picture you can also see the wheel speed sensor rotor, the electrical attachment there is a brake pad wear sensor I guess, the wheel speed sensor is to the right in this picture which was taken from the top of the assembly looking down.
Some steps along the way:
Here you can see that the steering control arm out of focus in the very foreground on the right of this picture. That is the first step (after disconnecting all electrical connections and brake lines, suprisingly little brake fluid came out while disconnecting the brake line), disconnect the control arm. You can kind of see that it has a cone shape to it and it just has a nut on the bottom and is pressed into it's seat which you can see in the direct middle on this picture (it's looks all wet).
You can also see the (yellow) strut in the top of the picture. That is the next step, remove strut from spindle. Not very hard to do if your car is new! If it's old you'll either have to have the VW specific spreader tool or just bang on it A LOT with a rubber mallet (go for option number one if you've never changed your struts). My struts have only been on the car for about 6,000 miles, so they practically fell out.
The next step is to remove the three small bolts from the ball joint (which you can see in the middle of the picture as well).
Here's a picture from the front side of the wheel well look back. You can see that I disconnected the sway bar link, it gives you a little more room to work with if you do that.
You can also see the black boots around the two allen screws that mount the caliper to the carrier. This will be the next step, removing the caliper and then the rotor. The rotor is held on by one tiny little screw because when you have your wheels on the rotor is kept in place by your five lug bolts. The tiny little screw was absolutely mutilated on my brakes which only have 15,000 miles. I'll take a picture of it just to scare ya'll.
But really it only holds the rotor on while you have your wheels off, it's not under high stress usually, but I think VW could have had a better way to mount the rotor to the wheel flange.
Anyhow, the caliper and rotor come off really, really easy.
The driveshaft, however, does not. You MUST have a presser in order to do this. I don't think there is any other way.
Picture of a presser in action:
You can see that the rotor and caliper have been removed and you can see the carrier hanging off to the left there. What you can't see is me behind the camera with one special finger up for the spindles with their cast carriers.
So back to the presser, all it does if push on the driveshaft while pulling on the wheel flange. It was a B!tch to get out even with the presser. But the driveshaft went back in the new hubs really easy.
So this is what you get after getting the driveshaft out of the bearing:
You can see the driveshaft and the very edge of the tranny (way up in there) where the driveshaft enters.
Putting the new spindles back in is just a matter of tracking the steps back, the hardest part is that on the passenger's side you have to get the driveshaft, ball joint, and strut all lined up correctly and then push them all in at the same time. But it takes about the same amount of effort as disassembly.
So that's that. Now I have to get my rotors turned because it was slightly more than surface rust and I have to bleed my brakes again because my pedal is very slightly soft. I also have to get an alignment, but these things are easy compared to the job itself. And now, I can upgrade to whatever I like and it won't be hard at all. Upgrading from here just requires new rotors, calipers (if you want new calipers), and caliper carriers. And... I won't have to disassemble the ENTIRE thing. I'm very pleased with how well it went. Any questions? comments?
Additions:
The aformentioned screwed screw:
Calipers:
TDI on the left, 1.8T caliper that has been sprayed black on the right:
TDI Brake pad with wear sensor:
The screws that hold the caliper on the carrier are in the lower right portion of the picture.
I got all the stuff in last Monday and I did the transformation this afternoon. It took about 4 hours from driving into the shop to driving out of the shop. I took a couple pictures along the way and hopefully some pictures to hope show why the new spindles are needed.
The used brakes and spindles from VWvortex.com (there are two sets of these):
What I started with (driver's side):
What I ended with:
The reason why you MUST change the spindles if you want to upgrade our brakes:
You can see in this picture that the caliper carrier is one piece with the spindle itself (the caliper is lighter gray metal piece while the carrier is dark grey like the spindle). The 1.8Ts and VR6s do not have this, in the very top picture (of this post) you can vaguely see that the carrier is bolted on to the spindle. In this picture you can also see the wheel speed sensor rotor, the electrical attachment there is a brake pad wear sensor I guess, the wheel speed sensor is to the right in this picture which was taken from the top of the assembly looking down.
Some steps along the way:
Here you can see that the steering control arm out of focus in the very foreground on the right of this picture. That is the first step (after disconnecting all electrical connections and brake lines, suprisingly little brake fluid came out while disconnecting the brake line), disconnect the control arm. You can kind of see that it has a cone shape to it and it just has a nut on the bottom and is pressed into it's seat which you can see in the direct middle on this picture (it's looks all wet).
You can also see the (yellow) strut in the top of the picture. That is the next step, remove strut from spindle. Not very hard to do if your car is new! If it's old you'll either have to have the VW specific spreader tool or just bang on it A LOT with a rubber mallet (go for option number one if you've never changed your struts). My struts have only been on the car for about 6,000 miles, so they practically fell out.
The next step is to remove the three small bolts from the ball joint (which you can see in the middle of the picture as well).
Here's a picture from the front side of the wheel well look back. You can see that I disconnected the sway bar link, it gives you a little more room to work with if you do that.
You can also see the black boots around the two allen screws that mount the caliper to the carrier. This will be the next step, removing the caliper and then the rotor. The rotor is held on by one tiny little screw because when you have your wheels on the rotor is kept in place by your five lug bolts. The tiny little screw was absolutely mutilated on my brakes which only have 15,000 miles. I'll take a picture of it just to scare ya'll.
Anyhow, the caliper and rotor come off really, really easy.
The driveshaft, however, does not. You MUST have a presser in order to do this. I don't think there is any other way.
Picture of a presser in action:
You can see that the rotor and caliper have been removed and you can see the carrier hanging off to the left there. What you can't see is me behind the camera with one special finger up for the spindles with their cast carriers.
So back to the presser, all it does if push on the driveshaft while pulling on the wheel flange. It was a B!tch to get out even with the presser. But the driveshaft went back in the new hubs really easy.
So this is what you get after getting the driveshaft out of the bearing:
You can see the driveshaft and the very edge of the tranny (way up in there) where the driveshaft enters.
Putting the new spindles back in is just a matter of tracking the steps back, the hardest part is that on the passenger's side you have to get the driveshaft, ball joint, and strut all lined up correctly and then push them all in at the same time. But it takes about the same amount of effort as disassembly.
So that's that. Now I have to get my rotors turned because it was slightly more than surface rust and I have to bleed my brakes again because my pedal is very slightly soft. I also have to get an alignment, but these things are easy compared to the job itself. And now, I can upgrade to whatever I like and it won't be hard at all. Upgrading from here just requires new rotors, calipers (if you want new calipers), and caliper carriers. And... I won't have to disassemble the ENTIRE thing. I'm very pleased with how well it went. Any questions? comments?
Additions:
The aformentioned screwed screw:
Calipers:
TDI on the left, 1.8T caliper that has been sprayed black on the right:
TDI Brake pad with wear sensor:
The screws that hold the caliper on the carrier are in the lower right portion of the picture.