Lower Control Arm Install

[littlemarley]

Hey Ya'll,
I'm new here. I have a '98 Jetta TDI.

I removed my passenger side LCA (Lower Control Arm) to inspect it (from the previous owners suggestion, turned out it was the driver side) and now I am having a heck of a time getting the rear mounting bolt back in, I can't seem to get the hole to line up.

Any suggestions for lining up the hole?

Might as well throw one of these in here:

The original problem on the driver side was that someone had the same problem and cross threaded the bolt in, causing the internal nut to break loose from the frame. I fixed that (or at least think I did, can't test drive yet) by installing a grade 8 bolt/ nylock-nut after cutting out part of the interior foot well to gain access.

The car was given to me. It has 260,000, very little rust, a cd player and not blown out speakers.

Thanks,
Marley

 

[littlemarley]

Got. It.

Got It.

After much finangling I was able to get everything to line up much better by removing the tie rod from the "knuckle". The other problem was that the washer was collapsed, and so the bolt was bottoming out in the internal threads.

 

[meerschm]

it is always the last thing you try.

 

[tdi'd]

Hey Ya'll,
I'm new here. I have a '98 Jetta TDI.

I removed my passenger side LCA (Lower Control Arm) to inspect it (from the previous owners suggestion, turned out it was the driver side) and now I am having a heck of a time getting the rear mounting bolt back in, I can't seem to get the hole to line up.

Any suggestions for lining up the hole?

Might as well throw one of these in here:

The original problem on the driver side was that someone had the same problem and cross threaded the bolt in, causing the internal nut to break loose from the frame. I fixed that (or at least think I did, can't test drive yet) by installing a grade 8 bolt/ nylock-nut after cutting out part of the interior foot well to gain access.

The car was given to me. It has 260,000, very little rust, a cd player and not blown out speakers.

Thanks,
Marley

what size nut did you use?

 

[Lightflyer1]

4 year old thread. Probably done by now.