Club 80-90 Forums

Hi all,

Its MOT time of the year for my van,

I found a lot of nasty holes in the right side rear trailing arm.

Today i removed the arm which was intresting.

I have two options open to me and would like a little advise please:

> option 1, take the offending arm i have just removed and have it repaired by a profesional welder that i trust to do a good job.

> option 2, get a traling arm of another van that does not have rust issues and fit on my van.

I am aware that cast suspension components can not be welded, but that the trailing arm is a welded component from new so proper repairs are ok. is this true?

both options will require me to purcahse new rubber bushes, how do i go about this?

I have done a search on the board and found the bush number to be 251-501-131A, costing £14 from vw. Do i just call my local VW dealer and ask them to get me in the bush?

Thanks for any help in advance,

Jon

Bush is still available. The arm will be getting thin all over, i would try and get a decent secondhand one.

try cj at
www.syncrospares.co.uk

or £457 from VAG

the main dealer will req. you to pay for the parts in full before they will order them in, and won't refund or exchange anything thats wrong, from my experience, but if you've got part no's you should be fine.

wasserleaker wrote:the main dealer will req. you to pay for the parts in full before they will order them in, and won't refund or exchange anything thats wrong, from my experience, but if you've got part no's you should be fine.

Goto a TPS centre they can't make you pay in advance.

technically you are not normally allowed to weld repair a stressed component like a suspension arm for mot. however in a lot of cases a repair can be made to be as strong or even stronger than original and if this is the case with your arm then a repair could be done safely.

i would recommend that the repair is either made invisible or to look like a modification then you should be ok with the mot.

lee.

got plenty here,cj.

Thanks all for the advise.

Due to the time of year i went for the rebuild option.

Firstly i removed the bush which as expected destroyed it. A desision was made to turn down a bit of stock to allow Range Rover bushes to be used, this mainly allowed somthing fot the repair to be welded to. also for these reasons,

a. they are split bushes unlike the orniginal VW ones
b. they are cheaper and more easily avaliable
c. they are pollyurithaie (spelling)
d. I had some!!!!!

After making all the plates out of 3mm sheet i got it all welded back together. I also replaced the mount the spring sits on as this was nackered as well.

The root of all the problems seem to be the lowered susspension, this extra low susspension i have allows crap and water etc to get into the inside of the trailing arm but not out again. Not a problem if you start of by cleaning and protecting the trailing arm, but the person who put the springs in (not me) didnt do this!

Thanks for every ones help.

If anyone would like to know about the Range Rover bushes set up send me a PM.

Many thanks!

Jon