Octavia front anti roll bar links

Any tips on changing these?  My 2014 tsi vrs has just failed it’s MOT on these.  Garage quote is 2x£36 parts, £102 labour,  plus vat. Which doesn’t seem unreasonable.  However skf parts from Autodoc are 2x£10 and their video shows it’s standard tools and a bolt at either end.   Hardest bit of the job will probably be getting the car on axle stands….and fitting a dirty rusty bolt or 4.

Just looking for reassurance before doing a job I’ve not done before I guess, so… anyone done it?

these things always get stuck on the threads..

top tips,, clean the threads with a steel wheel or brush, hit with penetrating fluid.

it’s likely the nut will turn the thread, so you’ll need to hold it in place, sometimes they have flats on the ball joint, sometimes an allen key hole, if the latter then you aren’t taking the nut off with a socket. Quality ratchet spanners are invaluable due to space and the potential need to hold it still

that being said, quickest way is to chuck a disc cutter through the nut

and have both wheels jacked up at the same time 😛 or the anti roll bar will do what anti roll bars do and make it very tricky to get the studs out/ in

Allen key according to the autodoc  video, and yep that also says brush and wd40.

Both wheels,  ta. I was thinking of doing that to stick axle stands under the 2 front jack points on the sill seam but hadn’t twigged it would be quite so  necessary, haha! Thank you.

Put it on stands the night before. Clean the threads with wire wool and anything else you have. Soak it with penetrating oil, WD40 if you have nothing better.
Go to bed.
Wake up and more penetrating oil.
Have coffee/breakfast/breakfast of champions.
Now try and remove the bolts.

Penetrating oil takes time to work, especially when you are in a rush

You are changing them. Just use a slitting disk on an angle grinder to cut them off. Cut the link first which will allow you to maneuver it to make getting the disc under the nut to cut it off easier. New one on, load of grease on threads, tighten and job done. Shouldn’t take only 10 minutes per side. If you buy the £10 ones just be aware you will be doing them again next year too (probably). But no big deal. I have been known to change them more than once a year on my T5, though I do live half way up a mountain at the end of a rough gravel track!

https://www.eurocarparts.com/p/normfest-super-crack-ultra-ice-rust-remover-400ml-nor28944421

Get a can of this.  I was amazed how much easier it made loosening some bastid-tight bolts on my Kuga’s suspension when I used it last weekend ( that otherwise weren’t budging with a 20″ long breaker bar)

Do we have the new Molgrips? If you’re doing it then do give us step by step photos

My father in law, god rest his soul, had a great expression:

stick to what you’re good at, pay other people to do what they’re good at

Its less than a couple of hundred quid to pay someone who’s done this job a hundred times and knows all the pitfalls and how to remedy them

Or you could very easily enter a world of pain that a YouTube video ain’t going to bail you out of

 

My old Civic used to eat through drop links. As others have said, they’re often seized and a pain to remove but they sometimes have an allen key fitting on the end of the bolt to help hold it whilst you loosen the nut but might be rusted.
Quality will affect price as well, Honda drop links used to be about £50 each Vs £15 for a pattern part but the Honda ones would last a lot longer.

I’d give it a go if I were you but have a saw/grinder at the ready on the assumption that’s how you’ll need to remove them. Fitting the new ones will then be easy.

On this, I agree with binners!

I’m sure its doable. I’m sure I could do it.

there’s no way I’d be doing this myself! Along with the time needed, potential downsides way bigger than max possible upside, there’s just no way.

Hope it goes easily!

If you only jack up one side of the car at a time it makes it much harder as the anti roll bar will be twisting.  If you have a second trolley jack you can get around it but its dead easy if you can lift the whole front end and get it onto stands.

Easy job. It’s only two nuts each side.

Then again I am a retired mechanic lol.

Btw WD 40 is not a penetrating oil, it’s for water displacement and that’s what the WD stands for. It’s also  very good at getting rid of sticky stuff.

Back on track, just do the job and stop overthinking it!

Yes I’ve two trolley jacks.  And a neighbour that’s a retired mechanic,  only he wasn’t in when I tried to ask him about it.

Right,  I’ll whip the wheels off, brush the threads and dquirt wd/gt85, leave for a cuppa then see if I can crack the nuts.   I’ll then decide if I order the parts as it seems rust/grime is basically the only issue.

As for which parts,  autodoc have pages and pages of different brands, all at very similar price.  I looked through expecting to find some at much more.   Skf was a brand recognise where as most of the others I didn’t.  The one with the most reviews, all positive,  was Ridell or Ridell plus for a pound or three more.  I’m just leary as I’ve not heard of it.

SKF is rebranded shite for a lot of things most other brands on Autodoc will be crap, some are occasionally better than OEM (Meyle HD) but Lemforder will be OEM and what I fit with good results on 3x cars. Just be aware Autodoc delivery is generally a week and a half to two weeks. Its the only downside to using them.

Free P&p is now @£150 otherwise £8.95. They automatically tick a box at checkout that adds £4 to the cost but means you get free returns for no questions asked (useful if there are multiple size/options for your car). Customer service is good but needed as they use Evri for UK side of delivery.

Its more than likely a torx rather than a hex key to hold the thread. If they are a few years old it will have rusted and be useless for stopping any rotation. A grinder / recip saw / hacksaw will probably come into play.

i always go for the German brands, febi bilstein, Meyle etc etc

Also, depending on the car, access etc, quite a lot of vehicles have a central jacking point, sometimes easier than jacking both sides independently, id never rely purely on a jack mind, always axle stands

Lemforder might have been one of the brands,  Meyle rings a bell too, great.

Like most modern cars, finding a suitable jacking point can be tricky.

Ah ha! Lemforder, £26.  Chosen…if I can crack the nuts.

Febi bilstein and meyle are both there and cheaper.

Put some Meyle HD on the front of my old van, took about an hour all in. Only used the breaker bar to get the last bolt into the ARB, had to lift a bit to take the last couple of mm of misalignment out! Everything else was big spanners, penetrating fluid and grunting.

Easy job generally, wouldnt hesitate myself BUT

Be prepared to be cutting them off – once you commit/start, there is a good chance that at least one of the connections will need gary grinder to persuade it off.

If they are the type that requires an allen or torx head in the centre – make doubly sure you clean it out with a pick or something sharp first, BEFORE pushing your allen bit/torx bit in – you need to make sure its all the way home as they round off very, very easily. And use good quality tools, not the freebie allen keys you use on your bike.

One final point, which I have seen many a first-time DIYer fail at when doing droplinks.

The Anti Roll Bar, and by extension, its links to the suspension – is a massive Spring. You MUST take the load off BOTH sides before you work on it.

If you attempt to change one side at a time by jacking the car on that side only, you are leaving a huge amount of stored energy in the anti roll bar and you’ll either get stuck unable to loosen the links (good result) or it will come off with a big noise and your fingers smashed to pieces/degloved/missing.

Please jack the whole front end of the car and put two axle stands under so both front wheels are hanging free.

not the freebie allen keys you use on your bike.

😀 All my freebie hex keys go to metal recycling…

As others have said, droplinks are a disposable part so give it a quick go getting them off with a wrench/ugga dugga gun and if they don’t shift just get brutal on them straight away. Don’t faff soaking them etc unless you can access them easily without jacking the car up and removing wheels and stuff. Even having getting brutal with them, it should only be an hour long driveway job…

Ok, I whipped a wheel off,  had a go on the nuts,  couldn’t budge the first so I’m booking it in to the garage.   Oh well.

Yeah – they are going to need some serious unwanging, somewhere between letting a little Tommy squeaker out to full shart grunting.

* Actual mechanical engineering terminology

Well that was bloody anticlimatic

Sorry Alan 🙂

Just once in my life have I ever had a droplink nut actually come undone all teh way (except when replacing arbs rather than droplinks). The correct tool is a die grinder/little angle grinder.

And that’s what the garage used.  Fair enough.