Spent the long weekend in a wrestle with the car, removing and then installing the coilovers. Can't say it went smoothly or exactly as planned but a bit of improvising and persistence has hopefully paid off. Rears were pretty straight forward and did not encounter many issues. The fronts are a totally different story. Quite easy to prepare the passenger side but the coilover does not want to part with the hub. Did use improvised spreaders and chisels to spread the strut housing then bashed it with a rubber mallet which did bugger all, then purchased a mallet which worked much better. Got the OE coilover out but then had to improvise again to get the OE bearing and strut top/mount off using a 21m sparkplug socket with the allen key through the middle turning the socket with a shifter.
Not so easy getting it back in again but a bit more bashing with the mallet slowly but surely got it in far enough to do the bolt up. The coupling rods that come with the Bilsteins were a lot shorter than the OE ones and after thinking about it I rotated the sway bar upwards and everything lined up then. Can't see a problem with this???
Drivers side just would not pop off and then I realised the driveshaft was preventing the hub from moving down to release the original strut. After reading the workshop manual they suggest removing the shaft from the hub but you needed a 36mm socket. Long story short after watching a bit of you tube, you can undo the shaft from the gearbox end with 6 M8 12 spline bolts. So did that and removed the hub out from the swivel joint and it popped out and went back in a lot easier than the passenger side.
The car sits noticeably lower now and maybe a bit too low on the front. The front wheels are a bit wonky (not lined up with each other) and the steering wheel is not centered when the wheels are "straight". Probably being stupid but I needed to do some food shopping which is a 5 min drive so took the polo out. Feels scary on the road and I am hoping this is all to do with the alignment (I know you need one after doing coilovers/ride height etc). Just praying I have not bent anything in the steering. There is also a clang noise coming from the rear springs when going over speed bumps/driveways. I have re-inspected the rears as I thought the springs may not be aligned with the metal stop that usually prevents springs spinning. I had a pretty good look and did not notice any stops in the bottom spring seat? Pretty sure they are installed the correct way up as the installation guide said the printed text on the springs should be upright.
Not sure how to rotate pictures?? Will get better pictures when I can drive somewhere nicer.
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