what have you done to your car today ?

[iammooks]

Right... So this was a welcome development - I got the long gearbox bolt out - and will you just look at it - clean as a whistle.

I do wonder just how clean a whistle is supposed be though.

So what are my next steps? Is it a bit much say, to get my cold chisel and try to prise the dogbone out from the back? I've been spraying penetrating lube into the recess where the snapped bolt is in the hope it releases it a little.

Failing that, is it just going to be a matter of buying a new subframe now that the dogbone is free from the gearbox and putting that in?

Current subframe looks like this:

At the moment, the garage has quoted me £160 to drill out the dogbone and install a new one, but I can get a subframe from a breaker for less than that. I'm guessing all the subframes are the same? I have a 1.9tdi FR 150, and don't want to buy say, a Cupra R one and find it doesn't fit.

Oh, and the driver side ball joint came out too when I got a jack under it. Offside is still stuck solid, but I'm just spraying it with penetrating lube and hitting it from underneath with a lump hammer and brushing the threads.


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[Thai-wronghorse]

Right... So this was a welcome development - I got the long gearbox bolt out - and will you just look at it - clean as a whistle.

I do wonder just how clean a whistle is supposed be though.

So what are my next steps? Is it a bit much say, to get my cold chisel and try to prise the dogbone out from the back? I've been spraying penetrating lube into the recess where the snapped bolt is in the hope it releases it a little.

Failing that, is it just going to be a matter of buying a new subframe now that the dogbone is free from the gearbox and putting that in?

Current subframe looks like this:

At the moment, the garage has quoted me £160 to drill out the dogbone and install a new one, but I can get a subframe from a breaker for less than that. I'm guessing all the subframes are the same? I have a 1.9tdi FR 150, and don't want to buy say, a Cupra R one and find it doesn't fit.

Oh, and the driver side ball joint came out too when I got a jack under it. Offside is still stuck solid, but I'm just spraying it with penetrating lube and hitting it from underneath with a lump hammer and brushing the threads.


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Without trawling back through this thread bring me back up to speed on what you're trying to do?

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[Sl1ced]

Without trawling back through this thread bring me back up to speed on what you're trying to do?

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Change his dogbone


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[Rich.T]

The ball joint.
Youve put that you have been hitting it from underneath?
This is where you should be hitting it.
Not trying to teach you to suck eggs. I may have read your post wrong.

Rich

 

[iammooks]

Without trawling back through this thread bring me back up to speed on what you're trying to do?

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1 dogbone bolt snapped while trying to replace the dogbone bushes. Seems maybe the bolt is fused to the dogbone. All the other bolts have now come out. Garage has quoted £160 to drill out the dogbone and retap the thread. I don't want to pay that much when I can get a subframe from a breaker rather than faffing about drilling.

 

[iammooks]

The ball joint.
Youve put that you have been hitting it from underneath?
This is where you should be hitting it.
Not trying to teach you to suck eggs. I may have read your post wrong.

Rich

View attachment 22997

Yeah - you read right actually - I was doing it wrong. That's the same technique as for the tie rods, isn't it?

I'll try again in the morning - the right way. In the meantime I've just sprayed it again with penetrating lube. There's a lot of much that seems to be coming out of it when I spray, so it seems something is happening.

 

[Thai-wronghorse]

1 dogbone bolt snapped while trying to replace the dogbone bushes. Seems maybe the bolt is fused to the dogbone. All the other bolts have now come out. Garage has quoted £160 to drill out the dogbone and retap the thread. I don't want to pay that much when I can get a subframe from a breaker rather than faffing about drilling.

Ok in that case sod paying someone to do it as this is something I encounter very frequently due to galvanic corrosion that accurs between the steel bolts and aluminium dogbone mount.
Basically the bolts swells up inside the mount so when you go to undo it shears off.
Going by what's been said above you've got all the bolts out except one sheared bolt into the subframe?
What I'd do now is prise it away from the subframe.
Be brutal with it, it may help to drill the bolt as much at least half the depth of the dogbone.
Even if it veers off down the side if the bolt it will still help you to release the bolt from inside it.
Eventually it'll give way and 9 times out of the 10 the remainder of the bolt left threaded into the subframe will simply wind out with a pair of molegrips easily.

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[Thai-wronghorse]

Also worth noting is that all if the mk1 Leon, mk2 Toledo, mk4 Golf, Bora, S3 / A3 etc etc subframes are the same.
The only piece that differs on the Cupra R and S3 8L is the stiffening brace which is simply bolted on so these subframes will have an extra 2 nutserts underneath.

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[Rich.T]

Is the stiffening brace just a straight bar?
Havnt got one on mine. Will have a look sometime to see if ive got the nutserts.

 

[iammooks]

Ok in that case sod paying someone to do it as this is something I encounter very frequently due to galvanic corrosion that accurs between the steel bolts and aluminium dogbone mount.
Basically the bolts swells up inside the mount so when you go to undo it shears off.
Going by what's been said above you've got all the bolts out except one sheared bolt into the subframe?
What I'd do now is prise it away from the subframe.
Be brutal with it, it may help to drill the bolt as much at least half the depth of the dogbone.
Even if it veers off down the side if the bolt it will still help you to release the bolt from inside it.
Eventually it'll give way and 9 times out of the 10 the remainder of the bolt left threaded into the subframe will simply wind out with a pair of molegrips easily.

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Yes - all bolts are out except the right-hand 13mm one in the subframe.

This all sounds perfect. My drill is at the girlfriend's house, but I can go up there tomorrow and pick that up, as well as the cold chisel. I've got a new dogbone on order, so I've got a fresh one to go in on Thursday or Friday. I've got drill bits that are probably big enough to fill most of or the whole of the hole, so with any luck it'll stay fairly straight.

The 13mm subframe bolt on the left-hand side came out super easily, so I get the impression on the right side, the corrosion wasn't that deep, but enough that the head came off the bolt straight away.

Thanks so much to everyone for their help and patience today. For me right now, it's all very real and given it's the first time something this bad has happened, it just sucks, plain and simple. Really happy to see there might be a way out. Massive relief that I might even get this done for the price of a new dogbone and maybe a couple of drillbits.

 

[Sl1ced]

Yes - all bolts are out except the right-hand 13mm one in the subframe.

This all sounds perfect. My drill is at the girlfriend's house, but I can go up there tomorrow and pick that up, as well as the cold chisel. I've got a new dogbone on order, so I've got a fresh one to go in on Thursday or Friday. I've got drill bits that are probably big enough to fill most of or the whole of the hole, so with any luck it'll stay fairly straight.

The 13mm subframe bolt on the left-hand side came out super easily, so I get the impression on the right side, the corrosion wasn't that deep, but enough that the head came off the bolt straight away.

Thanks so much to everyone for their help and patience today. For me right now, it's all very real and given it's the first time something this bad has happened, it just sucks, plain and simple. Really happy to see there might be a way out. Massive relief that I might even get this done for the price of a new dogbone and maybe a couple of drillbits.

There’s always a fix when you take your time and mull it over matey. If something goes wrong for me I walk away for a day or so. Fresh head will always help


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[Connor H]

There’s always a fix when you take your time and mull it over matey. If something goes wrong for me I walk away for a day or so. Fresh head will always help


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I walk away and go research the tool i need to fix my f*ck up lol

 

[Thai-wronghorse]

Is the stiffening brace just a straight bar?
Havnt got one on mine. Will have a look sometime to see if ive got the nutserts.

Yes mate, I've got a spare here if you're interested?

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[Thai-wronghorse]

As seen here

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[Rich.T]

Let me check ive got the holes 1st.
I know i should have them but you never know.
Does it make any difference or is it a bit like the K brace in my boot lol?
Am interested

 

[iammooks]

There’s always a fix when you take your time and mull it over matey. If something goes wrong for me I walk away for a day or so. Fresh head will always help


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On Sunday, when I thought I'd snapped the front control arm bolt, I just went for a walk and came back to it later. Decided if it was snapped, it's not going to be any less snapped if I stuck a breaker bar on it. Turned out it wasn't snapped after all. Maybe even walking away gave the penetrating lube some extra time to soak in, and it could have actually snapped if I'd just carried on trying to undo it. Now that's a mindfuck... Same with the gearbox bolt today - I thought that if the bolt snapped, there'd probably be enough of the thread left to get some vice grips on it and wind it out, and at least I'd know one way or the other - if it's ******, better make sure it's really ******, eh?

Worst thing is when it's something I didn't need to do. When my ARB wishbone bolt snapped, I didn't have to be changing my ARB bushes (even though they were shagged), so I was more upset at the fact that before I snapped it, I had a perfectly driveable car, and it was something I did that put an end to that. Same with the dogbone. In truth, now I've got the gearbox bolt out and given it a wiggle, it's in really bad shape, so it did need changing, just that it would have been OK if I hadn't done anything.

Really glad I got the ball joint out though - it's super loose and easy to move, so that just gives me more of a reason to get the other side out now. Who knows, I might even be able to drop the girlfriend off for her Covid jab after all...

 

[MoToJoJo]

1 dogbone bolt snapped while trying to replace the dogbone bushes. Seems maybe the bolt is fused to the dogbone. All the other bolts have now come out. Garage has quoted £160 to drill out the dogbone and retap the thread. I don't want to pay that much when I can get a subframe from a breaker rather than faffing about drilling.

£160?!? Ffff...anks but no thanks. Think my new subframe, bolts n polybushed dogbone was a little less than that

 

[iammooks]

£160?!? Ffff...anks but no thanks. Think my new subframe, bolts n polybushed dogbone was a little less than that

Yup - at the time I was so annoyed at snapping the bolt I almost just went with it, but when I got home and remembered I could get a new subframe for way less than that, posted, it hardly seemed the effort. Much better to spend that money on a clutch or put it towards a map than to pay a garage to do it - and I just know they would over-torque the 13mm bolts as well. I'd have to be watching over his shoulder the whole time to make sure he wasn't using the rattle gun on everything.

It's a weird garage - you'd think he'd enjoy the work, but when I asked him a while back about polybushing the control arms he was just like "you can't take the bushes out - they're bonded in - so just put new arms in." He even said if I could get the bushes out of my control arms, he'd give me a job. Took me an hour. Even today when I told him I was putting polybushes in the dogbone, he seemed really confused - "you don't change the bushes - you just put a new dogbone in." Take my car for a drive this weekend and tell me polybushes don't make a difference...

 

[MoToJoJo]

Yup - at the time I was so annoyed at snapping the bolt I almost just went with it, but when I got home and remembered I could get a new subframe for way less than that, posted, it hardly seemed the effort. Much better to spend that money on a clutch or put it towards a map than to pay a garage to do it - and I just know they would over-torque the 13mm bolts as well. I'd have to be watching over his shoulder the whole time to make sure he wasn't using the rattle gun on everything.

It's a weird garage - you'd think he'd enjoy the work, but when I asked him a while back about polybushing the control arms he was just like "you can't take the bushes out - they're bonded in - so just put new arms in." He even said if I could get the bushes out of my control arms, he'd give me a job. Took me an hour. Even today when I told him I was putting polybushes in the dogbone, he seemed really confused - "you don't change the bushes - you just put a new dogbone in." Take my car for a drive this weekend and tell me polybushes don't make a difference...

.... yeah, sounds like the kinda garage that 'encouraged' me to learn to spanner on my own vehicles

 

[Yellow fr]

Yup - at the time I was so annoyed at snapping the bolt I almost just went with it, but when I got home and remembered I could get a new subframe for way less than that, posted, it hardly seemed the effort. Much better to spend that money on a clutch or put it towards a map than to pay a garage to do it - and I just know they would over-torque the 13mm bolts as well. I'd have to be watching over his shoulder the whole time to make sure he wasn't using the rattle gun on everything.

It's a weird garage - you'd think he'd enjoy the work, but when I asked him a while back about polybushing the control arms he was just like "you can't take the bushes out - they're bonded in - so just put new arms in." He even said if I could get the bushes out of my control arms, he'd give me a job. Took me an hour. Even today when I told him I was putting polybushes in the dogbone, he seemed really confused - "you don't change the bushes - you just put a new dogbone in." Take my car for a drive this weekend and tell me polybushes don't make a difference...

Wow
We do this all the time even fit aftermarket Performace parts for customers


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