Changing hubs, for bigger brakes

brad1

Guest
Hi all

I am putting bigger brakes on my car soon as i have 281mm standard and the carrier is joined to the hub, so ive got to change the hubs to one which have a removable carrier and caliper. I already have hubs, carriers and calipers from a cupra 20vt. The question is this, how long will it take me to do. How easy is it to do, anyone done it. Any advice need would be very helpful
Cheers
 

jwfcms

Active Member
Sep 14, 2008
384
1
UK Yorkshire
to change the hub you need to remove the suspension leg from the hub, unbolt the bolt which goes through the hub to hold the leg in place, then wd40 around where it goes into the hub. the easiest way to do this is a good heavy hammer and smack the hub downwards to pull it out of the suspension leg.

Next is the track rod end which is one bolt, but can be a pain and spin, so you may need to get a big bar and put some weight onto it to stop it spining, or an air gun would impact it round and be better but can easily be done with a ratchet and socket.

bottom ball joint is 3x 13mm bolts onto the bottom arm, easy enough to do just undo them. then the ball joint goes into the hub and bolts through, if you want to remove this aswell you will have to remove that bolt and then get a ball joint splitter tool and hammer that into the gap so it seperates it and pulls it out of the hole in the hub they can get really tight in there over the years and being bolted in for so long with weight on them.

the caliper/carrier brake lines should be straight forward enough, caliper is normally two hex/allen headed bolts and then it just comes off, as you say your carrier is part of the hub.

the driveshaft nut is a 30 or 32mm need a big breaker bar to remove this or a air impact gun, and makre sure you re tighten it properly to the correct torque or you can normally feel when its getting pretty tight. if you are doing this with a breaker bar then you would be better doing this first and you could put a screwdriver or some sort of tool inbetween the vents on the brake disc and up against the caliper to stop the drive shaft from turning when you try and undo the nut.

you might need a copper hammer to hammer the shaft out of the hub, but dont use a normal hammer you will damage the thread and wont be able to put the nut back on.
 

brad1

Guest
Is it as easy as this, anything else i should watch out for. Also, where the brake fluid line connects to my existing caliper, is it the same fitment on the new caliper?? How long should it take to get all this done??

Cheers
 

Willie

LCR Track car
Aug 6, 2004
8,939
1
Sunny Scotland
Theres a big thread on UK MK1v's about changing the whole fron sub frame, steering rack, wish bones and hubs to the MK4 R32 ones to get better geometry and a quicker steering rack. This could allow you to use 323mm LCR discs:)
 

brad1

Guest
Cheers mate, ill have a look

Btw one last thing, ive mislaid, there are two bolts which hold the carrier to hub, what is the part number for these or what is the size? Will my local tps stock them??