Seat leon cupra r exhaust downpipe fitting lcr1 2003

[Pepe975]

Hi,

There are a couple of threads on here about this but no real answers...
My LCR1 started blowing from the flexi joint on the exhaust downpipe so I bought an upgrade. After a significant amount of time with an angle grinder on the rushed remains of some bolts and a lot of messing around, I got the old one off in 2 pieces- it split at the flexi joint.
Unfortunately the fit is so tight that I can't get the new one in now! It gets stuck under the turbo!

Has anyone done this? How did you do it? I'm thinking either remove the turbo or drop the sub frame - but the steering rack is also attached to the subframe... Can anyone help please?

Thanks!

 

[Pepe975]

I did this today - I will post a "How to..."

 

[Pepe975]

You do need to remove the front subframe. The first stage to this is to remove the pinch bolt from the steering collumn, located under a cover behind the clutch pedal.

 

[Pepe975]

Next, remove the 2 balljoints from either wheelstation, as shown. (The car should be supported on the jacking points with the wheels removed).

 

[Pepe975]

Loosen off the 4x 21mm bolts shown by the pink arrows (these mount the subframe and can be fully removed once everything else has been removed). The bolts shown by the yellow arrows show the bolts holding the steering rack to the subframe - I removed these, but this may not be necessary.

 

[Pepe975]

Now remove this stabiliser from the gearbox... and you are ready to drop!

 

[Pepe975]

All done! You can now get the old downpipe out and the new downpipe in!
One thing I noticed is that one of the steering system pipes was touching the downpipe - I just loosened the union, levered it away and did the union back up. I'll have to keep an eye on it!

I hope this helps someone as I couldn't find anything to help me online! Thanks to Seat Middlesbrough, who gave me some decent advice down the phone.