My Mk1 has been suffering from a terrible squeaking noise recently. I tracked this down to the offside drop link and replaced it.
All was well for a few days before the squeak returned worse than ever. I had a look underneath and something doesn’t look right, see pic below.
It looks like the offside drop link (left in pic) is at a much steeper angle than the nearside. It also looks like the drop link doesn’t line up very well with the anti roll bar. The question is - could my anti roll bar be bent? or is it possible that it has somehow slipped sideways?
Could have slipped sideways, I suppose. The method by which the ARB is located laterally is not very sophisticated and if your ARB mounting bushes are anything like mine they are probably past their best - you can see daylight between the ARB and the mounting bush on my car. The mounting bushes are not expensive so if they look less than perfect it might be worth considering replacing them with new ones.
Yes, that doesn’t look right. It is possible that the ARB has slipped some; as I recall, there are white paint marks on the ARB where they line up with the bushes/mounts. Maybe loosen off the links and ARB mounts and realign.
Just spent some time under the five. Took the anti roll bar and drop links off and reassembled everything. It all looks like its all aligned now. The ARB bushes didn’t look too bad so I didn’t bother replacing them…
One thing I did notice was that the nearside drop link (the one I hadn’t replaced yet) was bent, see pic below. This might have had something to do with it. I’ve got a new one on both sides now.
On the downside I’ve still got my bl00dy annoying sqeak. I think it might be the bottom shock bush, I can’t really see it, but if I get my finger in there it feels like it’s split. That’ll be next weekends job then…
