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Mild evening, changed the oil while it was nice out.
I double checked the suspension on the 03 Aero:
The wheel hubs are aluminum since the 2002 redesign to take weight out for the diesel engine. The hub mounts to the strut with two heavy bolts that clamp the steel flanges on the strut tube to the wheel hub. So thats where you get camber adjustment. And the lower ball joint mounts to the control arm with three studs and nuts. From looking at it it might not have any play in that like the Passat. Anyways, the camber is easy to adjust. And if the bolts do not have enough play to get to the angle that is needed, thinner bolts can be used or cam bolts. But if you are close to what you need, you can file a bit of metal off of the inside of the steel strut flange holes on the side required with a rat tail file or with a die grinder. For minor changes this is best, as the cam bolts are much weaker than the stock bolts. As the holes are very close together, small changes will bring abount the change required. And the alignment shops really really charge a lot for those trick cam bolts.
When the hub went from steel to aluminum, a welded strut tube and hub were no longer possible. So what does this mean? With the new design, replacement struts of this type are very easy to install, I mean really easy and fast. But your camber will be totally bogus after this work. With the integral tube and replacement cartidge, changing the strut cartridge is major work, but your alignement is not affected afterwards.
You can get special levels to help you get it right. But if the shock you are putting in is not identical, the suspension may hang down lower and the 'as hanging' angle will be useless for restoring the camber. There are ways to get it right at home, but the issues are too vast to post.
If you have a 2002+ model, the next time that you have the wheels off, put some oil on the exposed threads and nut to flange interfaces to facilate future work. After a few years of water and salt these could be a mess. Note that the 2002+ camber adjusted by moving a slack boltup joint. Nothing holds the adjustment other than friction. A severe impact could move this bolted joint and that would change the camber. And when camber changes, toe-in is changed too.
posted by 66.139.120...
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