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On 21 Nov 2003 at 23:53, Yancy Everhart wrote: > I removed the torsion arms and sway bar only to find the needles in the > bearing broken in half! Wow, those look pretty bad. I've never seen needles broken like that, but the center part between bearings looks rusty. Someone left this front end without grease for a long time. I assume that was before you. This is a good lesson for everyone to keep grease in their front axle beam. I'm afraid that a lot of these die simply because mechanics don't notice the 2 upper Zerk fittings. Every type 3 has FOUR (4!) grease fittings on the front axle. The spacing between inner and outer bearings changed at some point in the early history. The inner bearing is a metal sleeve bearing set in a fiber ring. The fiber ring was not supposed to be replacable. I don't even think I've managed to save any of them from axles I've parted out. I probably have a sleeve bearing, however. Early and late upper swing arms are different because of the different spacing between bearings, but I've heard of people repositioning the fiber and metal sleeves in order to replace these arms. I MAY have a good late arm. Most of the servicing of this is covered very nicely in the Bentley manual, including the dimensions for the driver to install the bearings. -- ******************************* Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, Wisconsin, USA ******************************* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org