CTi antiroll bar removal; subrame bolts?

[lagonda 41]

Took the steering rack off to replace a track rod and discovered a straightforward job! Discoonecting the column joint to the rack! What went wrong there?!

 

Anyway, I thought I'd start from first principles to resolve steering issues and ensure everything is "right". Not much left in the way of removing the ARB, so thought I'd do that ...bought new bearing bushes for it years ago so might as well fit them.

 

 Problem! It looks like the gits at Peugeot bolted the ARB tp the subframe before mounting the subframe. Basically, the body is in the way, preventing the bearing clamps being removed. They have studs welded ... why not just removeable bolts? Then it would free easily! I thought I'd try lowering the subframe by loosening the 2 adjacent bolts, and the one behind the suspension spring. In the end I removed the 2 bolts ... still not enough movement. Figured I'd need to loosen the nearside ones as well. No luck, they won't move, even with an 18" breaker bar.

 

  Where do I go from here, is there some trick I'm missing? I really don't want to risk breaking one of the subframe bolts ... are they likely to free with even more leverage, or is breakage likely?

[welshpug 1,644]

Try a 600mm breaker bar.   The nuts are accessible under the carpet if they do break, probably just tight from being done up properly 30+ years ago

[Tom Fenton 1,536]

They usually come undone. If they really are that tight I'd get the carpet up and get some heat and soaking oil on them from inside the car rather than shear them off.

[lagonda 41]

Thanks chaps, that's good to hear. I was worried there was some captive nut arrangement within a closed cavity in the shell .. so a huge relief to hear I should find access under the carpet. On the plus side.I'm sure I loosened and retightened all these bolts 2006/2007 to check positioning of the subframe. But that was many years ago!

 

They might be great cars but too much of the engineering/design is just crap. Peugeot must have been aware of this problem pretty much from day one, but chose to leave it. Could have been so easily resolved by welding nuts to be bearing clamps and having bolts screwing in from underneath. Gits.

[Tom Fenton 1,536]

They are captive cage nuts but accessable inside. But far easier not to start shearing stuff off.

Some cars have alloy roll bar housings that are bolted from underneath. But its not the end of the world to lower the subframe, its 10 min work after all. Compared to some modern cars with the amount of stuff you have to dismantle for access to certain bits, this is the least of your worries.

[lagonda 41]

Thanks again, one off, one to go ... plenty of heat needed but once undone, threads are fine. Don't know how this are got damp, perhaps I need to hose the underside more carefully, or possibly a leak from the area under the grille where the wiper motor sits.

 

I've found my new ARB bearings, which are part 5094.40 (car is a 1.6 CTi), and are a flexible blue material.

 

More urgently, do I grease . lubricate these ARB bearings?

[welshpug 1,644]

Only a little silicone or rubber to aid fitting.

 

Being a cti/base model arrangement you may find loosening the clamp to the locator rod helps, make sure the bar is central, and have the wheel alignment checked afterwards as the lateral location affects the location of the lower arm for and aft in the arch.

[lagonda 41]

Hi,

 

  Thanks, that's great, got some silicone grease so I'll use that.

 

  The guide rod that goes to that clamp is bent, so one of the reasons for this job is removing that to straighten it. The other aim is to set the steering from first principles. There seems to be no precise location of the ARB, other than that 330mm measurement for the guide rod setting, which itself depends rather vaguely on just where one has positioned that clamp on the kink in the ARB, and even where the loop in the guide rod actuall sits in the clamp.

 

  The steering rack has precisely 4 turns lock to lock dismantled, but with track rod fitted, that reduces to 3.75 turns, so I've set the rack at 1.875 turns and aim to work from there.

 

  Thinking about it, the ARB enters the lower suspension arms at quite an angle ... so I suspect once its nuts are tightened up there, that will force the setting of the ARB in its bearings. I'll be a happy bunny if that coincides with getting the 330mm setting!

[lagonda 41]

Job done, at last. The steering wheel ended up about an eighth of a turn off dead level. I checked the wheel positions lock to lock once I'd roughly set the tracking, taking care to ensure the TREs were moved equally. The wheel positions on full locks were identical ... thus I knew someone had incorrectly assembled the steering prior to my ownership. So, a pleasure to correct that and end up fitting the steering wheel back where the factory would have mounted it.

 

The ARB guide rod measurement, as I suspected, more or less set itself. It was 1mm out, so just loosening the clamp and tapping it along the ARB slightly, soon achieved the 330mm setting.