[T3] bushing for front control arm

[Jim Adney]

On 10 Apr 2011 at 18:30, Shari Hawkins wrote:

> I'm getting ready to get my '68 Notchback out again for the season, and I have a novice question for the group. Last autumn a mechanic told me I needed a "right front control arm bushing." When he had the car up, he grabbed the tire and showed me how he could jiggle the wheel. I had a really hard time finding a bushing, and the one part I could find ended up being the wrong size. 
> 
> Two questions:  
> 1)  Where can I find this part (if this is really even what I need)?
> 2)  Is it okay to drive short distances until I replace the part?

It seems likely that the first thing you need to replace is your 
mechanic. I don't think our cars have anything that could reasonably 
be called a control arm and there is no such thing as a control arm 
bushing on a Type 3.

There are a couple of possibilities for what he showed you. It could 
be a worn or out of adjustment wheel bearing. That would be the 
simplest.

Grab the top of either front tire and yank it sideways, back and 
forth rather hard. If you feel play go to the other side and see if 
it's the same on the other side. If it is, get a friend to do this 
while you lay on the ground and watch where the upper trailing arm 
comes out of the axle beam. Do you see it moving in and out as he 
yanks on the wheel. If you see it moving in and out more than a mm on 
both sides, then it's most likely that the upper torsion bar (the 
sway bar) has come loose. This is not too hard to fix. Do you have a 
Bentley manual?

It could also be one of the needle bearings inside the axle beam. 
This is the hardest to fix.

Let us know what you find and we can go from there.

It's okay to drive short distances with any of these problems, but 
you want to minimize it. Otherwise, you can turn an easy problem into 
a very difficult one.  

Once you figure out exactly what the problem is, someone here will 
probably have the part.

-- 
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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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