Mk III Golf/Jetta coil overs (Rokkor/Raceland): rear strut mounting solution

[DON SVO]

Obviously to anyone who's done this or studied it, the rear coil over is by far the most difficult part of the install from a ride/handling/fitment perspective. 5 Minutes with a drill and straight rule fixes the fronts right up.

The rears are supposed to fit into a sleeve to give it a tighter fit, decrease noise and protect the threads of the coil over strut from getting mangled... the stock festy rear tower does not accept the MK III stock suspension set up. So I devised a solution.

First of all, get a dremel or a drill with a big bit on it. While the struts are out of the car, use the dremel/drill/whatever to open the hole thru the body in the festy where the strut rod passes through, and use the spacer sleeve provided with the coil overs to verify when it's the right size. Easy enough. Now then...

Here is the issue. Stock festy strut bushings will not fit when set up appropriately. You need to buy an OEM MK III Golf/Jetta rear strut bushing kit. There will be 2 different sized rubber bushings, put the lower bushing onto the coil over rod and hat (it'll fit pretty nice on the hat as well as the body mount under the strut tower) and lube it up some with dialectric grease. Install your coil overs (after grinding and grinding and grinding to make the bushings fit) into the rear axle beam, lower the car down and let the strut rod pass through the new hole.

So with the rod thru the chassis, you can now lube up the spacer sleeve for install. If you use the Raceland one, it's too long. USE THE OEM SPACER SLEEVE. The stock upper bushing doesn't have room to accomodate the Raceland sleeve.



The stock sleeve is perfect. It'll take a few wiggles and you might have to move the strut around until the speeve passes through the lower bushing. Then tighten vith a 14mm socket until the nut binds on the sleeve spacer and the strut rod rotates.

Next is the upper bushing... stock festy upper bushing cup is too small. Get some dikes/wire cutters/razor blade etc. and remove the 'fins' on the bottom side of the bushing.



There.



Once that has been done, lube up and install the upper bushing onto the rod. It will fit into the cup pretty close. Now, install the larger cupped/necked down washer provided with your OEM MK III parts kit and tighten with a 14mm socket until it binds and the strut rod rotates.



Voila! much less noisy and the ride quality was also improved.

Hope this helps someone!

[FestYboy]

any other installed pics? like from the outside?

[DON SVO]

any other installed pics? like from the outside?

Like ride height? No.

[jhli]

Did you stay with the springs that came with the kit or did you get a different rate? Whats the ride like in the springs you have. I drive 90 miles a day and would like my back to work when I get to work.

[Advancedynamix]

That info is also pertinent to the MK1 vw rear shocks, as this trick will work there too. Interested if you get a funny noise from the rear with the sleeve in there. I always use the Mazda bushings because they isolate the shock rod from the body with rubber (there is a little lip that fits snugly in the hole on the bottom bushings). If you don't get the stock bushings aligned right then the rear makes a knocking noise when hitting bumps or taking corners.

When I tried installing my MK3 rear shocks, the festiva had zero travel and lots of sag at my desired ride height. This is pretty much a worst case scenario for a FWD car, since ideally you want several inches of travel and nearly zero sag. They will work well on my lifted trail rig though!

[Movin]

Its been a long time since I have had these apart but the rear was easy, it was the front that took all kinds of adapting? I offset ground the rear to give more tire room on the bottom part, but the top part with VW mounting kit had to be compressed a little to get the rubber squeezed and the rubber hole filler in the hole. Could only get about two threads started then ran the nut to compress the rubber bushings. Something must be different.

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