Front Suspension R & R (and left rear)

[cc]

Following a vehicle inspection (before re registration) where the play in the right lower wishbone ball joint and the hinge in the left upper wishbone were demonstrated, very loosey! have started disassembling the right front suspension before ordering, in case other parts were needed!
Had a read through this and other forums on the ins and outs and the right hand side broke down ok.
No Bolts frozen in and the lower wishbone came out without loosening the sway bar bolts as recommended on other forums.
Haven't separated the ball joint on the steering tie rod (one less thing to do and it feels ok, see pic.) So the hub is sitting on a block attached to the vehicle by the drive shaft and the steering rod only. Have tried not to over extend the cv joint during the work.
The strut initially wouldn't separate from its socket in the lower fork.
After leaving overnight (time for the unclamped Al casting to relax?) and jiggling the strut while removing the upper Aluminium wish bone and mount. The strut came out a few mm and subsequently removed easily.
The four bolts securing the lower wishbone required some effort.
Some curiosities/interests so far are. The spring is a red eibach spring, but the lhs looks original has a black spring with a spot of green paint  and a spot of white paint on the coil.??
Old work scratches on the inside of the Aluminium lower fork may indicate this isnt the first time the suspensions been worked on.
The upper wishbone is made by TRW. Bushes are a little squeaky but still tight. The bolt isnt a tight fit tho, not floggged out or loose, just slightly free. Should it be super snug?
Will probably replace  the upper and lower rubber bushes that seat the spring as they are cracked. Not perished tho.
Am thinking on greasing the wheel bearing. Or is it a sealed unit.? Will re grease the CV joint when the current gaiters perish.
The lower steel wishbone only has the fiat makers mark.
Once some cleaning is done its nice to see how good it all looks, no weathering/rusting as seen on the European forums.
Now onto the left hand side.
Having done it once, its a 2-3 hour job per side. Depending on the strut coming out of its lower socket..
Caravelle imports in Melbourne are now supplying Alfa parts along with the Peugeot bits and have been competitive on price.
Will keep this thread updated with progress.

[colcol]

If the bushes are noisy or are knocking in the top arm, put in a new control arm as its not that much cheaper to replace the bushes on their own, and with a new arm, you get one thats not bent and has a new ball joint.
The top arm bolts are available, while it is out replace them as well, and compare the old bolt with the new bolt in the new control arm and see how worn the old one is.
TRW make the control arms for Alfa Romeo, the Genuine arms have the Alfa Romeo logo and TRW, the Non Genuine, but Genuine TRW arms have the Alfa Romeo logo ground off, but the TRW logo showing.
Don't be tempted by cheap control arms off ebay, you will do all that work and the will start rattling a few months later.
The wheel bearing is a sealed unit and is replaced as an assembly.
Thats better than Suds and 33's which need special tools to replace wheel bearing, on a 156, you undo the old one and replace it, Colin.

[Craig_m67]

You have to remove (press out) the hub/flange from the bearing first to get to the four allen headed bolts holding the bearing case to the front upright. To take the hub/flange out you need to remove the CV joint.  It's easier with the whole upright off the car. You will need a press for the hub/flange.

I've got one (156 front wheel bearing) here in pieces of anybody needs pictures. It's a sealed unit and doesn't require any greasing/maintenance.

[cc]

thanks guys, will leave the wheel bearing well alone i think for the time being! Am interested to see what the bearing look like!
attached pic shows remnant of the removed makers mark (next to thumb nail) from the TRW upper wishbone that was in the car.
So it looks like this w/bone wasn't original with the car. The left upper w/bone is flogged out, so will be interesting if it turns out to be the one that came with the car when new.
The front bush of the right lower wishbone has some play in it that wasn't known about before the removal. Along with the ball joint that was quite loose and has about 5mm free play in it.
The mechanic who did the inspection commented that he sees a lot of cars whose left hand side suspension has worn out first as its on the side of the road with the most potholes.
The left rear radius arms bushes are also worn..
Have updated this post with a pic showing what was probably factory original upper wishbone with the makers mark intact. They do a very clean job of taking off the mark for sale thru an aftermarket and non Alfa dealer.

[cc]

might stop working on the lhs tonight after knocking off paint!! on  the panel while trying to split the upper wishbone ball joint off the arm it attaches to on the hub. Noticed a curious thing that the strut and the arm in front of it arent parallel. See pic. Once the upper wishbone is replaced will post another pic. The lack of parallel may be due to the bushes been worn in the upper bushes.
Dont need to remove the lower wishbone on the lhs. May still do it to check the lower bushes (ball joint ok), as any wear on the bushes on the lower w/bone may lead to excessive movement and side load on the bushes on the new replacement upper wishbone.

[cc]

The LHS suspension showed a lot of play in the hinge of the upper wishbone;1/2 cm.
Once out of the car it didnt seem much different to the rhs, with only a mm or 2 when using the bolt as a lever in one end.
It is showing the makers mark (will update previous post with pic of upper w/b with makers mark removed at factory) and so may have been in the car since new 2002. It had a dot of pink paint on the underside near the ball joint.

      Unlike the rhs the ball joint didn't want to separate from the arm coming off the hub. Using a 'pickle fork' tool with a hammer didn't work. A 38mm repco tie rod separator works with no fuss(or paint chips) just a close fit and it pops apart the ball joint from the w/bone.The pickle fork gouged the Aluminium and tore the rubber boot. Once it was off its ball joint via the separator, dropping the strut and spring enough to remove the upper wishbone with its mount was a lot of jiggling. The strut and spring has to come down relative to the upper Aluminium mount enough to slip its bolts down and out of the Aluminium mount. Once the bolts are clear another 10 seconds of maneuvering and the upper wishbone is out. Leaning the strut to the front of the car while taking the w/bone out helps. Unfortunately the jiggling scratches the inside leg of the Aluminium fork the strut sits in. To avoid this taping up the leg will help.

   The lower wishbone is still in the car as i haven't been able to separate its lower ball joint without the strut in place! which gives something to push against. So will re position the strut, without the upper w/bone, to push out the lower ball joint.
Was curious on how worn if at all the bushes are in this lower w/bone as they weren't identified as worn.Turns out, by flexing it in situ, the rear (and larger) of the bushes is as sloppy as the rear bush on the rhs lower wishbone. Which makes sense as it will get a lot of force when hitting a bump in the road, Also the fact its significantly beefier than the front bush implys it takes more load and wear.
This looseness would also translate into more side force and flex in the upper w/bone bushes. So maybe the upper w/bone wasn't the issue. Hard to know without having a new one on hand to compare. Will have to replace anyway due to pickle fork damage.
This lhs hub was cleaner than the rhs which had a build up of old grease on the tin plate backing the hub. Wonder if the rhs wheel bearing is on the way out.

Am replacing the mounting rubbers in the struts so have to buy a 17mm offset spanner to remove the nut holding the backing plate down and the spring in compression. Torqueing it back down will be by feel!

Once the springs are off the struts will be interested to see if the springs are the same height.


Am fitting either TRW or FRAP suspension arms. The comment on frap on forums is positive. Has anyone any experience of them?
They are made in Bruino near Torino Italy. They're 15% cheaper than TRW. Both use BOGE rubber bushes in the upper arm. From whats on forums (http://ricambi.alfisti.net/index.php?cat=c1511_Front-axle.html) the diameter of the shaft to the bushes of the lower w/bone is smaller in the non genuine part. Not comfortable with the frap not being identical to original so maybe trw.

[cc]

Didnt expect that! After separating the lhs coil from its strut, the coil is a longer and slightly less thick coil than the Eibach that was on the rhs. See pic. From left is the Eibach, then the lhs 156 original? and the 2 springs on the right are from Ran's 147 GTA advertised on the sell/swop section that i was hoping could be used on the 156. The 147 GTA original  springs are shorter than the 156 original.
Was hoping the 147 would be ok as it shares running gear with the 156, is a V6 and has a similar weight. Not to be.
Will probably order a complete set of wishbones from the alfaworkshop in the UK tomorrow. For $600 or 300 pounds. Freight was dropped from 90 to 80 pounds after asking.
After checking on eper using the car's vin number, there are 3 options for the spring, an eibach, Rejina or a no name.

Could someone please confirm which is the original front spring in the 2002 Monza; Is it the spring with a dot of green and a dot of, off white paint on the coil. Need to source a replacement for one of them..

Wonder if it was a slip up on the assembly line "Hey Mario we've run out of Eibach springs. Dont worry Giovanni use what evers handy"
The soft rubber upper spring seat and lower clear plastic sleeve at the other end of the Eibach are flogged out so its either been on a long time or the odd spring has worn out the seats.
Monza's I've read somewhere have factory lowered suspension, so maybe the shorter Eibach is original.

[cc]

after some late night research there may be a plausible reason for the dissimilar front springs.

Going to the Boge web site (https://webcat.zf.com/index.asp?SPR=4)
a comparison shows that the front shock absorbers are the same for the 156 V6 and the 147 GTA.
Boge part number: 36 H090.
The serial numbers stamped into the shocks have different fiat part numbers, altho there is a serial; B773 common to both.
This is handy as the shocks from Ran are a little noisy (140,000km) but still better than whats on the 156 (207,000km).
The Sachs spring for the  V6 156 auto listed on webcat.zf.com has a spring height of 417mm. Which is close to the height of the non eibach spring on the lhs; about 400mm.
Also the shock absorber on the lhs is less worn (newer) than the one with the eibach on the rhs which looks original.
So perhaps if/when the lhs spring and strut were replaced the mechanic put in the non monza standard spring. Being either unable to buy a single Eibach spring or easier to get the standard spring (but why would he replace the Eibach spring?). So, will probably replace the Eibach spring with another 417mm spring to get better clearance at the front of the vehicle. The shorter 147 spring incidentally isn't available with Sachs.
When looking at the car when it wasn't in pieces, the different spring heights couldn't be picked it just looked low.
Have since checked with an alfa dealer and the original Eibach is no longer available and the replacement thru Alfa is ex Italy. Which may be why they didnt replace with another Eibach.

[cc]

while waiting for the control arms, wishbones & rear arm to arrive from the UK. Have added pics of the upper Aluminium casting that the top wishbone/control arm hinges off, the rubber bush that sits between the  top casting and the round steel retaining plate that holds the bush in place. The Al casting has almost had the sand casting texture worn/polished off by the bush. See pic top casting up view 2 (5 cents for scale).

The rubber bush hasn't worn too much in contact with the top casting. Maybe 0.5mm of play, maybe because the upper bearing surface has a greater area than where the bush sits in the lower steel retaining plate.The pic of the rubber bush between plate and top casting shows the 3 parts in position but not pushed home.

The pic of the retaining plate looking down, shows the much smaller curved lip and its surface area under the edge of the 5 cents that the bush sits in. Its this curved lip that causes the most wear in the bush. About 2mm side to side. Its not a good pic but the max and min sideways movement due to wear? in the plate isshown by the 2 curved pencil lines in the top right of the pic; retaining plate looking down. There is no wear on the steel retaining plate here, not even the paint worn. I've added another post to attach more pic's..

[cc]

The pic of the rubber bush with wear groove shows wear by the curved lip of the steel lower retaining plate.The pic of the retaining  plate showing wear from the dust cap has the deepest wear groove in the metal of the upper assembly photographed.It feels 0.5mm? deep. Altho this may be just the original depth of  steel pressing and the dust cap has just taken the paint off.
Something else noticed is the quality of what is factory original for the steel retaining plate. With part no A893 quality is a little better, smaller more precise welds attaching the bolts (marked AVR 8.8 on the head) than the other plate with rougher welds without the part no A893 and AL 8.8 on the bolt heads.

The rubber doesn't seem to have perished or hardened.
Dont know if the 2 bolts of the retaining plate are  perfectly parallel still,its a tight fitinto the Al casting.
There is a very slight, if at all, wear in the bolt holes of the upper Aluminium casting that the retaining plate bolts mount in. The Al upper casting looks pretty good; not going to replace. Altho the bore inside the hinge for the upper wishbone/control arm looks v smooth, it looks round and original. When removing the bolts holding the control arm in place. There was no evidence of grease.

How would a worn bushing affect things? Possibly the rigidity/straightness of the steel shock absorber shaft in the lower 1/2 of the shock absorber. The Bottom of the shock absorber is held very rigidly in the socket of the Aluminium fork that then bolts onto the lower wishbone. So rigidity of the shock is important at least at the base of it.The further the top of the shock absorber is out of alignment with its base because of wear in the upper bush, the greater the possible side load in the lower half of the shock absorber as it travels up and down, cant be good.  Bush replacement is about $50.
The shock is bound to be engineered  to take some side load. From compression of rubber bushes..

On a related subject. The slop in the bushes of the lower steel wishbone, the way it can move around in the rear bush when the wheel hits a bump and it pivots on its front bush and ball joint, would flex things out of alignment and contribute to wear in all the other rubber bushes..

[cc]

The left suspension went back in ok. Aligning the s/absorber into the socket of the Al fork and the the fork into the lower wishbones thru bolt takes a little care. When the 3 parts align it all assembles sweetly. Which didnt happen at the first attempt.
The rubber bushes that locate the s/absorber in the tower were replaced with new. Didnt replace with new the rubber rings the spring sits in.Probably would have been an easier fit if new used. Also didnt appreciate the need to mark with paint the alignment of the spring with the upper steel plate. This has 360 degrees of possibilities! Took several trial assemblies with the spring compressor before it was right. Replaced the springs with 2nd hand from Atwins. They may be a little saggy as arent the factory 417mm tall but 400mm. Looks low at the front.
The vehicle inspection failed on 3 things.  The steel clamps not engaged on the inlet pipes. Now done with repco screw on.
The middle muffler's hanging hook wasnt engageable via its rubber donut to the hook on the underside causing the exhaust pipe to contact the lhs hand brake cable. Turned out to be incorrectly installed. Undoing the exhaust pipe clamps and rotating did the trick. Thanks Alex at Mr Muffler Sumner Park.
The retaining bolt on the top on the s/absorber wasnt tensioned enough (didnt have the tools). The inspection garage is doing.
Lastly i left a bolt off the steering knuckle!! So was sent away to re tension/check all bolts. Next time will use a check list and tick off the bolts as theyre done.
So tomorrow back to the garage for a final check and to get the paper work, then Sherwood to pick the plates up.
Then Brisbane Sydney! Hopefully in about 11pm. So if you see a maroon 156 with teledials chances are....
Was hoping to have a day of driving before the trip. Have taken out racq ultra membership in case the car doesnt make it!
Which provides for a 7 day hire car and the 156 going home on a flat bed.
J Clarkson said "its not when you arrive in an Alfa but if!" bit harsh.
Only concern is the serpentine belt tensioner pulley!  and if the valves in the front bank are ok. The engine feels smooth at 100km/h.
Still not starting first turn of the key but carries on as if the ignition timing is slightly out. Usually starts ok at the 4th attempt.
Will post again with more detail on installing the w/bones.
cheers
12/7/2015 update.A difficulty in installing the lower wishbones is getting the bolts that hold the w/bone onto the sub frame to 'start' and not crossthread. Especially the rear bush bolts that screw into Aluminium blocks on the w/bone. If the w/bone is positioned with its apex pointing down, the rear Al bush mount wont 'sit down' onto the subframe. As a result the bolt isnt lined up when being inserted from below and wont start. Attempts to start it result in  Al being worn from the block being rubbed onto the bolts threaded end. At this point sitting back and a contemplation of the job imagines the threaded Aluminium block being damaged to a point that the bolt will never be accepted! The successful way to do it it is to lift the apex of the w/bone as high as possible. As if the car was going over bump. This forces the bushes to sit down onto the sub frame and the bolts will start and thread home.
The longest bolt was done last as the shorter bolts are less sensitive when being started and once 3 bolts are in the last one goes in easier. A mirror is very handy for seeing whats aligned when you cant get under the vehicle. I used one off a Peugeot 504.
A thought that occured when tightening the bolts was where to hold/position the w/bone when the bolts are in but not yet tightened as there is a little side ways mm of freeplay. That is, perhaps  to push the w/bone towards the centre line of the car. Then tighten. Only got as far as thinking about it and both w/bones were tightened where they were. The car has a v slight pull to one side..
All of the above can be done by one person. It does require some exertion. Another pair of hands would be handy but not essential.
Was a little peeved to be charged $100 by the inspection garage for tightening 4 nuts....
The 2 nuts at the top of the s/absorbers and the nuts on the steering arm ball joint. Will add a couple of pics when found.
cheers

[cc]

So far so good. Made the Bris - Syd trip in 11 hours. The car is using about 8-9 L/100km. The new fully synthetic engine oil hasn't gone black; only a golden syrup colour and the nut for the harmonic balancer is still on! (still haven't torqued it down)Temperature is an issue tho. Its been cold in Sydney but the engine is heating up to the first gradation past the 90 degrees when idling at the lights. Also on a very cold  night its running quite cold according to the gauge; down at 50 deg at 90 km/hr on the open road. An odd thing about the temp needle is it will sometimes beat in time with the indicators. Or jump 10 deg when the indicator is used.
Have bought the fiat/alfa thermostat from European imports in Thornleigh for the same price as  available in the uk. Quite thin walled. Not like the housing on an FE holden! Will install back in Brisbane. Front suspension is a little noisy and is klunking on bumps. Am thinking its the old shocks/springs. Some noise from the rear suspension too.
The speedo is dropping out occasionally also.
The engine is starting without the misfire now.
The drive down was pretty easy for the car. The designers did a good job in the wind tunnel as its quiet on the highway.
Also there is no wind buffeting when the rear windows are lowered. Which I haven't experienced in any other car.
Now for the 2nd leg of the double, back to Brisbane.

[Craig_m67]

Front suspension is a little noisy and is klunking on bumps.

Front drop links (if not already replaced) and/or ARB bushes (requires sub frame dropped).

[colcol]

As Craig said, drop links first, they are easy to check and or replace and it may reduce the rattling.
If not it could be the Anti Roll Bar, don't just replace the bushes, put in a new front bar, as the bars wear and the new bushes will rattle in them, Colin.

[cc]

thanks guys. The drop links didnt have any obvious play. The joints are very easy to turn tho.. The arb and bushes sound likely.
Am planning on having the engine out so will do the arb/bushes and links at the same time. Am also hoping to find a donor L.S. differential at the wreckers. Which is probably a bit optimistic. Need to do some research if any post 2002 alfas eg 147 will fit.
Got into Bris after a 12 hour trip with 2 stops. The speedo has stopped functioning as has the odometer. A vibration at +100km/hr has developed. Hopefully just a wheel balancing.
Also need to find out how to replace the back light to the dial for the air con as its not lighting.
Am probably going to take the cylinder heads off with the engine removal as have been on for 13 years.
Check the valves for wear and straightness, the hydraulic lifters for wear and possible corrosion in the water jacket.
cheers