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I've been looking at the Jetta 2004 strut pictures on RockAuto and comparing with Scorpio strut pictures and they look pretty darn close.
The pinch bolt hole looks proportionally in the right place. It might be worth going down to PepBoys (or someplace else) and see if they can pull one from stock that I could look over and take some measurements off of.
The KYB 734033 AGX is adjustable. I think at $200 a set I can handle the risk. I have a metal lathe if I need to make a sleeve. But I don't think that would be required. it would take only a sliver of material to take up the .4 mm.
Brad, please post any discoveries you make.
New Scorpio Sachs struts are at a minimum $154 each from eshocks.com. Some ebay overseas options for Bilsteins, but are also expensive.
brokencase wrote:I have a metal lathe if I need to make a sleeve. But I don't think that would be required. it would take only a sliver of material to take up the .4 mm.
That was my thought as well - a correct thickness strip of sheet metal should do the trick. And since it's a pinch-bolt fitting, the dimension isn't ultra-precise.
I'll post details once I have them, but I've got a list of things to get done before Carlisle and this project probably doesn't make the cut in time. I still don't even have the VW struts. We'll see...
Well I think the most critical dimension is the distance from the center of the pinch bolt to the base of the spring plate.
On the Scorpio that is about 9 inches.
Looking at the image of a VW Jetta strut from RockAuto below. Counting pixels and using the absolute measurements mentioned by the earlier post it looks like the distance from the pinch hole center to the spring base is around 9.2 inches on the VW strut. Looks like it may work.
Jetta TDI front strut assembly. Comes with a slightly stiffer front spring because of the heavier tdi engine, strut bearing and the correct nuts. All you have to do is drill out your XR strut mount plates and slap em on. voila.
the vw strut is assembled the same way as an xr strut.
you would want to undo the nut that holds the vw bearing onto the strut and put the lower top mount onto it.
xr from bottom to top: upper spring mount -> bearing -> lower top mount -> nut -> bushing -> upper top mount -> nut
the mk4 incorporates the lower top mount into the body bushing
vw from bottom to top: upper spring mount -> bearing -> nut -> bushing -> upper top mount -> nut
vw strut on an xr with a vw spring:
vw upper spring mount -> vw bearing -> xr lower top mount modified for larger diameter strut rod -> vw nut -> xr body bushing -> xr upper top mount modified for larger diameter strut -> vw top nut.
It has not been tried to use the vw strut bushing in the xr body. I might have one at home. I will investigate tonight.
Pictures Showing the ksport coilovers I ran on my car. These are from a 2001 Jetta. The spring is a 125lb 12" with 3" of preload. This made the car lower about 1" more when it was set on the ground. Total drop being in the neighbor hood of 3-4". You can see how you the setup is identical to how an xr is bolted together, just with the upper mount holes enlarged. You can see the vw strut bearing in one of the pictures.
Strut assemblies were "on sale" at the junkyard the other day, so when I spied a new-ish set of KYB Excel-G struts in a 2002 Jetta 1.8T, I got to work. Yes, KYB's aren't much better than stock, but good enough for my experimentation for now. BTW, a wouldn't have gotten these out without my cordless impact gun. The KYB's have a weird shaft top-end rather than the 7mm Allen socket that stock VW struts have. I've read that the Lisle 20400 tool will NOT work but perhaps 12-pt 1/4" drive 9mm socket will, when used together with a 13/16" spark plug socket.
Any way, if we need any particular measurements, I can provide them. I'll probably try them as-is first, complete with the stock springs. As shown in the pic linked below, VW springs are marked with various color stripes to reflect the spring rates. The ones I got have two pink stripes and one green, so 149 lb/in, which is a roughly 50% increase from stock. http://pics.tdiclub.com/data/500/VW-All ... -Rates.jpg
rab wrote: ↑Mon Mar 05, 2018 1:36 pm
How much better are the vw struts vs. Lets say o.e. replacement xr4ti struts?
I plan on running coilovers with 300lbs springs.
I'd say you probably want an after-market strut of some sort that is better matched to that spring rate. The advantage of the VW strut is that there are a bunch of choices, given the comparatively huge number of Mk4 VW's built.
That said, comparing a stock XR4Ti strut to stock Jetta strut, the Jetta strut would probably be a better choice, given that the stock spring rate is about 50% higher, comparing stock to stock (see my comment above). Of course you just need to get the stub diameter difference sorted out in some way.
my8950 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 08, 2018 12:47 pm
Sorry for my ignorance, are the zinc coated parts on the strut in the pictures the strut mount plates which need to be drilled out?
Yes, the yellow-zinc plated parts are original to the XR. Since the threaded rod diameter for the VW struts is larger (14mm), you simply bore it out from 12mm to 14.
