Since I had had to remove the CV joints and the steering and some parts were obviously worn already, I decided to disassemble the front axle completely and to replace all “parts subject to regular wear and tear”. It turned out that the shock absorbers would still have been fine (if they would have survived the disassembly), while most rubber parts indeed deserved the replacement.

Here a front wheel suspension in its original state - not too bad though …

At closer look, I found some worn ball joints (especially the tie rod ends), and torn rubber bearings like this one.

For the wishbones, reasonably priced replacement assemblies are available, with new rubber bearings and ball joints already in place.

New ball joint and rubber bearings for the anti-roll bar. Note that the washer on top of the rubber bearing is erroneously reversed, it's convex side should point towards the rubber! I have corrected that meanwhile.

The nut on the push rod of one of the shock absorbers refused to leave, breaking some of my inappropriate tools. Finally I had to cut the dome bearing open for better access.

Smoke.

New shock absorber. The blue stuff is bolt adhesive.

Flat ball bearing at the top of the suspension strut - had not known about such a part before ;)

Luckily, the disc brakes were quite new, and only required (if at all) some cleaning and greasing - at the right points of course. Note the bolt in the center: When the CV joint with its shaft is removed, this bolt is required to keep the wheel bearings in place.

Suspension struts - before and after (ok, you have seen that one already).

The bolts in the steering tie rods were seized, but with some tricks they could be “mobilized” again.

Old and new steering gear: Keeping the power steering would have made necessary an electrical compressor. Which means extra weight, space demand, power consumption and continued maintenance effort. Since the car is not that big and I would not drive wide tires, I decided to switch to a conventional, mechanical steering gear (see also chapter “conversion”).

The new steering gear is in place (Bolts of the tie rods still halfway out, to show off with the blue bolt adhesive).

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