Just finished up a nearly week-long marathon of front end work. Replaced
the brakes, a caliper and line,  bearings, and all bushings right down to
the steering rack with polyurethane and on the inner ones, Flennor OEM
style rubber. Also complete all-around spring replacement with two GoWesty
front springs. New metal sleeves on the anti-roll bar drop links (NLA,
almost didn't find any, mine came from Canada) and the whole enchilada.

There is nothing on a vanagon I have not had out in my hands now except for
the five-speed transmission. This front end work is the most extensive,
painful and and exhausting things I think you can do by yourself (I did
call upon the wife  twice to put force on a along prybar) on a Vanagon. It
makes a new engine R and R look downright trivial, cost is not all that
much different either. Even painting the car did not take so long.

Whew. Tomorrow I will bleed the brakes and see if it was worth the effort.
I could not have put it off anyway, I was beginning to hear metal on metal
at 3479000.

I tried some poly bushings on an MGA restoration some years back and didn't
care for them all that much. But the stuff that is sold by T3 Techniques
for the Vanagon was irresistable. If you replace nothing else with poly,
shuck those rubber radius arm bushings and go with the T3 Techniques setup.
Genius.

http://t3technique.com/

They have about everything you ever dreamed of for suspension, etc. Bus
Depot had the best buys on brakes, shoes, etc. GoWesty had the springs I
sprang for.

BTW I pulled all of this over last weekend and took the parts around
several local shops to have the old rubber bushings pressed out and new
ones in. Got quotes like $250. Went to harbor freight and bought their
cheapest 4wd joint press for $75.00 and did it all with that in about an
hour and a half. A total of eight bushings.

Jim