Sorry Pat, the Rabbit has common nuts and bolts. You live in the only
country in the world which still uses SAE standards. Get used to it. Most
American cars now contain many metric fasteners and the trend will continue
until the US is a metric country like the rest. The MG was built for a
North American marketplace. The Rabbit was built for a world market.
Notice that all speedometers in US cars show markings in kilometers. This
isn't a plot to corrupt American owners. It's so American cars can be used
- and sold - in Canada and Mexico and all other countries to which they
might be exported.
However, you're quite right. Why can't the damn manuals specify sizes?
Perhaps because they were written in the home countries for a home
audience, but they still should specify sizes for unusual fasteners.
Even if you have a standard set of metric wrenches you would still have to
look around for unusual sizes. My pet peeve is that GM cars in the late
seventies and early eighties began a partial conversion to metric sizes.
The problem was that some of the sizes chosen were not common elsewhere,
with the result that packaged sets of wrenches didn't contain some of these
GM-necessary wrenches - notably 18mm. Try adjusting belts on an early '80s
GM and you'll see what I mean.
I made it a practice to purchase any tool which I needed to do any job on a
car I owned and was likely to keep. Over the years I have built up an
excellent collection of specialized tools which now means that I can
usually fix most things. It's expensive but over time will pay for itself
in spades.
John McEwen
>Just spent the day replacing a half shaft on my wife's VW RABBITT!!!!!
>It is nowhere as much fun as working on my MG!!!!My gripe is WHY don't
>these car repair manuals in this case a Haynes tell you what tools you
>need?All they say is "remove hub nut"I had to run all over time finding
>a 30 MM socket.....next remove 6 bolts holding inner CV joint to
>trans...I had to run all over town looking for a 8 MM 12 point star
>wrench of course I couldn't see the bolts good enough to tell what they
>were!It would have saved me a lot of time and frustration to know what
>special tools are needed.All of us don't have complete tool warehouses
>and should be able to do the job with common tools I don't have to buy
>anything special to work on my B Is this the Germans getting back at me
>because I have the nerve to park a BRITISH car next to the VW?Thanks for
>letting me vent!
>Pat
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