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914World.com _ 914World Garage _ Identify Front struts engraved "12 VW" where VW is the logo

Posted by: Miguel K R Jan 16 2020, 04:35 AM

Hello,
I just received from Germany a pair of Front Struts that were advertised as Bilstein G modell.
I guess that the G modell was used on '74 and later cars, it has 90mm (approx. 3.5") between the fixing points for the brake calipers, and 18mm thread.
However, the struts I received have 75mm (3") between the center of the fixing points for the calipers, and a thread of 16mm diameter, so I assumed these were F modell used on 911 cars till '73.

Looking at the struts more in detail I found that the steering arm is engraved with the number 12, followed by the VW logo.
I guess that VW never produced struts for the 911, and probably this is a strut for a 914-4 (useless for me, as I was buying the struts to convert my 914-4 to 5 lug wheels).

Can someone help clarifying this,to help me to convince the German supplier that he has to accept the return of the struts.

Thanks in advance

Miguel K R
(Portugal - Europe)

Posted by: 914Sixer Jan 16 2020, 06:52 AM

Going to have to have pictures to see what you have. Sounds like they sent you 914-4 struts. VW logo should not be on Porsche struts. VW struts will have a straight arm to hook to steering rack and 911 will have curved arm.

Posted by: falcor75 Jan 16 2020, 07:58 AM

A five bolt strut should look like this, although mine does have the 75 mm (3 inch) bolt spacing for the brake calipers.

IPB Image

Posted by: Miguel K R Jan 17 2020, 04:01 PM

[quote name='falcor75' date='Jan 16 2020, 01:58 PM' post='2777967']
A five bolt strut should look like this, although mine does have the 75 mm (3 inch) bolt spacing for the brake calipers.

Thanks a lot for the explanation which was the final argument to convince the supplier to accept the return of the struts, which did not correspond at all to the advertisement :
- they were not Porsche 911 (the steering arm was straight instead of curved)
- they were not G model (they were for 3” calipers instead of 3.5”, and had 16mm thread instead of 18mm)
- they were not Bilstein

I wonder why Porsche used the straight and the curved steering arms.
And when switching to 911 struts to convert to 5 lug, we simply use the 914-4 tie-rods ?

Posted by: 914Sixer Jan 18 2020, 07:17 AM

Tie rods are all the same.