Have made a bit of progress on pressing in the bushes. But mostly used my time at the garage on Saturday to separate the old wheel bearings from my spare hubs to see if the hubs can be resused for building up off the car. Think they will be okay. Will be sensible to fit new bearings and I think I'll go for FAG brand. The Ruville brand isn't directly available in the UK (although it is from Autodoc) but the guy at Shaeffler confirmed that the eccentrics aren't supplied in either brand's box. So no point in paying extra for an unknown brand and not getting the eccentrics anyway. Frank has kindly sent me his old ones which look like they'll clean up well enough.
Couple of points to note which might be of help to others:
- Removing bolted on wheel bearings - unbolt the 4 bolts, screw them back in a couple of threads and evenly hammer on them to separate the bearing from the housing. On my fronts I had chiselled out them out by going at the wheel bearing from behind. Which seems really daft now I know the better method.
- Hub flange - separates quite easily from the wheel bearing in a vice with some hits from an appropriately sized socket. No real need for a press. Lighter blows on the first one left a piece of outer race on it whereas a couple of really sharp blows on the second separated the bearing intact from the hub flange.
- The apertures for the bushes on the arms have tapered edges and the bushes should be pressed in ONLY from the tapered side. I only noticed the taper when seeing some aluminium starting to peel off the second bush whereas the first one hadn't. Caught it after a mm or so, so no damage done. And lesson learned.
I also managed to clean up the aluminium arms a bit more. Best tool, short of blasting them, turns out to be a nylon bristle attachment for a drill. See pics. Probably could have done this in the first place and not had to bother with trying to clean conventionally. Although removing grease and dirt chemically would still be a good idea.
Think I'll go with a mix of genuine Audi aluminium split bushes and the Febi steel ones. The aluminium ones are really easy to chisel out so my thinking is that, if I ever go to replace them again (unlikely!), then the aluminium ones will come out easily which will then give easy access to press out the steel ones from behind even if they do suffer galvanic corrosion. Steel does not chisel out easily!