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Can I get some suspension advice please

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What else changed on front suspension in 1979?

Hi to all you Mk1 experts and guru's out there. I am after some advice about the front suspension on my 1983 Jetta.

I inherited Greta the Jetta from the wifes Grandfather last year when he had to give up driving at 94!.

I have been buying little bits and bobs to bring her up to date a bit and have come to a bit of a dilemna.

I bought some -40mm spax springs on ebay from a seller in Ireland. All looked good,brand new,boxed and I checked the serial number and deposited in the shed. I have now bought spax PSX front and rear shocks and springs and stripped, painted and started to rebuild when I just happenned to notice the PSX GTi springs were pigtailed springs (bear with me on this,I am an old duffer I'm afraid) and the new ones I bought were not! After a bit more searching I now know they changed the springs from parallel to pigtail in '79 but what I cannot find out anywhere is what else did they change on the front?
Is the strut tower different? Is there any reason why I could not use the parallel springs which are for a non GTi over the very hard GTi springs that came with the shocks? Can you still get the spring cups anywhere and will they fit the jetta towers?
I have also had to change the front shocks as after stripping it all down the shocks were obviously knackered as while standing up the rods just sank into the shock body (not good eh? Stiil picked up 2 new ones for £50 from the ebay) the new ones are 2 inches shorter than the old ones the same as the parallel springs.
Sorry if I have gone on a bit for my 1st post,been a keen lurker an avid reader of the site, not much of a poster I'm afraid.
I would be grateful for any advice you can throw at me as I am a bit stumped on this at the moment. Thanks in advance.

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The only difference I know of from 79 supension is the top cap that sits under the top mount and holds the spring on

There a few different types, a large one or a small dia on or there are ring mentioned on etka for some reason 

The early stuff has a large top cap and after is small :)

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Looks like I will have to track down some pre 79 parallel spring cups then. Just hope they are avaialable somewhere, I have looked in all the usual places and not seen any so maybe an arm and a leg from main dealer!
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