Working on Rear Suspension and brakes. Please gimme pointers.

[1batt4u]

Hi all,

I started working on the rear suspension, drivers side. Once done will turn car around and work on passenger side due to lack of room to work around,

So far I removed radius arm/bushing/reinforcement plate, brake caliper and rotor. I have new S/S reinforcement plates along with Ed's poly bushings and new M12 bolts.

As you see in the picture below I still have those components on, as well as the axle still bolted on. I really don't have enough space to take the spring out, kinda tight there.

What do you guys recommend I remove next, part by part??

Should I remove the axle first, what gear should I put it in 1st, so it doesn't turn as I am unbolting??

[Mark D]

You'll want to remove the spring and shock first before trying to remove the hub assembly from the trailing arm.

To remove the spring/shock you should only need to tighten the spring compressors enough to take the load off the lower shock mount bolt that goes through the hub. The spring should just start to get loose so that you can slide it up and down on the shock. At that point you can remove the lower shock pivot bolt and then remove the upper shock mount to remove the whole assembly. Then pull the shock out of the spring and remove your spring compressors.


If you can't get the compressors tightened down far enough so that the spring is loose and the force is removed from the lower pivot bolt you can use a floor jack from below to help:

1. Tighten the spring compressors as much as you can. You may want to flip yours upside down so that as you tighten it the threads are facing downwards instead of upwards.

2. Position a floor jack below the lower shock mount eye and jack the shock up just slightly to hold the load from the spring. This removes the spring load from the lower shock pivot bolt.

3. With no load being supported by the lower shock bolt, you should now be able to remove it easily with the floor jack still holding the bottom of the shock.

4. After removing the lower shock bolt, slowly lower the floor jack down.

At this point the shock should be able to extend down far enough so that your spring is no longer supplying any load. The spring should be free to move up and down on the shock. At that point you can remove the nuts on the upper part of the shock. Remove the shock and slide it out of the spring, then remove the compressors from the spring.

If after step 4 the spring is not loose between the frame and the bottom of the shock you can use the floor jack to help out the rest of the way. This can be slightly more dangerous, so be sure you've got the bottom of the shock secured in your floor jack so it doesn't come shooting out.

With the lower pivot bolt removed from the shock, use the floor jack to compress the spring just enough to take the load off the upper shock mount nuts. Remove the nuts from the top of the shock and then slowly lower the floor jack to relieve the remaining compression off the spring. Drop the shock and spring down out of the upper mount, slide the shock out, and remove the spring compressors from the spring.

[Bitsyncmaster]

It's a pain to get that lower shock bolt on and off because the shock sits at an angle to the bolt. I wonder if we should be removing the top first to remove and last to install.

[DMCMW Dave]

It's a pain to get that lower shock bolt on and off because the shock sits at an angle to the bolt. I wonder if we should be removing the top first to remove and last to install.

DO NOT remove the top bolt with the spring under tension. It is holding spring tension against the spring cup at the bottom.

As he's finding, it's tricky to compress the spring enough to pull it out with the shock still attached at the bottom. Not much working room there.

If the bolt is free to turn in the carrier, it can be backed out the other way.

[1batt4u]

So everything went smooth!!

Brake line is kinda hard to remove, I have new S/S braided lines, manual transmission bracket is in the way. You guys have any idea how to remove it?

-Reinforcement plate, one bolt had a nylon lock nut in the back, the one closer to rear of car and one in front didn't, bolt was even short, so doesn't look like one goes there?

-The hole on the rubber piece has become oval. Good thing I bought Ed's poly bushings.

-Spring was easy to remove this way.

-Axle bolts were so easy to unbolt, I guess they were not tightened at all.

-After everything was removed I watered and wiped everything. Looks good! I'm happy I bought a nice, clean car, it came from California.

[1batt4u]

Bump*

1. How to remove brake line because transmission bracket is in the way.

2. Question about reinforcement plate bolts and nuts.

3. Any other info I should know or extra parts I need before putting everything back together?? I see something about washer shims, do I really need those if my car never had??

[1batt4u]

Anyone??

[Mark D]

I'm not sure I'm following which brake line you're referring to... do you mean the hard lines on the trailing arms, or are you talking about the ones on the frame that connect to the other end of the short flexible lines? All these lines should be clipped into the frame / trailing arms with plastic clips. Sometimes the clips will break when you're removing the lines, but there are replacements available.

Each of the four bolts that mount the trailing arm bushings (two each side) should have a nyloc nut installed on the back side to prevent the bolts from backing out. The passenger side shares one bolt with a ground harness, so you may need a slightly longer bolt in this location, although I'm pretty sure when I installed the bolts on my car I was able to use the same bolts on each side. Installation is a little tricky since you can't get the nuts on the threads if the bolts are fully installed. When you are installing the bolts and they start to protrude through the nuts welded to the frame, install the nyloc nuts loosely and thread them a little at a time while you're tightening the bolt. after you tighten the bolt to spec, then tighten the nyloc nut.

Your car may have not had shims installed at the trailing arm mounts when you disassembled it but in the process of removing and reinstalling all the parts, replacing old bushings, etc you will affect the alignment and may need shims when reinstalling to get the toe angle correct. My car originally had 2 shims on one side and 3 shims on the other side. I reinstalled everything with 2 shims each side and took it into an alignment shop with a few extra shims and the alignment specs. They added one additional shim on each side to get it in spec.

[1batt4u]

I was talking about the flexible line going through the frame to the hard line. It is a tight space to loosen the hard line's nut in order to remove the flexible line. Can't think of a way to loosen it.

I'll have to look into the shims, what exactly to use.

Thank you again!

[Mark D]

Ah OK I know what you're talking about now.

I used a crows foot wrench to loosen the end fittings of the hard lines. They snap into your ratchet like a socket and allows you to get at the fitting at a more convenient angle.

http://www.harborfreight.com/7-piece...set-94427.html

If I'm remembering correctly I used a flex head ratchet like this one:
http://www.harborfreight.com/3-8-eig...het-96369.html
.
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The trailing arm shims are available from DeLorean.com and related vendors:
http://store.delorean.com/p-7391-washer-shim.aspx