Alright so I am all pumped to remove my rear struts and get my new ones on, well after a thorough read of the shop manual I was ready to tackle to the job, not a ton of steps, shouldn't be that hard. Well I took of the rear tire to inspect the job and of course there is more than the manual lets on, from what I can see you have to drop the rear lower control arm to make enough room to remove the strut. So I start to tackle this and the bolts are so f**king tight I can't begin to make them move, so I thought before I spend 5 hours removing a bolt I better make sure I have to take it off.

So my question is do I indeed need to remove the 2 bolts on the LCA to allow for removal of the strut?

Any tips for loosening extremely tight bolt? (By hand, in a tight little wheel well)

 

you dont have to remove the control arm completly. if you remove the top 2 strut mount bolts inside the car, then undo the bottom bolt on the strut to the trailing arm, it should give you enough room to move it around and take it out. it's been a while since i have done this, but i dont ever remember removing the rear trailing arm or having to bleed brakes after doing this..

edit: fixed


Modified by sanimalp at 4:58 PM 6/18/2008

 

Remove the outter bolt on the LCA and of course the Strut bolt to the LCA, and then just swing the lca out. Im not sure what he means by x-member since you are talking about the rear.

 

yeah i don't know what i was thinking at that point.. i fixed my post to be what i really meant.. heh..

 

Soak it w/ PB Blaster. Alternating tightening slightly and loosening bolt. Hopefully that will break the bolts loose. If your parts are still the stock parts, the bushings may be corroded to the point that they will turn with the bolt or the bolt will be just absolutely stuck in there. I broke two bolt heads trying to get them out. I got them out by Dremeling the ends off (did the strut nut first) as flush as possible w/ the chassis, then drilled the ends out. Good luck. It took me many more hours than I thought it would.

 

yes, soak all the bolts in PB blaster BEFORE you start. at least for 30 minutes.

you just take off the outer bolt and lower shock bolt. but, if youre putting new springso n or changing ride hieghts, you need to loosen the inner bolt and retighten ALL bolts to the new ride height by jacking it up before tightening.

so either way, dont forget to jack up the suspension before tightening all the bolts. its in the HELMS!



it actually helps to align the outer bushing to the trailing arm holes by jacking up the control arm anyway. so remember this as a tip putting it back together.


and you dont need a spring compressor to take off the rear springs. just take it easy, its not that strongly preloaded to need a compressor.

 

If you read the removal of the Rear Dampers in the helms it says "5. Lower the lower arms and remove the damper assembly", are they refering to the LCA when they say "lower arms"?

 

yes.

once u remove one bolt u will be able to lower the arm and remove the strut/spring assembly