Rear Suspension Assembly

Getting the Axle Carrier back in place required some force, so I used a jack and a block of wood to push the axle carrier mounts into place. Remember to remove the rear support brace as the axle carrier fouls this on the way up and you actually cannot assemble the handbrake cable with is attached to the car. 

The fresh underseal and the new polyurethane bushes did not help, but the jack and a block directly under the pivot points and slightly pushing out the bush enclosures helped. It will lift the whole car off the axle stands on the side you are doing, so it's wise to make sure you have some blocks of wood under the car to keep the car from crushing you and being left in the garage until your rotting corpse smells so bad that one of the neighbours rings the Police. 

With the axle carrier in place and the swing arms next, to go back on, I found that the weight of the rear brake discs made it nearly impossible to get these back in place on my own as the units are so unbalanced. After removing the rear discs, the units slid in place, and I could put the bolts in place. Don’t bother tightening these up yet, as the geometry will be all over the shop, and you will have to make a few measurements to get you at least in the right direction so you can drive the car to someone who can set it back up. 

With the axle carrier, swing arms and drive shafts back in place, the Gaz gold coilovers were fitted. I had decided when I started the rear suspension refurbishment to ditch the torsion bars and go with coil over the springs so I could easily change the ride hight at the back end to get the stanced looked and ensure that sagging backend look was addressed as everyone likes a good looking rear end 😆