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Aug 4-5-6 is a long weekend in Canada. I took the opportunity to catch up on a bunch of chores I've been putting off. Car is 2001 base wagon, 140,000km. All parts from eEuroparts.
Saturday afternoon/Sunday morning worked on rear suspension. Changed out trailing arm bushings as they were making some noise - the right one was completely trashed, the left one was still pretty good. Removing the arm is pretty basic 'unbolting stuff'; removing the bushings was harder. You need a pretty exact size of tools for the press to push the bushing out - I had nothing to fit exactly. I burned the rubber with a torch, pushed the center bushing and rubber out with a 3-jaw puller, threaded a hacksaw through the middle, cut a slot in the remaining shell of the bushing to relieve the pressure, then whacked the shell out with a large hammer and chisel.
It took about 2 minutes to install the new bushings into the arms with a small hydraulic press.
I added genuinesaab's camber correcting shims behind the hubs before I bolted the hubs to the trailing arms.
I also took the shock assembly apart and added some custom 1cm spacers my uncle made for me (they were made from iron threaded caps from the ends of hydraulic cylinders). When originally I put in the sport chassis kit (roadholding kit/2001 Aero suspension) I thought the rear of the car was lowered too much. The Aero rear shocks were too soft as well. I had year-old KYB shocks on the rear before - I checked them against the Aero shocks and the KYBs are quite a bit stiffer and have WAY MORE gas pressure. They are also about 1cm longer which matches well with the spacers. So I put the KYBs back in rather than the Aeros. The combination of higher gas pressure plus 1cm spacer makes the rear ride at just the right height.
Monday was 'front day'. On the front I swapped out the left ball joint (takes literally about 15 minutes - very easy) as it was completely worn out after 20k km or so - I think it was not greased from the factory. I used a needle greaser to grease ALL the fittings I took apart - sway bar link, tie rod end - in order to kill a strange noise in the left corner. We'll see yet if that is fixed.
I also finally installed the front sway bar and bushings from the sport chassis kit. It's a big job. I carefully went after all the tough bolts first to make sure I wouldn't end up halfway through the job with a broken bolt and no way to get a new one.
The bushing bolts seem to cause the most grief for people. On my car they are some kind of high strength bolts with small 10mm heads. They have normal threads, not the triangular self cutting threads reported by some. Plenty of PB Blaster has been applied over the last few months. I was able to unscrew them about 1/2 turn, add PB, tighten, loosen, repeat, until they eventually came out cleanly. I used a 3/8 drive ratchet handle to make sure I couldn't break them. They reinstalled very quickly with a 3/8" air ratchet.
The rear motor mount was hard to reach. A 24" 3/8" drive extension and 10mm socket gets the three small bolts - you operate the wrench above the throttle body area. The rear bolt and the top 16mm nut needed a ujoint or wobble socket. I found that I could get the socket on the bolt then slowly drizzle PB down the extension onto the bolt - once it was loosened a 1/2 turn or so the stuff would suck right under the bolt head to the threads. Don't need to remove the mount, just remove all the bolts so it can shift around.
I also removed the steering rack bolts. Again, the rack just needs to be able to move around.
6 bolts on the rear subframe reinforcement and the two center bolts on the subframe lets you drop it enough (it doesn't fall out, you pry it down) to weasel the bar out. You turn the ends to the rear, pry it past the end of the subframe on the driver's side, and then it comes out easy through the passenger wheel well. The new one went back in very easily once you've seen how to get the old one out.
The sway bar was pretty much an 8 hr day - about 3/4 taking apart and 1/4 putting back together. Air impact very handy for the big frame bolts.
So now I need to get an alignment since I changed a lot of stuff. Now it has the right ride height and hopefully all the strange suspension noises are gone. Time to rest.
A few photos of the spring spacers
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