ok, here we go, going to go step by step with their instructions and then my thoughts on what needs to be done to prevent the loss of an entire weekend....
1.1 disconnect battery
- ok... dont see this as a necessary item as there is nothing electrical anywhere close, and if you are not welding anything (welding optional) then its a moot point.
1.2 Remove the rear seat.
- ok, easy enough.
1.3 Remove the floor mastic from the interior floor pan, under the back seat. Place the floor reinforcement
plates in place until they seem to fit, then trace around their perimeter. This will provide a general outline for the mastic to be removed. Refer to Figure 3.11 (Page 15) and
Figure 1.0 for mastic removal references.
- this was kinda tedious but still ok, used a wide screwdriver as a chisel and broke off the areas i needed to remove.
1.4 Block front wheels to prevent vehicle from rolling forward.
- ok
1.5 Using a floor jack, raise the rear of the vehicle with the jack placed under the rear axle. Place jack stands on frame rails near the lower control arm front mounting point to the body.
[Figure 1.1] Lower floor jack slowly until vehicle is resting securely on the jack stands. Make sure vehicle is stable. Continue to lower the floor jack until the axle reaches full rebound. As you are lowering your axle, monitor the
brake hoses to make sure they are not being stretched. If you need more rebound travel, you can unhook the lower shock mount.
- ok, at this point you need to start making adjustments, this would be MY personal step... if you are a garage floor guy like me, then you have few options to make this easy. honestly save yourself some time by taking more now. remove the wheels and disconnect the rear brake lines, remove the calipers and hang them out of the way with the back end jacked up (as high as your jack stands will go, i cant stress enough how ground clearance helps here). once it bottoms out on the shocks, continue with the next steps.
1.6 Remove the axle pinion snubber and bracket from the floor pan and the top of differential [Figure 1.2].
- no complaint
1.7 Remove axle dampener and upper bracket from the front of the differential [Figure 1.3].
- no complaint
1.8 Place a small jack stand or floor jack under the pinion section of the front axle. This will prevent the front axle from rotating out of position when the
upper control arms are removed.
- this was a good point and was helpfull... i placed it just behind the joint on the rounded area, this forced the joint to bend to go any lower, instead of coming down in one unit, this rotates everything into your hands eactly where you are working.
1.9 Remove
upper control arms from the vehicle.
- this was anoying, as the nuts came off easy, but at least with my warped bushings i had a time of it getting the bolts out... i had to force rotate the UCA to get the front bolt out then the back one after the tension was loose. since my bushings were completely warped i COULD rotate them, if yours were in better condition you might have a harder time.
1.10 Remove the upper control arm bushings from the rear axle housing. If a press tool is not available or ineffective for removing the bushings, use a drill or torch to remove the rubber and then remove the bushing cans from axle [Figure 1.4].
- this was my personal nightmare. i will advise EVERYONE to buy the MM bushing tool. i dont know if it works well, but it has to be better then nothing.... even if slightly. if you do use it and it still doesn't work, or if you were like me and chose not to buy it (retard) then prepare for the pain and anguish. go to lowes nd buy a propane torch, i got a lovely one with trigger light for 15 bucks with canister. use the torch and burn the hell out of the rubber in the bushing... once you have burned the hell out of it, do it some more (its suprisingly resiliant, even after 155k miles) and then use a screw driver and hammer and chissel it away from the walls of the outter "can" this should only take aobut 15-30 min per bushing. now that you have the rubber out, its time for the hellish part. without a press you HAVE to beat out the damn bushing can. I had really good luck with my final method. using a saw of some kind cut the outside of the can down to the "ear" of the housing (if you think of the can like a can of coke, you are cutting down from top to bottom and stopping where it meets the actual molded ear of the differntial housing) cut 4 slits... these will act as tension reliefs. use your torch again to heat the ear its self, yes the can will heat as well, but you are trying to heat the ear the most here to allow for movement, as well as extra space with the expansion. i heated it for about 2-3 min then when at it with a hammer... it took 4-5 whacks to get it to budge, but after the initial adhesion is broken it will make light be steady progress out of the back of the ear with each full whack... once the one side gets flush with the ear it becomes an annoyance as you now have to aim slightly off center from the hold to nick the sides enough to get the can to move in, but not consistantly smash the ear (dont want it to break). Thankfully with the relief slits cut into the can this part bacame easier the farther it went and required less force and allowed for more precision. this IS going to be a long process... expect it.
2.1 Press the supplied steel bushings/slugs into the rear axle (where the UCA bushings were removed) until the inside face of the bushing slugs are flush with the in-board sides of the rear differential UCA mounting ear [Figure 2.0, next page].
- this is prettyb strait forward however i will offer this piece of advice... prep the hole first. i personally after many attempts that were not going anywhere, or were starting to get "caught" at an angle decided to do the prep work... if i had the tools what i would have done was used a dremel to smooth nd eavenly roll the outter edges into the flat interior (used a round file, talk about time consuming) and then lightly sanded the inner portion folowed by using a wire wheel to deburr everything as well as remove extra metal (its an insanely tight fit). pushing the bushings in is another thing...
going to spread this to another couple posts to make it less... well... epic like.
Torinalth
I'll start friday night after work, and continue on saturday morning. questions? comments?
I was real tired - I even typed it out then went back and changed it, then hit submit...hah
