Hi All. Firstly, thanks to all those who replied, but due to it getting late, I sort of paniced a bit. I waited to see if any replies came through but It was the middle of the night for most of you I guess)
Lee & Tracy Grimes wrote: > Have you gotten the lower bolt out of the bottom of the shock and the > control arm yet? These usually rust pretty badly on the '88s and they made > a minor bolt design change for '89-91 using a fluted bolt to reduce rust. I was too scared to try. The control arm looked too 'reinforced' and so I decided to leave it alone. I was also worried about alignment issues? and the fact that I had no torque-wrench. :( Ok, please dont laugh guys, but this is what i did.... What I actually did was pull apart the rear-shock/spring assembly, compressed the rod of the shock, feed the shock body through the rear cross-member (let it drop through), and then quickly assemble the springs and washers before the shock fully extended. It worked but you have to be pretty quick. Aligning the bottom of the shock with the hole was a little tricky but i used the car jack to push it up and wiggle into place. This stuff is pretty hard to do on your own especially when your as mechanically inept as I am. It would probably be quicker with an extra pair of hands though. > I have pulled or installed rear CRX shocks at least 50 times and life is > much easier if you remove an arm bolt. I highly suggest that you remove the > outer upper control arm (the top arm about 8 inches long) bolt that attaches > to the long trailing arm. The one, up inside the guard (from which the whole lot hangs down from)? Yeah, I was thinking about doing that, but then I thought that it wouldn't drop much because of that huge strut (that points towards the front of the car) seemed to hold the whole assembly up more than the other 2. > By pulling this bolt, you can press down on the > trailing arm/brake assembly and pull the shock and spring right out easily. I stood on the disc a little, and it only moved around 3 inches or so. How much more would it have come down if I undid the top arm? I almost looked as if I need like a foot of clearance to get the shock in. It was pretting scary. > When reinstalling, do the reverse then put the bolt back in. Pull up on the > brake assembly to get the bolt holes to align or you can put a jack under > the brake and push and hold the arm up while you start the bolt. Although > removing the outer lower control arm bolt can make the shock easy to remove, > that bolt is harder to reinstall as the alignment of the lower control arm > and trailer arm is pretty picky, much more so than the upper control arm and > trailing arm. Ypu don't want to risk cross threading the bolt into the > welded-on nut on the trailing arm. Too late. I found one of the bolts that tightens the fork thing around the front shock had 4 lines of thread stripped when i took it out. I was a little upset when I saw that. I should take it somewhere to getting machined right as I think I will be taking care of my car from now.. > Do remove the sway bar link bolt where it goes into the lower control arm. > If the bolts are not rusted (only the bottom shock mount might be), the rear > shock removal and installation is less than a 15 minute job not including > the spring swap. Every nut and bolt is 14mm. If you have any, put ample > anti-seize on all these bolts to help the next guy who does this job as it > might be you. > > Lee Lee, I started 1:00pm Sunday arvo until dark, and only managed to get all 4 of them out but only the front 2 back in the car. I spent ages trying to figure out how to get the rears in. Then I gave up when it go too dark and started again after work on Monday. So it took close to 7hours. :( I guess its experience as now I've actually done something myself. Next time should be a little quicker. ;) When I get the work-order OK'ed by the dept of transport, I have to do the whole lot again to put my illuma's and lowered springs back on. Thanks again to everyone that replied. cheers, deej (budding ED9 mechanic) ;)
