Whaleman

Reacting to the comments in another post about a clunk in my rear end I am replacing my sway bar bushings now. I have all the old ones out and new ones come tomorrow. Very straightforward job. I would also like to do the control arms. Just because I am retired and have the time and they do have cracks in the visible areas. These look harder to do. I searched for a write-up and did not find one. My questions:

1. Since I only have jackstands it appears I need to remove the shock to get a wrench on the rear nuts-correct?
2. What is the material between the aluminum end pieces that looks like fiberglass tube?
3. Am I going to have trouble loosening the rear nuts with hand tools laying on the garage floor? I am 66 but stronger than the average 66 year old.

Those are my only questions as the search talks about drilling out the old bushing and cleaning. Thanks Again, Dan

Kevova

The shocks can stay in place. You want to jack car fairly high depending your size. Place jack stands under frame rails. Then place floor jack under rear spindle. I would take the spring bolts loose. Then take the arms loose. The bolts are pretty tight. Take care with nuts for trailing arms, they can fall in to frame rails. Fishing them out not so much fun. There should be a video out there showing how to do it.

92ragtop

You can prevent this by sticking a piece of duct tape over the holes before you remove/reinstall the nuts. That prevents the nuts from falling through accidentally.

hcbph

If your 96 is like my 86 you do not have to remove anything except the tire to do the swaybar end bushings. Loosen the lugnuts, raise the car (I use the gadgetman adapter to lift it via the batwing) and put it on jackstands.

Remove the tire on one side and loosen the upper and lower bolts on the swaybar on one side. Jiggle it and upper should come out, take the lower out (it can be easier to take one bolt out of each side so the swaybar is loose). The short connector (can't think of the name right now) you can take and do in your shop, the one on the swaybar I took some side cutters and cut the rubber off one side and pushed it out. Take your new bushing, pull the metal insert grease it up using the supplied silicone grease. I have a larger size C-Clamp and a socket on the back side of the swaybar end and pushed it in. It may take a time or two to get it straight but if you get it started right it pops right in. Grease the sleeve using supplied grease and slide it in. Do the same thing with the other bushing. Reassemble it. Put the tire back on and do the other side.

Tighten up the lugbolts and lower the car. Pretty much it. I did mine with hand tools and for that IIRC took nothing other than the tires off to get to them.

Hope that helps.

hcbph

I found some pictures of when I did my suspension upgrade. You can see the end of the sway bar, which I did the bushings at the same time. I don't remember for sure but I think you had to take the top bolt out then swing that connector to get the other bolt out, or it was the reverse. Either way, you took one out, swung the connector bracket then the other came out fine.

Hope that helps.