rear suspension removal -- in junkyard

[whynotthinkwhynot]

If the suspension is hanging, you're mostly ok. There will still be a little spring tension left, but you should be able to mitigate that. It would probably be helpful to loosening trailing arm bolts if you remove the spring first, but I'd think you'd get away without it. Just be prepared for parts to move when you disconnect something. It shouldn't be violent unless you have your hands, legs, or face in the wrong place.

Sorry, I read that wrong. Not enough coffee maybe, look at the post time. LOL

[finalfantasy]

^^^no problem, look at my post time.

thanks for the info, wondering how much spring tension we are talking. I have to sneak a bottle jack in to get the tension off the shock bolt in order to remove it (in addition to the swing arm) then I can let it down SLOWLY. I hate to have to pull it off with a bottle jack though?

I have a good electric impact gun and would like to stand far back behind the car or something?

I dont know how that spring might come out in case of emergency even with the suspension unloaded, should I put a compressor on it to be safe or something, what do all these guys do?

[whynotthinkwhynot]

I put a jack under the spring, You might be able to insert a spring compressor in there. I don't have the same suspension design on the wagon, so I don't know. There was an old style (rwd) coil spring compressor that fits in the hole in the center of the spring, then you swing the arms out to grab the spring, and clamp down on it. IIRC. people have had issues using that tool, but I haven't tried it myself.

What I meant by mitigating the leftover spring tension was by having an assistant use a long 2x4 under the control blade or spring seat to put pressure on it, so that when you loosen the bolt it won't jump off there. There will still be about 50-100 psi left on the spring. Someone with a 2x4 should be able to prevent it from separating violently. If you can't do that, then you should at least wrap a rope around the spring and the control arm, and tie those up somewhere on the body to limit movement.

IMO, it's going to be hard to remove the control arm bolt without something taking tension off the spring. Those things tend to bind up. If you can, use a spring compressor, remove the spring, then remove the control arm.