Rear shocks/springs removal

Next up is getting the rear axle prepped for removal. First task on that front is getting the shocks and springs off, and the torsion arms detached.

The shocks are held on at the tops by a connector that is accessed in the corners of the trunk compartment...

...and at the bottom by four small bolts/nuts attaching the shock to the torsion arm.

The top nuts in the trunk detach easily enough, but the smaller nuts on the bottoms are more difficult, as it's tough to get a good look at them; it's more of a go-by-touch sort of job. Plus, some of these small bolts snap off.

Once everything is disconnected, the shocks drop through to the garage floor. As these are old shocks, they don't really compress and then rebound, but rather reduce the rate of compression/expansion of the springs. Meaning, the shock itself can just be compressed down and it'll stay in that position, making it possible to reduce the height enough that it can be angled out and removed. (Sadly, I did not discover this with the first shock, and spent some useless time jacking up the rear of the car an extra distance to make room. Grr.)

Once the shocks are out, it's time to disconnect the torsion arms, to allow for removal of the springs. First task is to put a floor jack up under the torsion arm, with a small block of wood as a buffer, to prevent anything bad happening should the spring, under compression, suddenly have that tension released.

 The torsion bars are held on at the front ends by castle nuts with cotter pins pushed through. I had wrestled the cotter pins out prior (which took a fair bit of time and effort, meh) so I was able to get right on the castle nuts. My handy breaker bar with the right socket made fairly quick work of these.

Once the castle nuts are off, it takes a few pops with a rubber mallet to properly loosen the cups on that end, and the torsion bar comes free. Then it's time to drop the floor jack, sloooowly, so the spring can decompress. As it turns out, there's not so much compression in there - it almost seems like the floor jack was unnecessary. But, better safe than sorry.

Now the springs and the top and bottom plates can be removed.