Clunk Silenced

The clunk I mentioned in yesterday's post was the right rear shock absorber top mount banging around after shedding its rubber insulating ring. All the rubber under the car is brittle and needs to be replaced, I know that. I'm hoping to hold out for poly bushes and do the whole thing at once, but this problem had to be addressed for the car to be roadworthy. Once again, I went to my trusty parts locker (the hulk) and noted that its rear shocks were in pretty good shape, including the rubber. No problem, it's already up on jack stands...I'll just remove the top nut from behind the back seat and get the rubber parts I need to replace. Don't do this! As soon as the nut let go, the spring violently extended fully, swinging the a-arm and wheel down with considerable force. I was just lucky no body parts were in the way! Stupid!

Missing rubber

Sheared shaft

After that traumatic experience, I called Bob and asked the correct way to do this. Just leave the car on the ground and jack up the offending a-arm a little to load the spring. The shock compresses easily by hand, so there is no drama. However, the top nut on the driver car's shock was so rusty that it would not come off, and I ended up shearing the whole upper shaft off. That's ok, I didn't really like that shock anyway. Back to the hulk to remove the entire shock and all its mounting hardware. Easy swap. Ran out of time to do the other side, which I probably should to have symmetry, but it drove fine with just the one replacement.

BTW: this is my 100th post for this project. Whew!